About

Documenting the Past Fostering the Future  is designed to detail and activate the central role of young adults in understanding, leading, and transforming the elusive search for racial equity, personal dignity, and human rights in the Rocky Mountain West and the larger United States. The project appeals to those who love history but is designed specifically for politically aware members of the Gen Z and Gen Alpha cohorts who are aware that their own school history lessons may have been lacking, who are committed to bringing about positive change in our world. Through community engagement, rigorous research, grounding in voluminous racial and ethnic studies scholarship, and the centering of youth as leaders and change agents, DPFF is a space for all of us to work towards greater racial and social justice.  

The Rocky Mountain West has long been a bellwether for addressing issues of inequity and inequality from diverse and historically underrepresented communities. From the segregated neighborhoods of Denver to the multi-lingual and multi-national cantaloupe fields of Fort Lupton to the racially contested open ranges of Wyoming and New Mexico, DPFF sheds light on the critical role young people have long played in the shaping of an American region. 

As the last several years have demonstrated all over the United States, youth bring extraordinary care, passion, and enthusiasm in shaping a larger American project.  Although not a new phenomenon, today’s youth are facing existential events that seemingly are unique—from potential catastrophic impact of climate change and gun violence in schools to exponential growth in income inequality—the youth of today are facing unprecedented systemic and institutional challenges to their future.  

DPFF will also work from the idea that the ways that young people are articulating their concerns and devoting their public engagement today in such areas as community organizing or running for political office can be better informed by learning from the connections to and divergences from those of their peers in the past. 

DPFF is inspired by one of the songs that the University of Denver’s The Spiritual Project choir sings, a song called "Ella's Song" written by Bernice Johnson Reagon. The song is based on the words of the Black activist Ella Baker: "We who believe in freedom cannot rest…" With these words and music in mind, we reframe freedom as the search for justice that is temporal in nature, on-going, and never ever completed. The goal is to recover and re-imagine the role that the Rocky Mountain West’s youth have played in continuous national conversations about the struggle for equity, inclusion, and justice.   DPFF will therefore connect issues of human rights today with those of the past through curriculum, podcasts, and other forms of multimedia and public engagement.

Ultimately, DPFF will help all of us better address the following questions: 

• Who is afforded the right to freedom and opportunity, and who must fight for those rights? 

• Who asserts power within society and who is subject to that power? 

• How have differing minoritized groups succeeded or found their efforts thwarted as they have sought inclusion and a space for growth in the Rocky Mountain West? 

• Where have young people in particular played a catalytic role in bending the  arc of our America towards justice?