Best Shot in the West
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From acclaimed authors Patricia C. McKissack and Fredrick L. McKissack Jr. comes a thrilling biography of an unforgettable man told in compelling graphic novel form. Born into slavery in 1854, Nat Love, also known as Deadwood Dick, grew up to become the most famous African-American cowboy in the Old West. A contemporary and acquaintance of Bat Masterson and Billy the Kid, Nat was widely known as an expert roper and driver, a crack shot, and a real Wild West character. Featuring lively full-color artwork by Randy DuBurke, Best Shot in the West is an exhilarating mix of high-interest historical fiction and nonstop adventure.
Bill Pickett, Bulldogger: The Biography of a Black Cowboy
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While blacks have played an important role as explorers, scouts, Indian consorts, soldiers, cowboys, farmers in the exploration, conquest, and settlement of the American West, they have received scant attention from the chroniclers of the pageant of western development.
Few of rodeos early heroes matched the achievements of the black cowboy Bill Pickett, and his story is recounted here.
Black Cowboys in the American West
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Who were the black cowboys? They were drovers, foremen, fiddlers, cowpunchers, cattle rustlers, cooks, and singers. They worked as wranglers, riders, ropers, bulldoggers, and bronc busters. They came from varied backgrounds--some grew up in slavery, while free blacks often got their start in Texas and Mexico. Most who joined the long trail drives were men, but black women also rode and worked on western ranches and farms. The first overview of the subject in more than fifty years, Black Cowboys in the American West surveys the life and work of these cattle drivers from the years before the Civil War through the turn of the twentieth century. Including both classic, previously published articles and exciting new research, this collection also features select accounts of twentieth-century rodeos, music, people, and films. Arranged in three sections--"Cowboys on the Range," "Performing Cowboys," and "Outriders of the Black Cowboys"--the thirteen chapters illuminate the great diversity of the black cowboy experience. Like all ranch hands and riders, African American cowboys lived hard, dangerous lives. But black drovers were expected to do the roughest, most dangerous work--and to do it without complaint. They faced discrimination out west, albeit less than in the South, which many had left in search of autonomy and freedom. As cowboys, they could escape the brutal violence visited on African Americans in many southern communities and northern cities. Black cowhands remain an integral part of life in the West, the descendants of African Americans who ventured west and helped settle and establish black communities. This long-overdue examination of nineteenth- and twentieth-century black cowboys ensures that they, and their many stories and experiences, will continue to be known and told.
Black Cowboys of Rodeo
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2023 Best Book Awards Winner in Nonfiction sponsored by American Book Fest They ride horses, rope calves, buck broncos, ride and fight bulls, and even wrestle steers. They are Black cowboys, and the legacies of their pursuits intersect with those of America's struggle for racial equality, human rights, and social justice. Keith Ryan Cartwright brings to life the stories of such pioneers as Cleo Hearn, the first Black cowboy to professionally rope in the Rodeo Cowboy Association; Myrtis Dightman, who became known as the Jackie Robinson of Rodeo after being the first Black cowboy to qualify for the National Finals Rodeo; and Tex Williams, the first Black cowboy to become a state high school rodeo champion in Texas. Black Cowboys of Rodeo is a collection of one hundred years of stories, told by these revolutionary Black pioneers themselves and set against the backdrop of Reconstruction, Jim Crow, segregation, the civil rights movement, and eventually the integration of a racially divided country.
Black Cowboys of Texas
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The life of a cowboy was hardly glamorous. Poorly fed, underpaid, overworked, deprived of sleep, and prone to boredom and loneliness, cowboys choked in the dust, were cold at night, and suffered broken bones in falls and spills from horses. African American cowboys, however, also had to survive discrimination, bigotry, and prejudice. From scattered courthouse records, writings, and interviews with a few of the African American cowhands who were part of the history of Texas, Sara R. Massey and a host of writers have retrieved the little known stories of some of these cowboys. Among the stories in Black Cowboys of Texas, are those of Peter Martin, a freight hauler who assisted in a rebellion against the Mexican government: Bose Ikard, who went on the cattle drive that opened the Goodnight-Loving Trail; and Johanna July, a Black Seminole woman who trained horses for U.S. soldiers.
