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The town of Fowler has commenced an investigation into Trustee Shaun Luttrell after he was accused of racist comments on the Rocky Ford Word of Mouth Facebook page on Friday.

Editor’s Note: This story was reported in February 2025.

The town of Fowler has commenced an investigation into Trustee Shaun Luttrell after he was accused of racist comments on the Rocky Ford Word of Mouth Facebook page on Friday.

“Your just mad Google took it off the calendar,” Luttrell said in a comment under a post celebrating Black History Month.

The original post, shared by Rocky Ford resident Daeja Jones, was a collage of Black activists Fred Hampton, Huey Newton, Malcolm X, Khalid Muhammad, Marcus Garvey and Stokely Carmichael.

Superimposed over the collage was the message, “A moment of silence for those who made the ultimate sacrifice.”

Luttrell’s comment about Black History Month being removed from Google calendars garnered dozens of disapproving replies.

“What does this statement even mean?” commenter Murisa Jackson asked.

Another commenter drew attention to Luttrell’s status as a trustee board member for the town of Fowler.

“You should be ashamed of yourself, considering you’re a Town council member and want to make ignorant comments like that,” commented Phylicia Lenn. “Damn shame as to who Fowler lets on their council. Do better sir not only for yourself but for your son!”

Fowler Town Administrator Colt Davis said in an interview Luttrell’s comments were being investigated.

“Everyone has their right to say what they want, but it’s definitely a concern to us when it’s a board, trustee member,” he said.

Luttrell said in an interview he was “joking” and “poking” at Jones when he said she was upset Black History Month had been removed from Google calendars.

Google and Apple fell under scrutiny after Black History Month had in fact been removed from their respective calendar apps, and after the companies began displaying the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America,” at least for U.S.-based users, following President Donald Trump’s Day One executive order, “Restoring Names that Honor American Greatness,” signed on Jan. 20.

Luttrell said it was “weird” Black History Month was featured on Google’s front page in 2024, but it’s missing this February.

“I just mentioned it, and they started accusing me of being racist, and so I pushed back on it. I mean, I do believe that Black History Month is racist. Anything that promotes any race above another is racist by definition,” he said.

Black History Month, founded in 1976, owes its origins to “Negro History Week” dating back 99 years to February 1926, founded by Carter G. Woodson, a Black historian, author, journalist and founder of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. 

According to ASALH, Woodson himself believed Black history shouldn’t be delegated to a single week of the year.

He founded Negro History Week to promote and draw attention to Black history after being barred from attending conferences at the American Historical Association despite paying his membership dues, according to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

“He saw African-American contributions ‘overlooked, ignored, and even suppressed by the writers of history textbooks and the teachers who use them,” says the NAACP.

‘Those views are definitely in line with the Republican Party’

In addition to being a Fowler trustee, a member of the town’s governing board, Luttrell said he is also the Republican precinct chair for the majority of the town of Fowler.

He said the opinions he expresses on his Facebook account are his own, and his opinion is not validated or invalidated just because he is a government official – except he does represent the Republican Party with his thoughts on Black History Month, he said.

“I can guarantee you that those views are definitely in line with the Republican Party,” he said.

He acknowledged the U.S. has a “dark history of slavery,” and said although the Founding Fathers could not abolish racism, they did include in the U.S. Constitution “all men are created equal.”

After prodding, he also acknowledged the original U.S. Constitution did not originally consider Black people to be full persons.

Another perspective

Jones, who posted the collage of Black activists that attracted Luttrell’s comments, said racism has ramped up in the Arkansas Valley since Trump most recently entered the public purview.

“It was never that bad till he started running this last term,” she said on Facebook Messenger. “It’s like he opened up a whole new dumb way of thinkin.”

Growing up in Rocky Ford, although racism existed, it was never so “in your face,” she said. People have called her “Black bitch” and “N-(expletive)” before, she said, but now it seems people are more comfortable letting their racism show – “show their asses,” as Jones put it.

She said she works at a local bar and people would refer to Kamala Harris, once hopeful successor to former President Joe Biden, as the “N-word.”

“I know where I stand with certain people and their feelings towards Black folks and (POC),” she said. “It’s crazy too though, cause even some Mexicans have that racial bias too, and that one really hurts cause we should be standing together when it comes to being profiled and hated.”

Malcolm X, Hampton, Newton and others pictured in Jones’ original Facebook post are an inspiration to her, she said, because they stood up and fought for Black equality.

Hours after explaining how white people and white culture are the real victims of racism, Luttrell posted on another Rocky Ford Word of Mouth Facebook page on Friday.

“Pride month needs to be cancelled too,” he said, in response to an Art Matters Productions post admonishing racist and bigoted behavior.

UPDATE

Luttrell had submitted a resignation letter from the Fowler Board of Trustees, according to a March 10 board agenda.