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Marie Greenwood, DPS Pioneering Teacher, Passes Away

DENVER (AP/CBS4) - Marie Greenwood, a pioneering Denver teacher who spent decades fighting segregation in city institutions, has died. She was 106.

marie greenwood denver
Marie Greenwood (credit: CBS)

Greenwood was one of the first black teachers to be hired by Denver Public Schools, which  named an elementary school after her in 2001. She is also the first African-American teacher to receive tenure at DPS.

Greenwood started her teaching career at Whittier Elementary in 1935.

marie greenwood denver

In the 1940s, Greenwood was a member of an interracial group that used lawsuits and other means to force restaurants and shops to serve blacks.

In the 1960s, she served on a Denver Public Schools committee that studied racial inequalities in school funding and staffing in the district.

The University of Northern Colorado, where Greenwood earned her teacher's degree, granted her an honorary doctorate and established a scholarship in her honor in 2010.

marie greenwood denver

Denver's Caldwell Kirk Mortuary said Greenwood died Friday.

(© Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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