The Righteous Walk of Wilma J. Webb

The Honorable Wilma J. Webb has made a remarkable impact, dedicating over 50 years to community service and political leadership as a distinguished stateswoman. With a legacy of advocacy for the arts, education and equity as a Colorado State Representative and Denver’s First Lady, Webb is one of the most celebrated women in Colorado history.

Born Wilma J. Gerdine on May 17, 1943 at Denver General Hospital, Webb was raised by her parents Frank W. Gerdine and Faye E. Gerdine. She and her family lived in Northeast Denver and attended New Hope Baptist Church at its original location in the historic Five Points neighborhood.

The second of seven children, she was an avid scholar whose early education laid the foundation for a future of achievement. She attended Whittier Elementary School, Cole Middle School, and graduated from Manual High School in 1961, serving as class president and participating in writing contests and honor programs.

The spirit of the times and the turbulent social climate of the 1960’s were the catalysts and driving forces behind Webb’s early interest in political activism. In November 1963, she was an employee of Mobil Oil Corporation in Downtown Denver when she learned that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated. “People were standing around the (newly colored) televisions; there was a lot of emotion and people were crying,” she recalls. “That was the largest shock that most Americans could have ever experienced in that period of time.”

Shaken by the untimely loss of the diplomatic leader, the subsequent assassinations of civil rights icons, Malcolm X and Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., were devastating tragedies which catapulted Webb into a more active role in the community.

“I will never forget that day,” she shares, referencing the group of people gathered at the Holly Shopping Center after the news of Dr. King’s assassination spread across the nation. The quiet tension that followed his death spoke to the enormity of what the nonviolent leader meant to the Black community. “And so, I decided that I was going to get more active and more involved about issues that were very concerning to me.”

In 1968, a chance encounter with Robert F. “Bobby” Kennedy preceded her involvement in local civics. Kennedy had announced Dr. King’s death in April 1968, and as he traveled across the country to California, Webb wanted to see him in person during his Denver stop.

“He passed right down 16th Street in that open convertible, and people were climbing poles and uncontrollably grabbing at him. The crowds were endearing; they loved him so much,” she says. “His rally was held at the Auditorium Arena, so I walked all the way from the Security Life Building to try to get closer. By the time I walked down there the rally was just about over, but he came out, and I saw him.”

When Kennedy finally made it to the Ambassador Hotel in Beverly Hills on June 5, two months after Dr. King’s assassination, he was shot and killed.

“I felt so bad about two sons out of one family being assassinated, and about Dr. King, and about Malcolm X,” Webb laments. “So, I thought that I should get busy doing something to help unify the country, to speak out when injustice is being perpetrated on people because of their race, religion, politics, gender and other forms of hatred and discrimination.”

One particular area that Webb believed could make an impact in her community was education.

Activism & New Beginnings

In 1968, Webb became involved in efforts to create a more equitable landscape within the Denver Public School District (DPS).

Her children were in elementary school when DPS teacher, Ted Davis, drew attention to segregative practices throughout the district. Rachel B. Noel, who was elected as the first Black person to serve on the Denver’s Board of Education, was working to provide equal opportunities for students with a resolution that promoted the tool of “bussing” to end de facto segregation. Webb worked with a group of young parents called the Committee on Greater Opportunity (CoGo), which attended school board meetings in support of Noel’s efforts and to advocate for the desegregation of Denver schools.

“That is when I really got involved by being a community activist,” Webb says. I didn’t decide to run for office until later, but I was always involved in trying to register people to vote, trying to help the poor, taking children to places they had never been before – not just my own children, but other children – and just doing good things in the community.”

Earlier, another new beginning emerged.

Wellington Webb had relocated from Chicago to the same Northeast Denver neighborhood as an adolescent, graduating from Manual High School in 1958. While their paths had crossed between the years, their courtship began later in life. “I called her up one day and said, ‘Let’s go have lunch,’ and things kind of took off from there,” he said in a 2023 interview with Denver7 News.

The couple married in 1971 and became a blended family of six, raising their children Anthony, Allen, Keith and Stephanie.

Mr. Webb graduated with a master’s degree in sociology from Colorado State University (now the University of Northern Colorado) in 1971, and in 1972 announced his first political campaign. He was elected to the Colorado House of Representatives, where he served until 1977 before being selected by President Jimmy Carter to serve as the regional director of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. In 1987, he was elected as the city auditor.

Meanwhile, Webb was an executive assistant and a devoted wife and mother who nurtured her family, remained active in her community, took night classes at University of Colorado Denver and supported her husband’s political interests – all while building a political legacy and platform of her own.

