Black Spaces in Denver Create Needed Community

After years of marginalization and systemic oppression, most people of color, including Black people, desired, or rather needed, a space of resistance where we could come home and sit alone. To breathe. To rest.

Black spaces are intended to bring people together, foster community and share knowledge. A local trivia night at Brewdog Bar, near I-70 and the RTA A Line, is one example of Black community building. 

The sun was just about to set at five o’clock, and the bar started to fill up. “So is it left, right, twirl, and then backward?” I ask the woman beside me. I’m not one to typically dance unless it means there is a one-person show, being myself and my mirror, but when I know something feels right, expressing myself on the floor, no matter if I fail, it just seems right.

Bewildered, I watch as her feet rapidly move with each step and she attempts the long, near-complicated line dance to Tamia’s 2006 R&B hit, “Can’t Get Enough.” A piney aroma of beer shocks my nose; the lights are dim, but the room is alive. Folks from different areas and means come to enjoy an evening that highlights what it means to be ‘here’ and what it feels to be in a room with someone like ‘you.’ 

Can we get it together? 

Spaces like these are especially important in light of the current administration’s attack on any culture that does not center on a straight, white, wealthy man. I remember where I was on Monday, January 20, 2025, when President Donald Trump implemented an executive order targeting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) efforts. 

It requires the Office of Management and Budget to “coordinate the termination of all discriminatory programs, including illegal DEI and ‘diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility’ (DEIA) mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities in the Federal Government, under whatever name they appear,” and “not under any circumstances consider DEI or DEIA factors, goals, policies, mandates, or requirements.” 

As part of that mandate, federal agencies will be required to “terminate . . . all DEI, DEIA, and ‘environmental justice’ offices and positions.” It is just one of many executive decisions issued by the newly elected president on Martin Luther King Jr. Day morning. This tactic is part of his pledge to end ‘“illegal, pernicious discrimination.” 

However, let’s call it what it really is: advocating for extremist ideals and the white majority, minorities will once again be excluded from the narrative, which has existed prior to Jim Crow laws and slavery; it is not just black and white, but also all those who are disadvantaged.

While this is already having an impact on academic institutions and the workplace, it also has the potential to halt local organizations that play a similar role in creating diverse spaces and sparking conversation for good. That’s why now, more than ever, it is important to champion and uplift Black spaces and organizations in Denver. Here are a few that you should learn more about: 

Black People Know Things

Darian Wilson is a history teacher, host, and founder of Black People Know Things, a trivia-based organization he started in 2020.

“I didn’t know a single question,” Wilson said about his first time playing trivia in public. “I was kind of there and like, ‘Oh, not a single question about Black people; not a single question about what I care or am passionate about.’I finished the trivia night and was like, ‘I wonder if I make it about celebrating Black culture? Could I do this but make it all about Black people?’” 

So, following the pandemic, he continued with virtual trivia nights for nearly 20–30 people. When 2021 arrived and he was able to collaborate with other hosts and local bars or meet-ups, the number of attendees jumped from 30 to 40. 

Their most recent collaboration with the National Association of Black Engineers, or NSBE, was their trivia night. “It’s almost like an obligation,” said NSBE president Nia Long. “Like you have to have the spaces no matter what the barriers are so that we can make sure that [we] are good.”

However, there were no barriers at the event on Saturday night. It was impactful, full of joy and laughter; you could remove the mask or code-switch and simply be. For others, not everyone has had the opportunity to grow up with or be around people who share their values and look like you; it is almost a battle for approval from either perspective.

‘I was not raised in a predominantly black neighborhood, so knowing that I could come to a specific area and find community and belonging there is very important,” said Taya Hancock, a preschool assistant teacher who attended the National Society of Black Engineers and Black People Know Things trivia night collaboration at BrewDog Bar this past Saturday.

And that is precisely why Wilson organized the event: to provide a space where people could accept and understand him. “I want to go where I belong; I’m wanted,” Wilson said. “I want to go where people appreciate the work that I do [and] that appreciates Black People Know Things in general.”

Black Girls Run Club

In 2023, Raja-Nee Keys intended to focus on promoting health and fitness for Black women; as a runner herself, she wanted to create a space where people felt included and welcome, so she founded the Denver Black Girls Run Club.

 “There are women who want to be active and who are active,” Keys said. “There wasn’t the space for them to come to until I created this Run Club.” 

In November 2023, Keys, her daughter, and one other person began running at the Stanley Marketplace; as a result, city residents noticed her and began contacting her. The Denver Black Girls Run Club meets every Sunday morning at various locations, including Fleet Feet Cherry Creek, near the Cherry Creek Shopping Center in Denver.

“There were people who just gave us a space and gave us a space to feel like we can come here and know that we can get our workout done,” Keys said. “We can have a conversation about whatever, then go on about our day and show up again next week and do the same thing.”

Keis Loves Community

“I’m just really sharing what people are doing,” said Keis Timm, a yoga teacher and occasional host with Black People Know Things. She also has a whole social media presence dedicated to sharing Black spaces in the  Denver community. Her Instagram account, @CommunityKeis, provides weekly updates on Black events that are taking place, which is how I learned about these spaces and their importance and relevance in the community.

“I’m trying to be the resource while also sharing the spaces,” Timm said. “To be inclusive of the African diaspora, cultures are very intertwined when you look at it; the intention is if you identify as Black in that spectrum or space that feels comfortable to you. Black spaces are just to be inclusive of the diaspora that allows [us] to find a place to just be ourselves, in our culture and just kind of be unapologetically whoever we are with our people.”

Despite Trump’s efforts to promote anti-DEI practices, she states, “I feel motivated. I feel supported. I feel actually grateful that it didn’t take somebody canceling DEI for me to realize how important it is to be inclusive and caring.” Many people in the community shared this sentiment. These direct attacks on DEI and other accessibility efforts have fueled the desire to organize against the current administration and counter his efforts to divide us.

“I’m grateful for the history that I carry in my blood,” said Auon’tai Anderson, the host of the Black People Know Things NSBE collaboration trivia event and a Denver Public Schools educator. “However, it is going to be up to us to make sure that we are writing the history for the next generation because our kids and our kid’s kids will look back and say, ‘What did you do in this moment when this attack started to happen to our people?’”