By Wayne Trujillo

Fall 1998

The rectangular office seemed to stretch on indefinitely. Sliced in half, a partition separated the daily grind of operations from the operation’s creative nexus. Computers perched atop desks decorated one room. The narrow and elongated table in the adjoining room hosted a monthly gathering of passion and wit when writers and editor settled around it as they critiqued the past and brainstormed the future.

The building that housed the Urban Spectrum sat snugly alongside a row of Five Points businesses that seemed somewhat archaic but filled with a sense of purpose. The locale appeared transported from another era. But immediacy informed the street’s bustle and briskness, not unlike an artist’s idyllic sketch of small town America. And the Spectrum, like the neighborhood, has always been about community.

History surrounded the Spectrum. Kitty corner to the office, the fabled Rossonian Hotel stood guard over Five Points’ glory years, the structure assuming an air of haughtiness without pretension. I once wrote that the Rossonian shared a kinship with downtown’s Brown Palace Hotel, another legendary hotspot. Both were pillars of the community where the genteel and, at times, even the bourgeois gathered for cocktails, and both boasted guest lists that included the great and famous.

However, even though a mere mile separated the two hotels, the racial divide situated them on parallel planes in the “separate but equal” stricture of pre-1950s America . In an article reviving the Rossonian’s past that the Spectrum published nearly a decade ago, I wrote that, with all due respect to Colorado pioneer Henry Brown, who donated the triangular cow pasture where the Brown Palace resides, the name of the hotel was a misnomer. It was literally the White Palace. The Rossonian was a palace for Browns, Blacks and other ethnic benchwarmers in American society.

Across the street, the Spectrum continued the tradition as the region’s preeminent publication for the Browns, the Blacks and the other ethnic benchwarmers. Its banner proclaimed its missive – “Spreading the News about People of Color.” Savvy and smart, the publication launched its Web site that year. The detour around mainstream media didn’t preclude top-flight aspirations as the Spectrum kept pace with new technologies. With a dozen years under its belt, the publication prepared itself for a new century – and new challenges and triumphs.

Spring 2007

A few blocks down and nearly a decade later, celebrants surround the offices of the Denver Urban Spectrum in the King Stroud building. Twenty years in existence is a substantial milestone and the publication’s publisher, Rosalind “Bee” Harris, marks the occasion with champagne, cake and a commemorative photo shoot. Two Denver mayors, John D. Hickenlooper and Wellington E. Webb, are present to welcome a third decade, as are guests with past, present and future ties to the Spectrum. Absent from the Denver Rocky Mountain News for several years since his retirement, legendary journalist Bob Jackson lends the affair gravitas. Photographer Bernard Grant positions his camera to catch a snapshot of the publication’s many personalities.

The photo will introduce the publication’s 20th Anniversary issue, giving many supporters their first appearance on a Spectrum cover. More than a few attendees, like the mayors and choreographer Cleo Parker Robinson, have already smiled from the publication’s front page, but the assemblage of Harris’ colleagues and patrons in one setting distinguishes this portrait.

The flow of champagne and memories lubricate small talk. At the helm of the gathering, Harris doesn’t disappoint, living up to her moniker: “Bee.” She buzzes in and around conversations, all live-wire voltage. She energizes the celebration with the same verve that sustained the publication through two decades and a fair amount of turmoil and turbulence. If one person is the public person of the Spectrum, it is Harris. The Denver Urban Spectrum serves the community but orbits around her.

1987

A trio of industrious upstarts premiered the Urban Spectrum without a long-term strategy for survival. An inchoate but undefined vision of promoting Colorado’s minority communities – African Americans, Asians, Hispanics and Native Americans – that they believed that mainstream media largely ignored. Another constituency lacking primetime press, they felt, were women.

Computer programmer Robert Stewart, newly arrived in Denver from Pittsburgh, intended to launch a local newspaper and began searching for graphic artists. Inquiries led to his introduction to Harris. Stewart’s proposal that they collaborate on the venture intrigued her, but Harris’ initial, pragmatic response was a request for a business plan. Then, several months after Stewart’s overture, photojournalist Ron Steele broached the possibility of starting a newspaper to Harris. This time she dismissed any doubts, deciding that a divine portent had decided her destiny, or at least an immediate path.

“Déjà vu!” Harris exclaimed to writer Ta’Shia Asanti in an interview last year. “I felt like someone was tapping me on the shoulder. I told him (Steele) to wait a minute. I knew someone else who was interested in starting a newspaper. And, after the three of us met, we literally hit the ground running, and the rest is history.”

Chasing their dream at a speedy clip, the three had a myopic financial strategy and limited means. Nevertheless, their goals weren’t shortsighted or tenuous. If they remained solvent, their long-term plan gazed far into the future, envisioning a publication that integrated Colorado’s diverse, minority communities with a quality publication that they could call their own.