In 1973, she became a Democratic Committeewoman, and served as the Democratic Party Secretary. She was the editor of the Democratic State Party Newsletter and the chair of the Democratic Committee on Housing, serving as an elected delegate to several state and national conventions and co-chairing a presidential candidate’s campaign in Colorado.

In 1980, State Representative King Trimble vacated his seat when transitioning to Denver City Council, accelerating Webb’s first run for political office. She was elected during an April midterm election, then won the seat during the subsequent November election.

With a steadfast commitment to her family and her community, Webb served six terms as a Colorado State Representative from 1980 to 1993, making history as the first woman and African American to represent House District 8.

The Righteous Walk

When Webb entered the political arena, it wasn’t the result of lifelong aspirations. Neither she nor her husband dreamed of public recognition or status. “We got involved in politics because we wanted to make a difference, and we wanted to change a lot of the unjust laws that existed,” she pointed out.

During her tenure, she successfully wrote and carried laws affecting people from all walks of life.

She carried Colorado’s first and only Comprehensive Anti-Drug Abuse Law providing substance abuse treatment, and carried legislation that disallowed discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation. She advocated for the inclusion of minorities and women in business with tax incentives and Enterprise Zones (now Opportunity Zones), and supported the continuation of the Colorado Women’s Commission and the granting of subpoena power to the Colorado Civil Rights Division.

With education at the forefront of her platform and political goals, Webb created bills that enhanced educational experiences for every student in the state. Legislation that expanded kindergarten from half-day to full-day was successfully passed, though attempts to counter student drop-out rates with mandated education from grades kindergarten through 12th grade were not adopted by the legislature.

She also supported national initiatives through local political action, carrying bills to impose sanctions on businesses that conducted commerce with those involved in apartheid – a system of institutionalized racial segregation – in South Africa. She was also the first minority woman to serve on the Colorado Joint Budget Committee, where she participated in the development of the state’s multi-billion-dollar budget.

One of the most impactful pieces of legislation written and carried by Webb involved the civil rights icon whose assassination propelled her desire to make change. Early in her political career, she introduced legislation that would grant a statewide holiday in honor of Dr. King. At the time, the nation was still very divided on racial matters, and her legislation faced great opposition.

Ultimately, Webb endured a 10-year fight, carrying legislation for four years in four original attempts and strategically working to invalidate dissenting opinions about whether the state should adopt the holiday.

Remembering the reasons why she persevered in the fight for the holiday, she says, “I had one of the greatest persons who ever lived – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. – as the element of what the effort was all about. I kept on going because of his wisdom, his humanitarian lifestyle and his nonviolent method of changing the direction of an entire nation – and really the world. I had that as a foundation. That gave me all that I needed.”

Year after year, Webb never lost hope or gave up on the belief that the holiday would be adopted.

“One thing that kept me going was that we had something that perhaps people didn’t have centuries ago, and Dr. King recognized it too: we had television,” she says. “We saw all of that strife that the South was going through, and what the garbage workers were going through, people not being employed and not being promoted, and the killings that occurred.”

Emboldened to carry on Dr. King’s legacy after his assassination, Webb and other civic leaders around the country worked diligently to cement his monumental contributions in history in every way possible.

“Dr. King’s words, his involvement, his leadership, his being able to influence presidents and the congress and people across the world to believe that what he was doing was being done – not just because of the root causes of all of it – but that it was being done the righteous way.”

In 1984, she finally succeeded with the introduction of House Bill 1201, which was adopted by a large majority vote of the Colorado General Assembly and signed into law by Governor Richard D. Lamm on April 4, 1984.

In her youth, Webb met Dr. King and his wife, Coretta Scott King, who had visited Denver and New Hope Baptist Church several times. She was the organist playing during a Woman’s Day celebration when Mrs. King gave her first public address, and the two became friends. They had seen each other at several national meetings, and Mrs. King visited Denver at Webb’s invitation, encouraging all citizens to support the holiday.

After HB-1201 passed, Mrs. King returned to Colorado. She and Webb asked Governor Lamm to create the Martin Luther King, Jr. Colorado Holiday Commission, for which Webb was named chairman. The inaugural holiday was celebrated for six days in January 1986, with an estimated 15,000 people gathered in Denver City Park for the very first “Martin Marade.” The printed program from the inaugural celebration is exhibited in the King Center of Atlanta, Georgia.

The Webbs continue to honor King at every opportunity, modeling their leadership after the righteous walk to freedom he and other civil rights leaders endured in pursuit of equality. The Colorado State Capitol Building features a portrait of Dr. King, painted by Artist Irving Watts and commissioned by the Inaugural Holiday Commission. Denver City Park features a beautiful bronze statue, commissioned by Webb and sculpted by local artist and America’s first Black astronaut candidate, Ed Dwight.

