Denver suburb named after ex-mayor, KKK member votes against changing name

A Denver suburb named after a former mayor who was a member of the Ku Klux Klan voted against a proposal to change the name, according to The Denver Post.

Property owners in the community of Stapleton voted 65 percent to 35 percent against renaming the community, according to results released Monday in a vote taken on behalf of the Stapleton Master Community Association.

{mosads}The community’s namesake, Benjamin Stapleton (D), served as mayor from 1923 to 1931 and again from 1935 to 1947, and was a member of the terror group during a period in the 1920s when it came to dominate Colorado politics.

“In 2019, we cannot diminish the impact of the KKK or disregard the history. In today’s society, we have to take a stand and where we stand,” Wellington Webb (D), who served as the city’s first African American mayor from 1991 to 2003, said in a Facebook post last week before the results were announced.

“We have to face reality and make a change. In 2019 we can’t honor any person who is associated with hate and bigotry,” Webb wrote.

“Rename Stpleton For All,” which spearheaded the campaign to rename the community, expressed disappointment at the results.

“That said, we are grateful to those in our community who did reach out to their neighbors and had patient, honest, and brave conversations about whether our community name should continue to honor a Klansman,” the group said on Facebook Monday.

In 2018, Stapleton’s great-grandson Walker Stapleton, then a Republican candidate for governor, was accused by a rival for the GOP nomination of paying off the Colorado History Center to remove references to his ancestor’s affiliation from a historical exhibit. The center denied the allegation.

The vote comes after another Colorado suburb voted in April to change its name from “Swastika Acres.”