A black Denver resident is three times more likely than a white resident to be shot by law enforcement. Latino residents are nearly twice as likely to be shot.

The Colorado Black Round Table's second annual Gaining Ground summit targeted inequities experienced by the state's black residents in education, health care, criminal justice and family incomes, as compared to the state's white residents.

After month-long church and community discussions addressing disparities faced by Colorado’s black residents, the Colorado Black Round Table is convening its “gaining ground” summit this weekend to chart a course toward progress.

In unit 4C of the Pueblo County jail, any human presence draws inmates to the narrow windows of their solitary cells.

They range from simple strategies such as reading to children daily, taking time to walk a mile and opening savings accounts to comprehensive campaigns to restore budget cuts to public education and to eliminate grocery story food deserts in low-income neighborhoods.

Angel Castro’s days teeter between determination and desperation. She is 28, impoverished, scarred from a chaotic childhood and adolescence, raising two young children alone.

In the 1960s, the giant CF&I steel plant on the southern end of Pueblo was the economic driving engine and racial equalizer for Colorado’s southernmost major city.

Lucero Barrios is Latina and a new mother – circumstances that place her squarely in a group of people affected by a shocking reality in Colorado: A Hispanic baby born in this state is 63 percent more likely than a white baby to die in the first year of life. LE and IM charts