NAACP files cited in study include 1960s Purina factory employment complaints and memos mocking integration

History Colorado researcher Shatoya Walker told the commission she spent a week at the Library of Congress reviewing National Urban League and NAACP holdings that include local branch reports and litigation files. Why it matters: These organizational records preserve complaints and internal correspondence that were not always part of court records and can document workplace discrimination and employer attitudes that shaped outcomes. Walker highlighted an employment-discrimination example from a Purina factory in Denver in the late 1960s that included jokes and harassment directed at employees after civil-rights protections were implemented; commissioners read aloud a November 1968 memo from those files that satirized federal integration requirements. Walker said many NAACP cases in the files were settled out of court or dismissed on technicalities and therefore are not always preserved in law-library records. The research team said such files are valuable evidence of patterns of workplace discrimination, but cautioned that specifics will be published only with appropriate archival citation and consent where needed. The commission discussed how such records could inform a public exhibition or the state capitol tour.