History Colorado’s Rosenberry Lecture Series brings authors, historians, community leaders, and other speakers from around Colorado and the United States to Denver for engaging, in-person conversations that invite us to explore our shared past as we shape our collective future. These experts deliver stories of importance that dive deep into a diverse range of topics from our state's rich and complex history. Every season concludes with the State Historian’s Address, presented by the leader of History Colorado’s State Historian’s Council.

Ignite your curiosity through this eight-part series. See the full line-up below and get tickets today!

LOCATION 
History Colorado Center | 1200 N Broadway, Denver
Lectures are on the third Wednesday of every month (September - May) at 1:00 pm and 7:00 pm. 
 
TICKETS 

Individual Tickets: $15 non-members | $10 members

Season Package (includes all 8 lectures): $100 non-members | $70 members 

Click here to buy the 1:00 PM Season Package→ 

Click here to buy the 7:00 PM Season Package→ 

Get $10 off nonmember tickets to individual lectures when you use the promo code Student (for any students) or LI2627 (anyone with low income) at checkout

• Season Package (includes all eight lectures):
  • History Colorado members – $70
  • General public - $100
• Single Tickets: 
  • History Colorado members - $10
  • General public - $15
  • Student, no/low income - $5

For questions and assistance, email Rebecca.Chickadel@state.co.us.

Select speakers will offer to sign their books after their lecture! Get yours ahead of time on the History Colorado Bookshop→

My Fight for an Inclusive America: A Call to Action

September 16 | 1:00 pm and 7:00 pm | In-Person 

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Informed by his own journey, Ambassador Ken Salazar will share his unrivaled vantage on the US-Mexico relationship, the border and migration crisis, and his belief that the diversity of our many communities and cultures is America’s superpower. In his book Borderlands, Ken asks us to consider: What does it mean to be a US citizen? In a nation of immigrants, who counts as American? How do we catalyze a movement to preserve and strengthen our democracy—one that recognizes the richness of American diversity as our nation’s enduring strength? Ken will discuss a new vision for North America and the Americas as the United States, Mexico, and Canada strive to achieve greater economic prosperity and shared national security. This vision is an alternative to the path on which we currently find ourselves. His message is a clarion call to action for a different way forward, one that unites North America instead of divides it.

A book signing will follow the lecture.

About the Speaker

A fifth-generation Coloradan, Ken Salazar’s ancestors have lived in the American Southwest for more than four hundred years. Ken grew up in his native San Luis Valley where his family continues to farm and ranch the same property they’ve owned since before Colorado became a state. Ken earned a political science degree in 1977 from Colorado College and graduated in 1981 with a law degree from the University of Michigan. Ken served as United States ambassador to Mexico from 2021 to 2025, where he led the US diplomatic mission during a pivotal time for North America. In this role, he repeatedly urged for decisive action to address border security, migration to the United States, climate, and North American economic integration. Before serving as US ambassador to Mexico, Ken served as US secretary of the Interior under President Barack Obama (2009–2013), as Colorado’s 35th US senator (2005–2009), and as Colorado state attorney general (1999-2005).

Bent’s Fort: The Western Trade & Making Modern America

October 21 | 1:00 pm and 7:00 pm | In-Person

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“The Fort is Not Such a Bad Place After All.”   
~ Diary entry, Susan Shelby McGoffin, Bent’s Fort, July 29, 1849

We usually think of the Fur Trade Era as a fleeting, if iconic, moment in the history of Colorado and the wider West. Yet a kaleidoscopic view allows us to see that the period anticipated many of the issues we wrestle with today: intercultural tensions and accommodations, localism's struggle with globalism, and contentious visions of our shared futures. This lecture ranges from the Bent brothers' outpost on the Arkansas to the high Dakotas, from the Central Valley of California to Northern Mexico, and from Alaska to Hawaii to suggest how the era offers a rehearsal — and lesson — for the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for us all. 

