Menola Upshaw, a Denver civil rights activist for decades, died Sept. 3 in DeWitt, Mich. She was 90.
A service is planned at 2 p.m. Friday at Zion Baptist Church, 933 E. 24th Ave. Viewing will be from 1 to 2 p.m.
The Rev. Paul Martin of Palmdale, Calif., former pastor of Denver’s Macedonia Baptist Church, called Upshaw “a tremendous figure in civil rights.”
“She propelled the NAACP in Denver, and everyone went to her for advice,” he said. “She was a national voice for the NAACP because of her work with the Denver NAACP.”
Upshaw was a one-time president of the Denver chapter and a member for 50 years. She served on the national NAACP board for years, said her son, Charles F. “Chuck” Upshaw Jr., who lives in DeWitt.
“Denver has lost a great civil rights leader,” said Peggy Wortham, a former aide to former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb.
“When she said she would do something, you could take it to the bank,” said former Denver first lady Wilma Webb. “She was quiet but strong.”
“She made it clear that blacks didn’t want to take space from whites, but to try to make it possible for both of us to work here,” said the Rev. Oscar Tillman, who worked for Upshaw at the NAACP after he retired from the clergy. “But Menola never, ever, never took credit for the things she did.”
Tillman said he was “kind of aggressive” when he came to Denver, but Upshaw managed to mediate any disputes that came up.
” ‘Tough’ would be too mild a word for her,” said her son. “She liked to fight and felt she was in a righteous cause. She balanced her fight with getting things done.”
Menola Upshaw’s interest in civil rights started when she was a little girl and was told she couldn’t sit with her white friend and that she had to go to the back of the streetcar.
“That scarred her and started her passion for civil rights,” her son said.
Menola N. Neal was born April 16, 1921, in St. Louis, and moved with her family to Oklahoma City.
She earned her bachelor’s degree in education from Tennessee State University, a master’s degree from the University of Oklahoma and a specialty degree in education from the University of Northern Colorado.
She moved with her family to Denver in 1957. She had taught elementary school before moving to Denver and taught special education after she arrived.
She was the first black coordinator for Denver Public Schools and was Colorado Teacher of the Year in 1967.
She married Charles F. Upshaw Sr. on Oct. 23, 1944. He died in 1963.
In addition to her son, she is survived by two grandchildren.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
Other Deaths
Nearly six decades ago, Keith W. Tantlinger built a boxor, more accurately, the corners of a box. It was a seemingly small invention but a vital one: It changed the way people buy and sell things, transformed the means by which nations do business, and ultimately gave rise to the present-day global economy.
Tantlinger’s box, large, heavy and metal, is known as the shipping container. Though he did not invent the box itself, he is widely credited with having created, in the 1950s, the first commercially viable modern one. The crucial refinements he made — including a corner mechanism that locks containers together — allowed them to be hefted by crane, stacked high in ships and transferred to trucks and trains far more easily, and cheaply, than ever before.
Thus, without ever intending to, Tantlinger, an engineer who died at 92 on Aug. 27 in Escondido, Calif., helped bring about the vast web of international trade that is a fact of 21st-century life.
The New York Times
