Interview with Janielle (Butler) Westermire: Social Justice Series

Interview with Janielle (Butler) Westermire: Social Justice Series

Noel Kalenian

Adam Lopez

July 20, 2021

Janielle Westermire talks about growing up in Grand Junction, Colorado, where her father ministered at the Handy Chapel. She speaks about feeling she lived in a safe, close knit community, but also about racism she experienced as a child. She describes the inspiring life of her father, Harry Butler, who worked in hydrology with the Bureau of Reclamation before becoming the first African-American school board member in Mesa County and the first African-American city councilperson in Grand Junction. She talks about her career as a deputy in the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office, working in the Mesa County Detention Facility, and her successful, humanistic approach to working with people of all colors and backgrounds. She speaks about the departmental approach to policing in the jail, the role that race plays in that policing, and about an incident of racial abuse she received from a white inmate. She discusses her reaction to the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police in 2020 and her views of the Black Lives Matter movement from the perspective of a Black woman and a police officer. She talks about the need for dialogue, love, and understanding among all parties and races, and reads poetry that speaks to her experiences. The interview was conducted on behalf of the Social Justice Archive in the Mesa County Oral History Project, a collaboration of Mesa County Libraries, Professor Sarah Swedberg, and Black Citizens and Friends.

Grand junction--history

Mesa county--history

African americans--west

African americans--biography

Religious life and customs

African american churches

United states--race relations

Ethnic relations

Racially mixed people

Education

Racism--united states

Police

Police-community relations

Jails

Law enforcement

Correctional personnel

Prisoners

Interpersonal communication

Race discrimination

Black lives matter movement

Floyd george 1973-2020

Poetry

Protest movements

Mesa County Oral History Project

Harry Ray Butler

Eileen (Morris) Butler

Josephine (Taylor) Dickey

David Edwin "Dave" Butler

Janielle (Butler) Westermire

Handy Chapel (Grand Junction, Colorado)

Mesa County Sheriff's Office (Grand Junction, Colorado)

Martin Luther Kind Jr. Day in Grand Junction

Plains to Peaks Collective

English

sound

https://mesa.marmot.org/Archive/mesa%3A1500/Audio