About the Speaker

Dr. James F. Brooks, the Carl and Sally Gable Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Georgia, is an interdisciplinary scholar of the Indigenous and Colonial past. Dr. Brooks spent time as director of SAR Press, and later served as president of SAR. He recently concluded a decade of service on the Board of Directors of the Western National Parks Association, which supports 72 National Parks. Dr. Brooks advises National Park Fellows working on Sesquicentennial Programming for Park units in the Intermountain Region, serves as advisory scholar to the Gilder Lehrman Institute for American History, maintains a Research Professor appointment at UCSB to support graduate training, and holds the position of Senior Consulting Editor of The Public Historian. Dr. Brooks is a Trustee of Historic Athens (Georgia), and works with his graduate students to develop public interpretive programs on the region's Indigenous past and present.

Brooks is the recipient of numerous national awards for scholarly excellence. His 2002 "Triple-Crown" winning (Bancroft, Parkman, and Turner Prizes) Captives & Cousins: Slavery, Kinship and Community in the Southwest Borderlands focused on the traffic in women and children across the region as expressions of intercultural violence and accommodation. He has also published the edited volumes Confounding the Color Line: the Indian-Black Experience in North America, Women and Gender in the American West, Linking the Histories of Slavery: North America and its Borderlands, and more. His Mesa of Sorrows: A History of the Awat’ovi Massacre appeared from WW Norton in 2016, and garnered the Caughey Prize and the Ermine Wheeler-Voeglin Book Award. His latest projects include guest-edited volumes of the Journal of the Civil War Era and The Western Historical Quarterly , lecturing in the NEH Landmarks of American History: Borderlands of Southern Colorado teachers' workshops, and board service on the History of Slavery at UGA "Recognition, Reconciliation, and Redress" project. He keynoted the opening of the Unsilenced: Indigenous Enslavement exhibit in Colorado in 2021, and advised History Colorado and curator Chip Thomas on the permanent exhibit, reVision: Buffalo Soldiers, which opened in 2023 at the Fort Garland Museum. 
 

Reconciliation, Shared History, and America’s 250th Anniversary

November 18 | 1:00 pm and 7:00 pm | In-Person

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In a moderated conversation focused on reconciliation and shared history, two descendants from different branches of Thomas Jefferson's family will gather to mark America's 250th Anniversary. This dialogue explores the shifting understanding of Jefferson's legacy and the impact of uniting his descendants during the nation's semiquincentennial. The discussion will emphasize how these individuals are navigating complex historical chapters to find common ground and forge a collective future.

The lecture features distant great-grandsons Sal Pace and Shannon LaNier. Representing lineages that remained separated for generations, Pace and LaNier are now collaborating to encourage reconciliation and meaningful dialogue. 

About the Speaker

Sal Pace, a direct descendant (fifth great-grandson) of Thomas Jefferson and Martha Wayles Jefferson, is the General Manager of the Front Range Passenger Rail District, professional ultimate frisbee team franchise owner, and cannabis reform pioneer who served as a member of the Colorado House of Representatives, where he represented House District 46, which includes western Pueblo, Colorado from 2008 to 2012. During his time at the state house, Pace served as the Colorado House minority leader. He also served as a County Commissioner of Pueblo County, Colorado until 2019. Pace currently serves as President of Sal Pace & Associates.

Shannon LaNier, a direct descendant (sixth great-grandson) of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, is a veteran television host, actor, and social media influencer (@MrShannonLanier). LaNier has been a television personality and anchor for news and lifestyle programs including Cheddar News & News 12, the nationally syndicated Black News Channel, and CW39’s morning show in Houston. Shannon is also a writer, having co-authored the Random House Inc. book Jefferson’s Children: The Story of One American Family along with photojournalist Jane Feldman. He is currently reigniting his critically acclaimed podcast, “Daddy Duty 365” which features celebrity dads revealing the good, the bad and the funny of fatherhood.

