Interview with Antonio Clark: Social Justice Series

Description

Antonio Clark talks about growing up in Denver, Colorado, and the important role of youth sports in his upbringing. He speaks about his career in high school sports and about being a walk-on as a football player at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction. He discusses racism that he experienced as an African-American on the CMU campus, but also his view that diversity on the campus has increased, and that some attitudes about race have changed. He talks about the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police in 2020, his role in cofounding the organization Right and Wrong, coordinating local social justice protests, helping to organize the march on Grand Junction’s City Council on June 3, 2020, and initiating what he terms a long overdue conversation about race in Mesa County. He describes facing white supremacists at rallies and feeling disheartened by that aspect of community response. He also speaks about being encouraged by a groundswell of support for Black Lives Matter and for the local social justice movement, and his perception of racial attitudes in Grand Junction. He discusses being mentored as a young person by Denver CBS sports director Steve Atkinson, his own career in journalism at KREX, and his hopes both for his own future and for race relations. The interview was conducted on behalf of the Social Justice Archive in the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries, Professor Sarah Swedberg, and Black Citizens and Friends.