Pat Pascoe – författare

A Dream of Justice is Colorado state senator and former teacher Pat Pascoe’s firsthand account of the decades-long fight to desegregate Denver’s public schools. Drawing on oral histories and interviews with members of the legal community, parents, and students, as well as extensive institutional records, Pascoe offers a compelling social history of Keyes v. School District No. 1 (Denver).  Pascoe details Denver’s desegregation battle, beginning with the citizen studies that exposed the inequities of segregated schools and Rachel Noel’s resolution to integrate the system, followed by the momentous pro-integration Benton-Pascoe campaign of Ed Benton and Monte Pascoe for the school board in 1969. When segregationists won that election and reversed the integration plan for northeast Denver, Black, white, and Latino parents filed Keyes v. School District No. 1. This book follows the arguments in the case through briefs, transcripts, and decisions from district court to the Supreme Court of the United States and back, to its ultimate order to desegregate all Denver schools “root and branch.” It was the first northern city desegregation suit to be brought before the Supreme Court. However, with the end of court-ordered busing in 1995, schools quickly resegregated and are now more segregated than before Keyes was filed.  Pascoe asserts that school integration is a necessary step toward eliminating systemic racism in our country and should be the objective of every school board. A Dream of Justice will appeal to students, scholars, and readers interested in the history of civil rights in America, Denver history, and the history of US education.

Calling herself "the housewife of the senate," Helen Ring Robinson was Colorado's first female state senator and only the second in the United States. Serving from 1913 to 1917, she worked for social and economic justice as a champion of women, children, and workers' rights and education during a tumultuous time in the country's history. Her commitment to these causes did not end in the senate; she continued to labor first for world peace and then for the American war effort after her term ended. Helen Ring Robinson is the first book to focus on this important figure in the women's suffrage movement and the 1913, 1914, and 1915 sessions of the Colorado General Assembly. Author Pat Pascoe, herself a former Colorado senator, uses newspapers, legislative materials, Robinson's published writings, and her own expertise as a legislator to craft the only biography of this contradictory and little-known woman.Robinson had complex politics as a suffragist, peace activist, international activist, and strong supporter of the war effort in World War I and a curious personal life with an often long-distance marriage to lawyer Ewing Robinson, yet close relationship with her stepdaughter, Alycon. Pascoe explores both of these worlds, although much of that personal life remains a mystery. This fascinating story will be a worthwhile read to anyone interested in Colorado history, women's history, labor history, or politics.

Calling herself "the housewife of the senate," Helen Ring Robinson was Colorado's first female state senator and only the second in the United States. Serving from 1913 to 1917, she worked for social and economic justice as a champion of women, children, and workers' rights and education during a tumultuous time in the country's history. Her commitment to these causes did not end in the senate; she continued to labor first for world peace and then for the American war effort after her term ended. Helen Ring Robinson is the first book to focus on this important figure in the women's suffrage movement and the 1913, 1914, and 1915 sessions of the Colorado General Assembly.Author Pat Pascoe, herself a former Colorado senator, uses newspapers, legislative materials, Robinson's published writings, and her own expertise as a legislator to craft the only biography of this contradictory and little-known woman. Robinson had complex politics as a suffragist, peace activist, international activist, and strong supporter of the war effort in World War I and a curious personal life with an often long-distance marriage to lawyer Ewing Robinson, yet close relationship with her stepdaughter, Alycon. Pascoe explores both of these worlds, although much of that personal life remains a mystery. This fascinating story will be a worthwhile read to anyone interested in Colorado history, women's history, labor history, or politics.