Lakewood Legend
By Lily Connelly
Booker Sr. with Booker Jr. at City Park in 1946. “Photo of Booker Sr. & Booker Jr. Sowell - Sowell Family,” n.d., from the Sowell Family Collection, Heritage Lakewood Belmar Park Online Catalogue, accessed August 26, 2025, donated by Gary Sowell, courtesy of Archivist, https://heritagelakewood.catalogaccess.com/photos/27381; Gary Sowell, “Alameda Stepping Stone 1900’s to 1990’s: The rise & fall,” unpublished manuscript, 1992, Courtesy of Heritage Lakewood Belmar Park Museum.
Source: Alameda Connects, courtesy of Gary Sowell
Booker T. Sowell
October 29, 1919 - March 19, 1991
The story of Booker T. Sowell is one of hard work and determination. Throughout his life, he faced numerous hardships, but he remained steadfast in creating opportunities for himself and his family. Booker was a man who bravely fought for his rights in the face of racist intimidation, making Colorado history while doing so. In the end, Booker’s resolve and sincerity, even in the face of adversity, were recognized, and he became a respected and welcomed member of his community.
Booker T Sowell was born on October 29, 1919, in San Augustine, Texas, to Eddie “Buck” and Rose Stella Sowell.[1] His father and grandparents had previously been enslaved in Texas.[2] San Augustine County was home to mostly farmers when he was born, with a railroad stop and some lumber companies in the area.[3] The boll weevil destroyed many crops in the area during the 1920s, followed by the Great Depression.[4] Furthermore, the lumber industry exhausted the trees in the area, so the sawmills had to lay off workers.[5] There was also a sizable number of sharecroppers, over 1,000 in the county by 1930.[6] Sharecropping is a type of tenant farming where a farmer works on an owner's land for a share of the profit and a place to live. Sharecropping was an unequal exchange that kept many people, including formerly enslaved people, in cycles of poverty.[7]
Rose Stella died shortly after giving birth to Booker’s youngest sibling. Buck was sentenced to prison after an incident involving his refusal to sell some property to city developers, and the situation escalated to shots being fired. The property was then taken after his incarceration.[8] So Booker, five years old at the time, went to live with his Aunt and Uncle, Nettie and Alfred, on their farm. Combined with his siblings and cousins, Booker grew up alongside over ten children on the farm.[9] Booker completed a couple of years of high school and helped on the farm until he decided to enlist in the Army.[10] He thought the Army would give him a chance to travel and an escape from the way he was treated as a Black man in Texas.[11] His brother Leonard also enlisted in the Army a year later; he is also buried in Fort Logan.[12]
Booker enlisted in early March 1941.[13] He was a Technical Sergeant, promoted from Staff Sergeant, which meant he received a slightly higher pay for having a specialized trade.[14] Booker was a Technical Sergeant in the 92nd Infantry Division, known as the “Buffalo Soldiers.”[15] He was in the First Battalion of the Headquarters Company, under the 365th Infantry Regiment.[16] The Buffalo Soldiers got their nickname from the late 1860s, from Black soldiers who volunteered in the West.[17] The 92nd Infantry Division first fought in France during World War I and received the same nickname for being an all-Black division.[18] The 92nd Division was reactivated in 1942, and men like Booker, who were assigned to the Division, were sent to Fort Huachuca, Arizona, where they trained for two years at the remote army installation in the desert.[19] Booker received the Good Conduct Medal during his training and was the assistant treasurer for his Battalion’s recreation club.[20]
The Black men in the 92nd Infantry Division faced discrimination during their service. They were trained and housed in segregated facilities, and they were often put on labor or support Battalions, as it was thought Black soldiers were inept or unsuitable for combat.[21] The 92nd Division was the only African American infantry division that saw extended combat in Europe during World War II.[22] They fought in Italy, on the westernmost end of the Allied Front.[23] They were met with cold and rainy conditions alongside extremely difficult mountainous and muddy terrain while fighting groups like the German 14th Army and Italian Fascist soldiers on the heavily fortified Gothic Line; Booker was deployed to La Spezia and Genoa in the Serchio Valley in Italy.[24] The 92nd had heavy casualties; almost a fourth of the Division had been killed by the end of the Italian campaign.[25] They also faced trench-like warfare from the Germans digging in while trying to keep the Allies from taking La Spezia and the nearby naval base.[26] After the war, the Buffalo Soldiers and other Black veterans did not receive much recognition, and they didn’t have the same access to the G.I. Bill as White veterans did.[27] An investigation done by Shaw University even confirmed that systemic racial discrimination played a role in Black soldiers being denied the Medal of Honor during World War II.[28]