“We really had no preconceived prognosis for the Spectrum, (we) just knew there was a need to fill a void,” Harris explained to me last month. “But, in 1987, the original focus was to be a multicultural publication… We also decided to put more emphasis on women in Colorado. And for the first year, our cover stories featured curandera Diana Velásquez, Cleo Parker Robinson, Florence Hernandez-Ramos, and Wanda Hu, among others.”

Failures of start-up publications are legion. Countless newspapers and magazines are casualties of high overhead and low advertising. Like ghosts in a graveyard, forgotten names of past publications haunt the roster call of deceased media in Colorado . However, despite suffering wounds that felled many of her peers, none over the years proved to be fatal. But some of the injuries sustained by the Spectrum were certainly life threatening.

1989 to Present

The recounts of the 1989 New Year’s Eve fire that almost consumed the publication has assumed mythic dimensions. But the conflagration is more than folkloric drama. While nothing of the publication remained but embers and a few charred photos, the Urban Spectrum literally rose, phoenix-like, beginning the second of its seemingly nine lives. Rooting through the ashes, Harris discovered more than blackened photos.

“After the fire, the community rallied with fundraisers, which were titled, ‘Have a Heart,’” Harris told Asanti last year. “Other publishers, including Sharon Silvis and the late Cosmo Harris opened their doors and lent us computers to help us get back on our feet. Times Call Printing in Longmont offered to print our paper free. And then Urban Spectrum Business Manager Peter Christy and Macussa Arhmn Khan, one of our original writers, were there to pick up the pieces and help put them back together. And again, the rest is history.”

The winds of ill fortune failed to douse the publication’s fire. In fact, the tempest fanned the flames of ambition of the staff. Harris in particular rallied and readied the community for the publication’s comeback. Her ambitions for the Urban Spectrum would not be denied, even by the departure of her original partners. And the triumphs have been considerable.

Scads of celebrities have appeared in the Spectrum – and by Harris’ side – throughout the years. When I ask about the luminaries she has met courtesy of the publication, her response is amazing. She reels off a Rolodex, naming legends who occupy the American popular pantheon.

“Wow!” she marvels. “Where do I begin?”

For Harris, icon Oprah Winfrey was the ultimate, but she has also met Maya Angelou, Johnnie Cochran, Alice Walker, Jesse Jackson, Desmond Tutu, Coretta Scott King, Dick Gregory, Phil Donahue, Andrew Young and Farrah Gray. Entertainers include Bill Cosby, Cicely Tyson, Danny Glover, Lou Rawls, Patti Labelle, Nancy Wilson, Isaac Hayes, Bill Cobbs and Sinbad.

Winfrey was featured in the Urban Spectrum in its initial year. Eighteen years later, she returned to the cover of the publication following her 2005 Live Your Best Life tour in Denver. Winfrey’s appearance on the cover was particularly momentous because it captured her holding the copy of the 1980s-era Spectrum that featured her. The shot subsequently ended up in People magazine and placed the publication, and Harris, in the national spotlight.

Despite the star power, less heralded folk take precedence in Harris’ estimation. “The truly notable people are local,” she says. “They are the ones who helped make the Spectrum what it is today.”

Through the past two decades, diverse organizations supported the Spectrum and the relationship continues to be reciprocal. The publication’s affiliation with the Denver Black Arts Festival, the Colorado AIDS Walk, Colorado Association of Black Journalists and the Shadow Theater Company are several enduring relationships. Harris sits on numerous boards, and surveying the various honors bestowed on her for her charitable and civic involvement can be overwhelming.

Perhaps Harris’ most prized laurels aren’t professional and personal kudos and awards, but the student interns, contributors and assorted employees that the Spectrum inspired during and long past their tenure at the publication.

“I think the most memorable experience of running the paper has been to provide an opportunity so others may display their talents as they furthered their careers and moved on,” she relays. “Denver Urban Spectrum has been a stepping stone for many people and I am happy to have provided that opportunity for growth and expansion in their lives.”

That talent has been dazzling. Throughout two decades, the Spectrum has indeed been a launching pad for nascent talents who evolved into widely regarded professionals. The frenetic and demanding schedule of a skeletal staff rushing to meet deadlines required proficiency; the publication’s veterans developed skills that they acknowledge as invaluable. Last year, Spectrum contributor Quibian Salazar-Moreno told Asanti, “US was the first publication to publish my work, and for that I’m grateful. Because of the work that I’ve done for the Spectrum, I’ve been able to write for the Denver Post, Westword, Denver Business Journal and many others.”

