Founder of the Black Panthers’ Denver chapter dies at age 79
Lauren Watson, a founder of the Black Panther Party in Colorado, died Wednesday at the Cherry Creek Nursing Center. He was 79.
Watson, in the mid-1960s, was a founder of the revolutionary political organization in Denver in which he and fellow members picketed and protested at government meetings, political and school events, businesses and other Denver functions, mostly focusing on racial inequality and racial injustice.
An imposing figure, tall and lean, wearing dark glasses, dark clothing and a beard, Watson was arrested multiple times by Denver police during his active Black Panther
days on conspiracy counts, traffic violations, loitering, disturbing the peace and other counts.
In a 2015 video interview by Colorado History, Watson recalled his activists days and how he got started, based, in part, on a conversation he had circa 1965 with his mother, Ruth Martha Watson, a longtime Denver resident, community activist and noted poet. Watson said he had an attitude at the time.
“Mom said there is no point in sitting around being angry. Find some other people that feel the same way you do and things could be better,” Watson said on the video. “Get with them, and see what they’re doing.” Ruth Martha Watson died in May 1993.
Among the many protests Lauren Watson took part in were demonstrations opposing the Vietnam War. “Naturally, we were against the war,” he said in the video. In a speech at East High School, Watson said: “It’s a racist war.”
Known at times to walk the streets of Denver with a pipe wrench in his hands, Watson took pride in raising his arm and clenching his fist, flashing the “black power fist.”
On Dec. 12, 1968, Watson and the Black Panthers filed a complaint with the U.S. Justice Department against the Denver Police Department “alleging unnecessary damage and theft of their property during a search of their headquarters” on Dec. 8, 1968, Watson’s wedding day.
“The alleged damage occurred in a search for weapons in Panther headquarters early Sunday after police alleged that two Panthers pointed guns at them during a reception in the building after Watson’s wedding,” according to a Denver Post story at the time. Watson alleged that in the week leading up to his wedding, police had made threats that they “intended to wreck” it.
In October 1970, Watson was among a group of about 45 protesters who held a sitin at the office of Mayor Bill McNichols in a successful bid by Resident Participation of Denver, an arm of Denver’s Model City program at the time, to take its case of saving $5.7 million in federal funding directly to Washington, D.C. After the sit-in, vouchers were signed allowing a ninemember delegation to travel to Washington to make its continued funding case.
“What I remember most is my dad picking us up and taking us up and down the Welton Street Five Points corridor,” Hasira Watson, his eldest son, said of childhood outings with Dad and siblings. “We could never get 3 feet without stopping and him talking with someone or someone talking with him. He knew everybody, and everybody knew him.”
Born on Feb. 18, 1940, in San Jose, Calif., Lauren Watson graduated from Denver’s Manual High School.
Other notable AfricanAmerican graduates of Manual include Wellington Webb, Denver’s first black mayor; Norman Rice, Seattle’s first black mayor; Helen Marie Black, the first female manager of an American symphony orchestra; and Denver Mayor Michael Hancock. Watson also graduated from Metropolitan State College of Denver.
Alton Dillard, Denver Elections Division spokesman, said his childhood recollections of his uncle were joyful, with a slightly intimidating edge.
“I enjoyed his visits. He spent some time with us, but he was a physically imposing guy. He always wore dark glasses,” Dillard recalled with a chuckle. “When he came to our apartment, I would put the theme song for ‘Shaft’ on the record player” as a salute. “That’s the kind of presence he had.”
An image of Watson is part of the “Colorado Panorama: A People’s History” art mural at the Colorado Convention Center installed in 1991.
The 600-foot-long ceramic-tile mural stretches along the Welton Street entrance of the center. It contains separate “men’s” and “women’s” walls with the faces of 168 historically important Coloradans.
Throughout his life, Watson remained an activist and community organizer, said Hasira Watson, also an activist.
“Given the things he did in the community, his activism, he is kind of legendary,” Hasira Watson said. “His activism with the Black Panthers and just in general, they don’t really make them like that anymore.”
Watson’s sister, Sandra Dillard-Scott, a journalist and former longtime Denver Post staff writer, said Watson and other Panthers battled and sacrificed so that future generations of African-Americans could lead less-encumbered and more-productive lives.
“My brother put not only his heart but his life on the line for his beliefs,” DillardScott said. “And he suffered.”
Dillard-Scott said she will miss visiting with Watson, his company and their wide-ranging conversations.
“I’ll miss talking to him about what’s going on in the world,” she said.
Watson is survived by three sons, Hasira, Sheps and Tejon; a daughter, China; and a sister, Sandra Dillard-Scott.
Memorial arrangements are pending.