During his service, Booker kept in touch with his brother, and he would visit his hometown during his leaves, which is how he met his wife, Lois Jean Brown. He married her and they were expecting their first child while he was still active.[29] Booker was discharged from the Army in early November 1945.[30] He returned to Texas, but did not want to raise children there; he wanted a better life for them than he had growing up.[31] He originally meant to meet an aunt who lived in New Mexico, but she passed away before he arrived, so he continued North and ended up in Denver. He took a liking to Denver as he travelled around Colorado.[32] He first worked at a meatpacking factory, and then sent for his family to join him. While apprehensive at first, Lois eventually joined him and brought Booker’s brother Leonard.[33] Since the family was now growing in size, and Lois was expecting their second child, Booker began searching for a house.[34]
Booker and Lois had their hearts set on buying a house in the Alameda area on W. Center Ave, now the Lakewood area, west of Denver.[35] Buying a property as a Black man would’ve been difficult at the time in the area because of race-based covenants preventing Black people from buying certain properties.[36] Furthermore, the woman who owned the house made comments to Booker and refused to sell the property to him because he was Black.[37] Booker wouldn’t give up and decided to get an attorney to help him.[38] The attorney purchased the house for him, and then deeded Booker the property.[39] This made Booker the first Black man to live in and own property in Jefferson County. In a podcast interview, one of his sons, Gary Sowell, says that his father was determined to live in the area and make a name for himself.[40] However, Booker struggled to find a high-paying job in the area and was laid off from the factory.[41] He managed to find a job with a private contractor to build houses and was promoted as foreman for one of the crews. However, an incident arose when two bricklayers refused to work, declaring they would not work under a Black man. Lois even received a telephone call telling Booker not to come to work the next day, but Booker bravely went anyway. The conflict between Booker and the two men came to blows, and in the end, only Booker was fired.[42] After this blatant display of prejudice, Booker was upset and shaken; he began to doubt that he could ever find an opportunity as a Black man, even after moving from Texas and working so hard to own his house.[43] So, after careful thought, Booker decided to start his own business as a private contractor building houses to make his own way. He did stonemasonry, laid brick, poured concrete, and built a successful business.[44] Booker wanted to focus on securing his children’s futures, to provide a safety net for them, especially once they grew up and had to face the kinds of injustice he had seen throughout his life.[45] Booker Sr. and his wife, Lois Jean, had eight sons and one daughter. The Sowell children were then the first Black children to attend and graduate from a Jefferson County School.[46]
It certainly wasn’t easy to be the first Black family in Jefferson County. In fact, it would’ve been dangerous for Black people to live in the area at the time. The Ku Klux Klan had a strong presence in Denver and in Jefferson County throughout the 1920s, with 10,000 women members of the KKK marching in a parade down Wadsworth Avenue in 1925.[47] The Klan would meet in Golden, which is in Jefferson County, and close to Lakewood.[48] They would even burn crosses on top of Tabletop Mountain in Golden.[49] In a podcast interview, one of Booker’s sons, Gary, remembers that the Ku Klux Klan would go cruising in Denver to harass minorities after their meetings ended, down Colfax Avenue or Sheridan Boulevard; he remembered several times his dad would rush him and the other children inside, and he could hear hollering and gunshots from the KKK harassing the family.[50] Booker Sr. would sometimes patrol around the front yard with a gun to protect them.[51] They also received multiple threatening phone calls.[52]
