Things went well for the first six months I was in Denver. True to his word, Mr. Hawes had sent a telegram to his friend James Harris in Denver, and I was given a job as a reporter on his newspaper, the Denver Sun.

As my mother had asked, about two weeks after I arrived, I visited Luther's cousins and introduced myself. They lived in Denver's Five Points area just north of the new and desirable Capitol Hill district. Five Points at this time was a diverse area where the city's aristocracy lived in mansions that were on the same streets as row houses and lesser dwellings. Germans, Irish, Jews, Mexicans, and a few Negro families all lived in the area and seemed to get along.

The day I picked to visit was an overcast, drizzly Sunday afternoon with gusty fall winds and lowerin...

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