The Ludlow Colorado coal miner strike took place in the early 20th century.

Many families died after the Colorado National Guard burned down the tent city where the miners and their families were living.

Hi, I'm Shannon, and this week on the Lectures and History podcast, Professor Fawn Amber Montoya of Colorado State

University, shares those family's stories and how they're remembered today.

Okay. So, sorry, I'm always getting nervous. This is actually one of the hardest lectures

that I give, and it's because there's this mixture of history, but there's

also some personal stories in it. And for me, I just kind of a little bit of background.

So for those of you that don't know or have heard, who's ever heard of the Ludlow Massacre?

Okay, so I want to, about 70% of you. Okay. In the mid-2000s, archaeologists at the University of Denver did a survey of Coloradoans,

and they found that less than 70% of people in Colorado had ever heard of the Ludlow massacre.

And of those that had third of the Ludlow massacre, they thought that it was a massacre by Native Americans killing white settlers.

Okay. So just a little bit of background for my experience with the Ludlow Massacre.

I grew up in Southern Colorado. My family has lived here for the past 150 years.

Ludlow was actually my first field trip in the third grade.

I went to college.

I ended up studying with an individual who had done research on Southern Colorado Hispanics.

And I had the opportunity to do research at the CF&I archives, which is our steel mill in our community. In the past couple of years, I was also able to sit on the Ludlow Centennial Commission.

So it had been 100 years since the Ludlow Massacre.

It was a governor-appointed commission.

I ended up being the co-chair of the commission.

I'm going to have you guys scoot in just a little bit.

I hope that doesn't mess it up too much.

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