In school, the Sowell children also faced obstacles growing up as the only Black children. Families protested their eldest son Booker Jr.’s enrollment in school as the first Black student and even threatened to boycott unless he was removed.[53] Some substitute teachers would refuse to teach their children.[54] The Sowell children were on the baseball, basketball, and football teams, and opposing schools would pack up their gear and refuse to play them.[55] Parents sent letters complaining when Booker Jr. joined the baseball team.[56]
In his self-published book about his family and the Alameda area, Gary Sowell describes his father as an extremely dedicated, driven man who came to have many friends and was well-respected in the area by the time of his death.[57] He described that over time, despite the hardships they faced moving in and growing up, the Sowell family was eventually accepted into the community.[58] Furthermore, the Sowell family opened doors for other Black families and families of color to move there. They have many family photos that can be explored in the Lakewood Heritage Belmar Park Archives, including the above picture of Booker Sr. with Booker Jr. sitting on a fountain at City Park.[59] One of their sons, Charles, who passed away in 1983, was a Vietnam veteran and is also buried in Fort Logan.[60] Booker Sr. passed away on March 19, 1991, from cancer.[61] His funeral had so many attendants that they couldn’t all fit in the building.[62] Booker is buried with his wife Lois, who passed away in 2014.[63]
Footnotes ↓
[1] “US, WWII Draft Registration Cards, 1940,” fold3.com, entry for Booker T. Sowell, accessed August 26, 2025; “1920 United States Federal Census,” ancestry.com, entry for Booker T. Sowell, accessed August 26, 2025; “U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007,” ancestry.com, entry for Booker T. Sowell, accessed August 26, 2025.
[2] Sowell, “Alameda Stepping Stone.”
[3] “Vista K. McCroskey, “San Augustine County: History, Geography, and Economy,” Texas State Historical Association, February 10, 2021, accessed August 26, 2025, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/san-augustine-county; Vista K. McCroskey, “History and Development of San Augustine, Texas,” Texas State Historical Association, February 12, 2019, accessed August 26, 2025, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/san-augustine-tx-san-augustine-county.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Jared Tetreau, “Sharecropping: Slavery Rerouted,” PBS, accessed August 26, 2025, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/harvest-sharecropping-slavery-rerouted/.
[8] Sowell, “Alameda Stepping Stone”; “Texas, U.S., Convict and Conduct Registers, 1875-1954,” ancestry.com, entry for Buck Sowell, accessed August 26, 2025.
[9] “1930 United States Federal Census,” ancestry.com, entry for Booker T. Sowell, accessed August 26, 2025; Sowell, “Alameda Stepping Stone.”
[10] “1940 United States Federal Census,” ancestry.com, entry for Booker T. Sowell, accessed August 26, 2025; “US, WWII Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946,” fold3.com, entry for Booker T. Sowell, accessed August 26, 2025.
[11] Sowell, “Alameda Stepping Stone.”
[12] “U.S., Find a Grave Index, 1600s-Current,” ancestry.com, entry for Leonard Sowell, accessed August 26, 2025.
[13] “Booker T Sowell Enlistment Records.”
[14] “U.S., Find a Grave Index, 1600s-Current,” ancestry.com, entry for Booker T. Sowell, accessed August 26, 2025; “What Was a “Tech Sergeant” in World War II?” Veterans Breakfast Club, accessed August 26, 2025, https://veteransbreakfastclub.org/what-was-a-tech-sergeant-in-world-war-ii/.
[15] “Discover Alameda Icons.”
[16] “365th Infantry,” The Buffalo, October 23, 1943, Arizona Memory Project, State of Arizona Research Library, p.5, accessed August 26, 2025, https://azmemory.azlibrary.gov/nodes/view/37958.
[17] Robert Hodges Jr., “How the ‘Buffalo Soldiers’ helped turn the tide in Italy during World War II,” Military Times, February 14, 2018, accessed August 26, 2025, https://www.militarytimes.com/military-honor/black-military-history/2018/02/14/how-the-buffalo-soldiers-helped-turn-the-tide-in-italy-during-world-war-ii/.
[18] Ibid.
[19] “The Buffalo Collection Summary,” Arizona Memory Project, State of Arizona Research Library, accessed August 26, 2025, https://azmemory.azlibrary.gov/nodes/view/20861.
[20] “The Buffalo October 1943,”; “365th Infantry,” The Buffalo, June 3, 1944, Arizona Memory Project, State of Arizona Research Library, p.5, accessed August 26, 2025, https://azmemory.azlibrary.gov/nodes/view/37976.