“Black people had not been credited for our contributions to this country. America needed the King holiday as much as we needed to be credited for our contributions to America,” Webb says. “It’s the only holiday that makes us examine our consciences. It’s the only holiday that does that.”

Webb’s infallible perseverance solidified her reputation as a political powerhouse, and when she transitioned to yet another historic position of service and leadership, her commitment never wavered.

An Iconic First Lady

In 1991, Mr. Webb’s political journey carried him to new heights. He announced his candidacy for mayor, and together the couple devised a unique campaign strategy, dubbed “The Sneaker Campaign.”

When early polls showed Wellington E. Webb at 7%, the couple determined that he should walk the city in order to meet the constituency and position himself as a relatable, best choice for mayor. The effort was successful, and Mr. Webb was elected as Denver’s first Black mayor.

For Webb, who decided at the encouragement of her children not to run for a newly vacated seat in the U.S. Congress, the role of first lady was an opportunity to create even more of an impact on a different level.

“Being first lady allowed me to establish something where we as women had not really had that opportunity. And so, I did everything that I was asked to do. I wrote my own speeches; I called press conferences; I brought attention to different kinds of issues…I was happy to help and to do what I could because of my experience, but I also wanted to make a positive contribution so that we would leave a good legacy. I wanted to do something that was meaningful to women, children and citizens to make them feel like their government works for them,” she said, noting, “The people made me their first lady.”

Webb was an active first lady, who used her political background and community influence to propel the role to one of active leadership for the first time in state history. She served in the role for the 12 years of Mr. Webb’s three consecutive terms, and in 1997 she was appointed by President William “Bill” Clinton as the Region VIII chief administrator for the U.S. Department of Labor. For three years, she served in both capacities, answering to the people of Denver and enforcing federal statutes in eight states.

Mr. Webb completed his third and final term in 2003. During his time in office, he focused on parks and open space, public safety, economic development, children and health care. He oversaw the completion of several city landmarks, including Denver International Airport, with his loving first lady at his side every step of the way, even co-chairing the impressive airport’s grand opening.

During her time as first lady, Webb advocated for the arts and served as chairperson of the Mayor’s Commission on Art, Culture and Film, leading efforts to develop Denver’s Vision for Art and making additions to the People’s Art Collection. She founded and served as the first president of the Denver Art, Culture and Film Foundation, and hosted international first ladies as they officially visited the city.

The Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library is one of the most impactful contributions of Mr. Webb’s post. The library, envisioned by Denver’s own first lady, is in Five Points, and operates as a full-service library as well as a research library. The “Wilma J. Webb Archives Research and Reading Room” houses a collection of archives, and a museum and art gallery pays tribute to the African American legacy from Western expansion to the present. Befittingly, the library is home to an extensive archive detailing the Webbs’ lives and political careers.

Life After Office

Though Webb no longer holds an official title in the state legislature, she maintains a high level of involvement and has spent her post-political years in service to her community in Colorado and throughout the nation.

“I still answer,” she smiles. “People call me and ask me to speak to people of all ages. I still make visits to hospitals, and I still participate with several organizations. I have never quit serving.”

Webb is an honorary member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated. She is also a member of The Links, Incorporated, and is active on many boards and commissions.

The Webbs have traveled the world, representing Denver as a world class city and visiting with dignitaries in sister cities such as Axum, Ethiopia; Nairobi, Kenya; Potenza, Italy; and Takayama, Japan.

This year marks the Webbs’ 52nd anniversary, for which Webb credits their love for God and each other. “We really love each other,” she says. “And so much comes from love that makes everything else possible to do.”

2024 also marks the 40th anniversary of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday, which Webb fought so hard to establish in Colorado. At this year’s Marade, she was photographed sitting in the blustery, bitter cold looking ahead resolutely. “I was thinking about each year of celebrating Dr. King. It seems like time has just flown by,” she recalls. “I also thought about the people who were there, and that they were really influenced and strengthened by Dr. King to come out in that kind of weather.”

In addition to being honored each year for her resilience in passing HB-1201, Webb is the recipient of the National Humanitarian Award; the National Human Rights Award; the National Education Association Carter G. Woodson Award for Human and Civil Rights; the Arc’s Legislator of the Year Award; and the Colorado Banking Association’s Political Award. She was inducted into the Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame and the Blacks in Colorado Hall of Fame, and in 2022 she was presented with the Colorado Governor’s Citizenship Medal. This year, she will be honored with an induction into The Denver and Colorado Tourism Hall of Fame for her efforts to increase arts appreciation.

Continuing to serve wherever there is a need, Webb’s legendary record of elected and selected public service, community leadership and family devotion is a beautiful beacon of light, and an inspiration to all.