Why Moral Courage in 1864 Matters Today: The Life, Letters, and Witness of Silas Soule  

January 20 | 1:00 pm and 7:00 pm | In-Person

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Dr. Nancy Niero will connect the past with the present through the lens of racial injustice and faith, in a discussion of her book Witness at Sand Creek, The Life and Letters of Silas Soule (2025).  Dr. Niero will speak about her research process, from a racial justice pilgrimage to Kansas, to interviews with present-day historians, park rangers, clergy, and a Silas Soule descendant, to digging into library collections in New Mexico, Colorado, and around the country. She’ll share letters from the book and frame Silas’ life as a Kansas abolitionist, gold miner in Gilpin County, and soldier in the American Civil War, which ultimately brings him to Fort Lyon, the launch point for the Sand Creek Massacre in 1864. The question to consider… How is Silas’ story part of the narrative of 21st century Colorado today?

A book signing will follow the lecture.

About the Speaker

Rev. Dr. Nancy Niero is a racial justice theologian and cultural historian. She graduated with her Doctor of Ministry degree in May 2023 from Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa, OK. Her thesis explored if white silence in United Church of Christ churches in the UCC Rocky Mountain Conference could be dismantled using storytelling of white 19th century ancestors of faith and resistance who stood up, showed up, and spoke up with people of color. She received her master’s in divinity degree from Iliff School of Theology in Denver, CO in 2009. She is ordained in the United Church of Christ.

Dr. Niero has a 15-year career in hospice and hospital chaplaincy-bereavement and has created grief work as an important companion with racial justice work.

She is the author of Witness, The Life and Letters of Silas Soule. Witness was selected for the annual Pages for Progress book cohort by the United Methodist Church General Board of Church and Society in October 2025. In addition, Colorado Public Radio selected Witness for their Books We Love: 2025 Collection.

Dr. Niero has also written Good Trouble: Racial Justice Coaching for Clergy in the 21st Century and is doing in-person coaching in the Pacific Northwest with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. She has been greatly influenced by Rev. Dr. James Cone, Dr. Vincent Harding, Joy Harjo (Muskogee), Dr. Soong-Chan Rah, Clint Smith, Dr. Regina Stoltzfus Shands, and Rev. Dr. Emilie Townes.

Prior to her call to ministry, she was a historic preservationist, and a journalist. She lives on the ancestral land of the Squaxin Island people, People of the Water, who lived along the shores and watersheds of the seven southernmost inlets of the Salish Sea, near what is known today as the Puget Sound in Washington.

South Park and the Value of Offending Everyone

February 17 | 1:00 pm and 7:00 pm | In-Person

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What started at CU Boulder as a crude short film by college friends Trey Parker and Matt Stone went on to change television forever. While first-time viewers of South Park might only see unrefined animation and tasteless jokes, this lecture reveals how the show actually serves as a humorous historical archive of the last thirty years. Discover how Parker and Stone carry on a storied tradition of satirists, acting like modern court jesters who use absurd comedy to push us into questioning our deepest beliefs. Join us as we explore how this groundbreaking show moves beyond shock value to critique society, challenge taboos, spark conversation, and help us laugh through uncomfortable truths.  

About the Speaker

Jeremy Morton is an exhibition developer and historian at the History Colorado Center. Formerly, he was the Public Engagement Manager and Education Coordinator for History Colorado Community Museums. A Denver native, Morton grew up watching South Park. He went on to graduate from the University of Colorado Denver with a bachelor of arts in history, and a master of arts in curriculum and instruction.

Setting Colorado's Table: 150 Years of Agricultural Legacy 

March 17 | 1:00 pm and 7:00 pm | In-Person

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From the Eastern Plains to the Rocky Mountains and from the San Luis Valley to the Western Slope, Colorado's terrain makes farming and ranching diverse and challenging. Hear Dr. Rachael Storm, head of curatorial services and author of Setting Colorado's Table: 150 Years of Agricultural Legacy discuss the history of our state's growers, along with her reflections on their present endeavors and the future of agriculture in the Centennial State.  

A book signing will follow the lecture.