[21] Guido Rossi, “‘Buffalo Soldiers’–The 92nd Infantry Division–in Italy, 1944-45,” Picturing Black History, accessed August 26, 2025, https://picturingblackhistory.org/a-tough-road-uphill/; Michael D. Hull, “The Brave Buffalo Soldiers,” Military History Network, October 2022, accessed August 26, 2025, https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/the-brave-buffalo-soldiers/.
[22] Hodges, “How the ‘Buffalo Soldiers’ helped turn the tide.”
[23] Ibid.
[24] “Discover Alameda Icons.”
[25] Rossi, “Buffalo Soldiers in Italy.”
[26] Hodges, “How the ‘Buffalo Soldiers’ helped turn the tide.”
[27] Dave Davies, “‘Half American’ explores how Black WWII servicemen were treated better abroad,” NPR, November 8, 2022, accessed August 26, 2025, https://www.npr.org/2022/11/07/1134756262/half-american-matthew-delmont-black-wwii.
[28] “The Complex Legacy of the 92nd Infantry Division,” Buffalo Soldiers National Museum, accessed August 26, 2025, https://buffalosoldiersmuseum.org/92nd-infantry-divison-exhibit/the-complex-legacy-of-the-92nd-infantry-division/.
[29] Sowell, “Alameda Stepping Stone.”
[30] “US, Veterans’ Gravesites, ca.1775-2019,” fold3.com, entry for Booker T. Sowell, accessed August 26, 2025.
[31] Sowell, “Alameda Stepping Stone.”
[32] Ibid.; “Discover Alameda Icons.”
[33] Sowell, “Alameda Stepping Stone.”
[34] Ibid.
[35] “Discover Alameda Icons.”
[36] Christopher Thiry, “Mapping Historic Race-Based Property Covenants in Jefferson County, Colorado,” Arthur Lakes Library, accessed August 26, 2025, https://libguides.mines.edu/jeffco.
[37] Sowell, “Alameda Stepping Stone.”
[38] Ibid.
[39] Ibid.; “Discover Alameda Icons”; “1950 United States Federal Census,” ancestry.com, entry for Booker T. Sowell, accessed August 26, 2025.
[40] “Gary Sowell,” interview with Jeremiah McAllister and Gary Sowell, The Our World Podcast, podcast audio, June 25, 2025, accessed August 25, 2025, https://youtu.be/QrAIjMpf3bI?si=BwJRN14MPznxjIKH.
[41] Sowell, “Alameda Stepping Stone.”
[42] Ibid.
[43] Ibid.
[44] “Gary Sowell”; Sowell, “Alameda Stepping Stone.”
[45] Ibid.
[46] Ibid.
[47] “The 1920s,” Jefferson County, Colorado, accessed August 26, 2025, https://www.jeffco.us/2033/1920s; Elenia Louvaris, “Ku Klux Klan,” Colorado Encyclopedia, accessed August 26, 2025, https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/ku-klux-klan.
[48] Barb Warden, “A Cross on the Mountain (Again),” Golden Today, May 18, 2024, accessed August 26, 2025, https://www.goldentoday.com/a-cross-on-the-mountain/.
[49] Ibid.
[50] “Gary Sowell.”
[51] Ibid.
[52] Sowell, “Alameda Stepping Stone.”
[53] Ibid.
[54] “Gary Sowell.”
[55] Ibid.
[56] Sowell, “Alameda Stepping Stone.”
[57] Ibid.
[58] Ibid.
[59] “Booker Sr. & Booker Jr.”; Sowell, “Alameda Stepping Stone.”
[60] “U.S., Find a Grave Index, 1600s-Current,” ancestry.com, entry for Charles Edward Sowell, accessed August 26, 2025; Sowell, “Alameda Stepping Stone.”
[61] Sowell, “Alameda Stepping Stone”; “U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014,” ancestry.com, entry for Booker T. Sowell, accessed August 26, 2025.
[62] Sowell, “Alameda Stepping Stone.”
[63] “Booker T Sowell Find a Grave Index”; “U.S., Find a Grave Index, 1600s-Current,” ancestry.com, entry for Lois Jean Sowell, accessed August 26, 2025.
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