Indeed, the dedication displayed by the publication’s personnel, really the soul of the Spectrum, and responsible for its long-standing reputation as an apotheosis of minority journalism in Colorado . Editors such as Helen Littlejohn, whose history with the publication dates back to the beginning, and Rosanne Makinen, whose editorial stewardship for nearly half of the publication’s existence propelled the publication to its professional pinnacle, and Ta’Shia Asanti and Dante James, who extended the journalistic and creative excellence that continues today, are essential to the Spectrum’s history and future. Assuming the mantle, Karon Majeel is intent on extending their legacies.

Y2K came and went, but the Spectrum is firmly holding its position as the publication for people of color in Colorado. Three mayors have presided over Denver during the publication’s lifetime — Federico Peña, Webb and Hickenlooper. Born during the local economic recession of the 1980s, the Spectrum celebrated the boom of the 90s and subsequent dot.com freefall. Today, with the upsurge in the economy, Harris is anticipating another two decades (and beyond) of the bipolar turbulence and triumphs that have checkered the publication’s growth from infancy to its maturity in the present. Asanti wrote in the 19th Anniversary edition last year, “A great thinker once said that the greatest success comes from continuing in the face of what seems like impossible obstacles.”

Indeed, it appears that Harris not only meets but also relishes the challenges.

The Future

As the Denver Urban Spectrum enters its third decade, Harris has reason to celebrate. Having maintained a prominent position in Colorado for years, she reflects on the publication’s bittersweet history. On one hand, there is the fast support of leaders and advertisers. However, there remain holdouts. Niche publications have a notoriously difficult time securing financial support from mainstream corporations. She has tabled some of her strongest and steadfast dreams, many of which she has nourished since the publication’s inception.

“Even after 19 years of publishing Denver’s premiere community newspaper, we still and always will need advertising dollars to keep this paper going,” Harris stressed to Asanti last year. “It is disappointing to pick up other papers and see a business from the community advertising in it and not supporting the Spectrum, the Denver Weekly News or the Body of Christ. Some of these businesses come to us seeking sponsorship or free advertising. We, as a community, must learn about the principle of reciprocity.”

While Harris reproaches the lackluster support of certain quarters, she readily praises the perennial standbys that have offered their prayers and their dollars, guaranteeing the publication’s spiritual prosperity and survival. If the Denver Urban Spectrum is Colorado royalty, then family, friends, readers, contributors, advertisers and community leaders are the power behind the throne, according to Harris.

Harris’ immediate aspirations are deep-seated, having persisted since she founded the Urban Spectrum. “Some of the original goals included expanding to other cities and possibly publishing more frequently; that has been the case for the last 20 years. Being a monthly publication has its ups and downs, but after the emergence of the Internet, e-mail and all the other electronic devices that have come along over the years, they have made our production process easier and faster.”

Hi-tech and cyberspace dominates Harris’ plans for the publication. The future seems to occupy her thoughts, and not only as a techie. Youth rank high on her priorities. An indelible photo from the twilight of Webb’s three terms as mayor shows a group of adolescents gathered around his desk, anxious and excited about their proximity to power. Harris’ ideal is that they will stand not beside but behind the desk of leadership in the future.

The publication’s personalities – those written in bylines and headlines – run the gamut. Old and young, conservative and liberal, and Brown, Black and White populated past pages. Nothing has changed in current issues and the Spectrum will retain its diversity into the future. Editorially progressive, the publication presents profiles and opinions from a cast that has included everyone from former Gov. Bill Owens to U.S. Rep. John Lewis. Rarely has a publication embraced such divergent viewpoints and experiences.

When I ask Harris where she intends to steer the Spectrum in its third decade, her response dovetails with eyeing shifting audiences and media.

“Because of the growth and popularity of the Internet, we are exploring and working on ways to spread the news about people of color in a more space-age manner,” she says. “We are working on improving our second website so that people automatically consider it as their 'one-stop source for communication.’”

Harris’ protégés aren’t far from her thoughts. “And, of course, our youth foundation is growing,” she adds. “With the support of the community, we will be training future journalists again this summer during the summer journalism program.”

Even as Harris peers over her shoulder at the past, her eyes remain focused on the future: the technologies, teenagers, trends, events. Twenty years is a mere blip, as Harris’ reaches further to “Spread the News about People of Color.”

It is easy to imagine galas and salutes upon the Denver Urban Spectrum’s silver anniversary, golden anniversary and platinum anniversary. It’s even easier to envision Harris, decked out in florid tones, working the crowd to promote her community, which she hopes will one day cross state, national and cultural boundaries.

Editor’s note: Wayne Trujillo is a writer living in Denver. He first contributed to the Denver Urban Spectrum in 1998. He is also the editorial director for Latino Suave Magazine, a bi-monthly Denver-based publication.