CAAAS Director Rabaka Keynotes Charles and Mildred Nilon Bench Celebration & Installation

Charles and Mildred Nilon, the first Black professor (1956) and first Black librarian (1962) at the University of Colorado Boulder, were chosen by the Toni Morrison Society to receive Colorado’s first Bench by the Road installation, honoring the couple’s accomplishments and legacy.

The Bench by the Road Project is an initiative of the Toni Morrison Society that aims to address the absence of public memorials acknowledging the lives and histories of enslaved Africans and their descendants. The Museum of Boulder submitted the proposal for a bench to honor the Nilons, and the installation marks the 35th Bench by the Road globally — and the first in Colorado.

“They did far more than just achieve important firsts,” said Juliette León Bartsch, who led the project for the Museum of Boulder. “The Nilons opened doors, they built bridges and expanded what is possible.”

The celebration of the bench installation took place on Monday at First Congressional Church of Boulder, featuring All Created Equal (ACE) Gospel Choir, speakers, (including Chancellor Justin Schwarz and a rousing keynote address from Dr. Reiland Rabaka, founding director of the Center for African and African American Studies at CU Boulder). Dr. Rabaka said the bench honors not only their achievements, but the couple’s hospitality, mentorship, and the labor of love that sustains movements for change.

“When you pass the bench in days and years to come, sit,” Rabaka said. “Sit and remember Dr. Charles Nilon, standing at the front of a classroom where he was not expected. Sit and remember Mrs. Mildred Nilon, organizing knowledge in spaces not designed for her librarianship. Sit and remember that justice often begins quietly in syllabi drafted, in students mentored, and doors held open.”

The bench was unveiled at the end of the ceremony, and will be installed in the coming weeks as the weather allows. It will sit in the pollinator-friendly garden outside of the Museum of Boulder at the intersection of Pine Street and Broadway.

Read the full Daily Camera article here. 

View the livestream on Youtube HERE.

photos by Daily Camera staff photographer Matthew Jonas