About the Speakers

Dr. Rachael Storm is Head of Curatorial Services & Curator of Business and Industry at History Colorado. She grew up in Iowa, spending time on her grandparents’ farm, and worked at a USDA seed genebank prior to earning her PhD in the history of agricultural capitalism at the University of Delaware. Her book, Setting Colorado's Table: 150 Years of Agricultural Legacy, celebrates the history of farming and ranching in the Centennial State and was released in 2026 as part of the 250th/150th commemoration.  

Portrait of Colorado at 150: Reflections on Community, Identity, and Stories

April 21 | 1:00 pm and 7:00 pm | In-Person

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Colorado’s documented history reveals gaps in stories that present diverse perspectives and experiences. Communities have been misrepresented, underrepresented, or not represented at all. Colorado’s 150th anniversary presented a unique opportunity to uncover and highlight community voices.

Portrait of Colorado at 150, a signature initiative of the America 250 – Colorado 150 Commission, added more than 150 oral histories to the History Colorado collection. The Portrait team traveled to dozens of counties across our state to connect with communities and learn more about their regions, histories, and experiences through oral history. The project captures a collective portrait of the state for those who call Colorado home today.

Dr. Kim Kennedy White, Curator of Oral History and Project Lead for Portrait of Colorado at 150, and Indira Saha, Community Collections Project Assistant for Portrait of Colorado, share some of the highlights, revelations, and stories from the project and reflecting on the central role that communities have in documenting their own stories.

About the Speaker

Kim Kennedy White, PhD, is a curator, folklorist, and oral historian from Boulder, Colorado. She is Curator of Arts & Leisure and John W. Emery Family Curator of Oral History at History Colorado and project lead for the Portrait of Colorado at 150 signature storytelling initiative of the America 250-Colorado 150 Commission. Dr. Kennedy White serves as steward to several thousand oral histories in the History Colorado collection and continues to record contemporary stories reflecting Colorado’s rich cultural heritage.

Indira Saha is a public historian and earned her M.A. in Public History from the University of Colorado Denver. She currently works at History Colorado as the Community Collections Project Assistant for the Portrait of Colorado at 150 storytelling initiative. She conducts oral history interviews and helps preserve stories from communities across Colorado.

What the San Luis Land Rights Movement Teaches Us About Building Successful Coalitions
The State Historian’s Address with Dr. Nicki Gonzales

May 19 | 1:00 pm and 7:00 pm | In-Person 

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We hear a lot today about the power of coalitions in building a more just and inclusive society and the need to look at history for useful lessons for doing so. In 1979, National Chicano and American Indian leaders gathered at the Chama Land Conference and spoke about the need for unity among their peoples as they continued the struggle for justice and traditional land rights. Denver activist Marcos Martinez, head of the Colorado Committee Against Repression stated “What happens in Chama happens around the rest of the country. A victory for Chama is a victory for the world.” Apolinar Rael, the movement’s elder, implored the crowd to remember that “We are the same people.” This moment—one of many—of coalition-building would propel the community of San Luis to an unprecedented legal victory in their land rights struggle. This talk will highlight historical examples of successful coalition building and will help us draw lessons for today, as we look to build a world in which we all can flourish.

About the Speaker

Dr. Nicki Gonzales is Colorado’s current State Historian and a professor of history and Vice Provost at Regis University. She has dedicated her life to exploring and amplifying the histories of Latino, Chicano, and Hispanic communities across Colorado and the broader American West. Dr. Gonzales made history when she became the first Latino State Historian during her initial tenure from August 2021 through July 2022. She has served on the State Historian’s council since 2018. She is a board member for the Museum of Denver, and she has played a key role in Denver’s restoration plans for La Alma-Lincoln Park. Dr. Gonzales was History Colorado's appointee to the Colorado Geographic Naming Advisory Board established by Governor Jared Polis in July 2020. She has also served as historical consultant to the City and County of Denver’s oral history and documentary film project Nuestras Historias: Mexican American, Chicano, and Latino Histories, as well as Boulder County’s Latinx and Chicano Historic Context Study. 

The Rosenberry Lecture Series is made possible through the generous support of our sponsors,

Legacy III Fund 

in memory of Walter S. Rosenberry III