Queen of Five Points brings comfort and care to a community in flux
Fathima Dickerson is serving up more than just food at her family’s soon-to-reopen Welton Street Cafe.
This story appears in the spring 2024 issue of RED Magazine.
Fathima Dickerson is a familiar face in Denver’s Five Points neighborhood — in more ways than one. A stunning mural near the intersection of 28th and Walnut streets, dubbed “Queen Fathima,” depicts her visage surrounded by the phrases “food for the soul” and “heart of Five Points. It’s a celebration of her contributions to the area as co-owner of the beloved family-run Welton Street Cafe.
As Dickerson prepares to reopen the historic cafe at a new location, she can’t help but reflect on the establishment’s fraught journey. “This is more than just a restaurant, it’s about saving a community,” she said. “This isn’t about me, it’s not about my family, it’s the fact that we are in a historically black district and everything is gone.”
Opened by Flynn and Mona Dickerson, Welton Street Cafe is one of the oldest remaining black-owned businesses in Five Points. When the family had to close the restaurant in 2022 because of the expiration of their longtime lease and high repair costs, the local community banded together to raise money to relocate. The new location is on the same block, allowing the business to stay true to its name.
Dickerson called the move a rebirth. The new, larger space will improve the restaurant’s capacity, while also serving as home to The Five Points of Armor, a nonprofit dedicated to providing resources to community members. Dickerson is putting together the organization.
Since day one, Dickerson’s life has centered around keeping her family’s restaurant solvent. Now, as co-owner and frontwoman, she is also charged with keeping the cafe’s legacy alive. She is proud of how far she has come, not only as a businessowner and figure in her community, but as a strong Black woman, or SBW, who had to find herself after feeling lost for many years.
Her identity as an SBW was all she had ever known, but she didn’t fully understand it until college. From the moment she enrolled at Metropolitan State University of Denver in 2005, she began a journey of self-discovery. Majoring in English, she harnessed her love for writing to explore her identity.
“Education was my savior,” she said. “It helped me figure out who I am and who I am not.”
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Dickerson graduated from MSU Denver in 2010, and attended graduate school at the University of Colorado Denver. In her thesis for the Master of Social Sciences program, titled “Four Seasons Alone: Sacrifices of a Strong Black Woman,” she wrote: “I came to the realization that I was simply living out the myth of the SBW. As a result, I lost my identity through the service I provided. Worst of all, I lost myself.”
For her own sake and for the sake of her community, Dickerson needed to define her life and identity for herself, embracing change and guiding her life through the cycles and movement of the seasons.
These days, she stands on the cusp of a new stage in that journey. She is one of the most recognizable faces in Five Points, and not just because of the mural. It’s because she aims to be a comforting, positive and available presence in the community.
“When you think about the black faces that we have across the states, we’re either celebrating people through tragedy or trauma,” she said. “We’re not celebrating these black bodies for the positive impact they’re having in our communities. Instead of people asking ‘Who was she?’, I’d like people to ask ‘Where can I find her?’”
