Ralph Lawrence Carr

Ralph Lawrence Carr (December 11, 1887 – September 22, 1950) was the 29th Governor of Colorado from 1939 to 1943. Born in Rosita in Custer County, he grew up in Cripple Creek in Teller County and graduated from Cripple Creek High School in 1905. A Republican, Carr was committed to fiscal restraint in state government and opposed the New Deal policies of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. However, Carr supported Roosevelt's foreign policy. When the War Relocation Authority decided to resettle Japanese-Americans from the West Coast in a camp at Amache near Granada, Colorado, Carr went against popular anti-Japanese sentiment by urging Coloradans to welcome the evacuees. In a speech defending the rights of the displaced Japanese-Americans, Carr said:

If you harm them, you must harm me. I was brought up in a small town where I knew the shame and dishonor of race hatred. I grew to despise it because it threatened the happiness of you and you and you.

Carr's urgings for racial tolerance and for protection of the basic rights of the Japanese-Americans are generally thought to have cost him his political career, including his ambition for election to the United States Senate. He narrowly lost the 1942 Senate election to incumbent Democratic Senator Edwin C. Johnson.

Legacy

Carr is buried in Fairmount Cemetery in Denver. In 1976, a bust of Carr was erected in Denver's Sakura Square to commemorate his efforts on behalf of Japanese-Americans.

Carr has a street named after him which runs through the western suburbs of Westminster, Arvada, Wheat Ridge, and Lakewood.

On March 14, 2008, both houses of the Colorado legislature, in a unanimous vote, named a section of U.S. Route 285 between Kenosha Pass and C-470 the "Ralph Carr Memorial Highway." [1]

On June 4, 2008, Colorado Governor Bill Ritter signed Senate Bill 206 (Shaffer & Penry/T. Carroll & Marostica) authorizing the construction of a new state judicial complex in Denver to be named the Ralph L. Carr Justice Center, occupying the entire block between 13th and 14th Avenues and Broadway and Lincoln Street.[2]

See also

• Japanese American internment

References

• Who Was Who in America, v. 3 (1951–1960), Chicago: Marquis - Who's Who, 1963, p. 140.
• Schrager, Adam (2008). The Principled Politician: The Ralph Carr Story. Golden, CO: Fulcrum Publishing. ISBN 978-1-55591-654-1. 

External links

• Governor Ralph L. Carr Collection at the Colorado State Archives
• Ralph Lawrence Carr at Find a Grave
• "A Small Voice, But a Strong Voice" - A short documentary about Ralph Carr that won the 2006 National History Day competition.