In the 1960s and 1970s Montview Church was a leader in the efforts to create a truly integrated community in Park Hill. The people who fervently supported it wanted a diverse community where people could send their children to integrated schools, live in integrated blocks, and mix in integrated social events. The Park Hill Action Committee (PHAC) led these efforts. Ed Lupberger and Roy Romer were among the early delegates from Montview to PHAC.

Montview was fortunate to have Martin Luther King speak at the church when he visited Denver in January of 1964.  His assassination in April of 1968 spurred two Denver school board members, Rachel Noel and Ed Benton, to propose the Noel resolution requiring the superintendent to produce a plan to integrate all the Denver public schools. In spite of heated opposition of some members of the community, the Session of the church, moderated by Dr. Dodds, voted to publicly support the resolution. The city was sharply divided into two camps over the issue.

My husband Monte Pascoe ran for school board on a pro-integration platform with incumbent Ed Benton in what was known as the Benton-Pascoe campaign in 1969. Monte grew up in the church after his parents Don and Marjorie Pascoe and brother Patrick moved here from Iowa in 1943. He attended Park Hill Elementary School, Smiley Junior High and East High.  He played football and was All American in high school. He was very involved in Boy Scouts at Montview where he won every honor including Eagle Scout, God and Country and Order of the Arrow. He was awarded a scholarship to Dartmouth where he played football and then a scholarship to Stanford Law School. He practiced law for his entire career except for three years when he was the state director of Natural Resources in Governor Dick Lamm’s cabinet.

When Ed and Monte lost that pivotal school board campaign that ran from March to May of 1969, the new board majority reversed the integration plans for East, Smiley and elementary schools in Park Hill, sending children back to inferior schools that they knew were segregated.

Within ten days of the rescission of the plans, the Keyes case, the first northern big city desegregation suit, was filed, which resulted in the granting of a preliminary injunction that reestablished the limited integration of northeast Denver schools, and, four years later, led to the Supreme Court ordering desegregation of the Denver schools “root and branch.” The school board was found guilty of de jure segregation as well as de facto segregation. The case was remanded to the District Court which had the task of designing a plan for the entire district. Unhappy with the plan of either side, the court hired Dr. Finger to create the plan.  

Supervision of the Federal District Court continued in Denver until 1995.

For more information see my book about the Keyes case called A Dream of Justice:  The Story of Keyes v. Denver Public Schools (University Press of Colorado). (Montview Library has a copy.) For several years I served on the Community Education Council appointed by Judge Doyle to oversee the implementation of the court order. The book includes the changes in our children’s schools: Moore Elementary School, Morey Junior High, and East High School during the years of the court order. It also has assessments of parents, board members, administrators, teachers, and students about their experiences during the desegregation order.

– Submitted by Pat Pascoe