HISTORICAL NOVEL

Notes on the Characters: there are many people in this story who lived, and they did indeed move about the places mentioned here. (The Radio Café was torn down in 1957; but the Denver Auditorium is in the Denver Center for the Performing Arts (DCPA), remodeled and renamed the Ellie Caulkins Opera House – and the rally on Sept 4, 1924, did happen as described). A few names have been changed, as I don’t want to be sued by descendants who might not like the idea of grandma and grandpa (for instance, the “Girards”) being outed as KKK leaders. Harry Bellow, Bill Peterson – real, but with new last names.

Unchanged names include Charles Ginsberg, Dr. Justina Ford, Judge Benjamin Lindsey, George Gross, Charles Mahoney, Rabbi Friedman and Phil Hornbein, George Klein, Ulysses “Speed” Baker. The Neusteters and their store were real but Sarah is fictional. Other unchanged names include “Doc” Reynolds, Reverend Bill Oeschger, “Koka Kola Kandlish”, Mayor Ben Stapleton, Governor-elect Clarence Morley, the entire group in the Atlanta KKK meeting chapter, and of course Denver’s own infamous Grand Dragon, John Galen Locke. I didn’t change those names because they are too well-known to history – their kids and grandkids will just have to live with it; anybody can Google them. 

A most important character, Edward Jones, is a fictionalized representation, but Denver’s Boulé was very real. The Boulé (which came out of Sigma Pi Phi, founded in 1904 as a fraternity of Black professional men) was so successful in maintaining its secrecy that it's only in the past few years that the descendants of these incredibly brave men have come forward with proof of their activities on behalf of the black community. https://denverite.com/2017/02/08/meet-the-secret-society-that-infiltrated-denvers-ku-klux-klan-during-the-height-of-its-power/