The First National Conference on Minority Participation in Earth Science and Mineral Engineering
June 7-9, 1972
Golden, Colorado
There would have been no Second National Conference without the First.
In 1972, the Colorado School of Mines and the Department of the Interior sponsored a conference where the objective was “to devise ways whereby young people in minority groups may become aware of career potentialities and obtain the training necessary to qualify for positions in earth science and mineral engineering” (from the REPORT OF THE FIRST NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MINORITY PARTICIPATION IN EARTH SCIENCE AND MINERAL ENGINEERING).
The conference report, embedded in full on this page, was the inspiration for the Second National Conference (SNC), and serves as a bleak reminder of how much still has not changed in the earth sciences in almost half a century...
Please scroll down to see quotes and photos from the conference report.
“If I were to estimate how many Black earth scientists I have known in the past 25 years, I would have to say four or five, including myself.”
- Randolph Bromery keynote, First National Conference. Bromery was the conference organizer, a geologist, and the first Black chancellor of UMass Amherst.
“Without this coalition, the long night of violence will not let up.”
— Rev. Jesse Jackson keynote
I am confident that these actions will lead to significant progress toward the Conference goals by the end of this decade and complete elimination of discrimination against members of minority groups in the earth-science and mineral-engineering professions by the end of this century.
— Edward Shelton, US Department of the Interior
