Denver, Colorado Apologizes for Anti- Chinese Race Riot of 1880

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- Newspaper drawing of anti-Chinese riot in Denver in 1880.
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- 'Denver Apologizes for Anti-Chinese Riot of 1880,' Smithsonian Magazine, April 21, 2022.

- A white mob terrorized residents and murdered a man, but the city never punished the perpetrators. -

On the night of October 31, 1880, a fight broke out at John Asmussen’s Saloon in Denver. The scuffle, which involved two Chinese men and several of the bar’s white patrons, spilled out onto Wazee Street in a poor, majority-Chinese neighborhood that bordered the city’s red-light district. Soon, some 3,000 white people had gathered, terrorizing Chinese residents and destroying Chinese-owned businesses and property. Despite a murder and property damage totaling more than $53,000 (the equivalent of roughly $1.5 million today), the perpetrators were never punished. Chinese businesses and property owners were never compensated for their losses, either.

Now, 142 years later, the city of Denver is formally apologizing for the incident, believed to be the Mile High City’s first race riot.

Per Rocky Mountain PBS’ Kyle Cooke, Denver mayor Michael Hancock signed a letter at an event on April 16 at the University of Colorado Denver “sincerely apologizing” to Denver’s early Chinese residents and their descendants, noting that the city contributed to “nearly a century of violence and discrimination” by way of “racial hostility and institutional inequities” toward Chinese immigrants. In the letter, Hancock detailed various discriminatory practices and racist actions the city took toward Asian American residents throughout history, including forcing Chinese immigrants to live in a segregated area and, later, condemning and dismantling the city’s Chinatown neighborhood.

“An admission of the wrongs committed and its failure to correct them is a first step toward recognizing and honoring [Asian American and Pacific Islanders'] contributions and can contribute to racial reconciliation,” according to the letter. “It will also serve to educate those who are ignorant of this shameful chapter in Colorado’s history and hopefully bring some closure to the families whose loved ones suffered racial violence and abuse.” Those wrongs began years before the riot. Chinese immigrants began moving to Denver in 1869, finding work on railroads, in mines and in the service industry.

The city only allowed them to live in a small section of town on Wazee Street between 15th and 17th streets, an area that became known as Chinatown, then used restrictive covenants and unspoken agreements to keep them from moving elsewhere and taking on other, better-paying jobs. Meanwhile, a wave of anti-Chinese sentiment was building across the country, including in the Centennial State. White men pushed Chinese immigrants out of Colorado mining towns like Leadville and Nederland, and, acting under the misconception that the immigrants presented a health hazard to white residents, used them as scapegoats for crimes, job losses and social ills. Newspapers like Denver’s Rocky Mountain News published anti-Chinese editorials, even going so far as to call Chinese immigrants the “Pest of the Pacific.”...

-More, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/denver-apologizes-for-anti-chinese-riot-of-1880-180979945/

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1. Amazing.