Black Cowboys of the Old West
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The word cowboy conjures up vivid images of rugged men on saddled horses--men lassoing cattle, riding bulls, or brandishing guns in a shoot-out. White men, as Hollywood remembers them. What is woefully missing from these scenes is their counterparts: the black cowboys who made up one-fourth of the wranglers and rodeo riders. This book tells their story. When the Civil War ended, black men left the Old South in large numbers to seek a living in the Old West--industrious men resolved to carve out a life for themselves on the wild, roaming plains. Some had experience working cattle from their time as slaves; others simply sought a freedom they had never known before. The lucky travelled on horseback; the rest, by foot. Over dirt roads they went from Alabama and South Carolina to present-day Texas and California up north through Kansas to Montana. The Old West was a land of opportunity for these adventurous wranglers and future rodeo champions. A long overdue testament to the courage and skill of black cowboys, Black Cowboys of the Old West finally gives these courageous men their rightful place in history.
The Compton Cowboys
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"Thompson-Hernández's portrayal of Compton's black cowboys broadens our perception of Compton's young black residents, and connects the Compton Cowboys to the historical legacy of African Americans in the west. An eye-opening, moving book."-- Margot Lee Shetterly, New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Figures "Walter Thompson-Hernández has written a book for the ages: a profound and moving account of what it means to be black in America that is awe inspiring in its truth-telling and limitless in its empathy. Here is an American epic of black survival and creativity, of terrible misfortune and everyday resilience, of grace, redemption and, yes, cowboys."-- Junot Díaz, Pulitzer prize-winning author of This is How You Lose Her A rising New York Times reporter tells the compelling story of The Compton Cowboys, a group of African-American men and women who defy stereotypes and continue the proud, centuries-old tradition of black cowboys in the heart of one of America's most notorious cities. In Compton, California, ten black riders on horseback cut an unusual profile, their cowboy hats tilted against the hot Los Angeles sun. They are the Compton Cowboys, their small ranch one of the very last in a formerly semirural area of the city that has been home to African-American horse riders for decades. To most people, Compton is known only as the home of rap greats NWA and Kendrick Lamar, hyped in the media for its seemingly intractable gang violence. But in 1988 Mayisha Akbar founded The Compton Jr. Posse to provide local youth with a safe alternative to the streets, one that connected them with the rich legacy of black cowboys in American culture. From Mayisha's youth organization came the Cowboys of today: black men and women from Compton for whom the ranch and the horses provide camaraderie, respite from violence, healing from trauma, and recovery from incarceration. The Cowboys include Randy, Mayisha's nephew, faced with the daunting task of remaking the Cowboys for a new generation; Anthony, former drug dealer and inmate, now a family man and mentor, Keiara, a single mother pursuing her dream of winning a national rodeo championship, and a tight clan of twentysomethings--Kenneth, Keenan, Charles, and Tre--for whom horses bring the freedom, protection, and status that often elude the young black men of Compton. The Compton Cowboys is a story about trauma and transformation, race and identity, compassion, and ultimately, belonging. Walter Thompson-Hernández paints a unique and unexpected portrait of this city, pushing back against stereotypes to reveal an urban community in all its complexity, tragedy, and triumph. The Compton Cowboys is illustrated with 10-15 photographs.
Hoo-Doo Cowboys and Bronze Buckaroos
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Hoo-Doo Cowboys and Bronze Buckaroos undertakes an interdisciplinary exploration of the African American West through close readings of texts from a variety of media. This approach allows for both an in-depth analysis of individual texts and a discussion of material often left out or underrepresented in studies focused only on traditional literary material. The book engages heretofore unexamined writing by Rose Gordon, who wrote for local Montana newspapers rather than for a national audience; memoirs and letters of musicians, performers, and singers (such as W. C. Handy and Taylor Gordon), who lived in or wrote about touring the American West; the novels and films of Oscar Micheaux; black-cast westerns starring Herb Jeffries; largely unappreciated and unexamined episodes from the ""golden age of western television"" that feature African American actors; film and television westerns that use science fiction settings to imagine a ""postracial"" or ""postsoul"" frontier; Percival Everett's fiction addressing contemporary black western experience; and movies as recent as Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained. Despite recent interest in the history of the African American West, we know very little about how the African American past in the West has been depicted in a full range of imaginative forms. Hoo-Doo Cowboys and Bronze Buckaroos advances our discovery of how the African American West has been experienced, imagined, portrayed, and performed.
The Journal of Joshua Loper
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Two-time Newbery Honor-winning author Myers writes about an African-American boy's struggles with his first cattle drive in 1871 and the racial prejudices of the day. Map.
Life and Adventures of Nat Love; Better Known in the Cattle Country As 'Deadwood Dick'
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Nat Love
Born in a log cabin in Tennessee in June 1854, Nat Love was the slave of Robert Love. He was about six when the Civil War began, and after the slaves were freed following the war, Love was ready to start living a new life out West, where he could find work as a cowhand. It wasn't long before he started showing his talents as a cowboy, roping and herding cattle and learning to shoot a Colt .45. He used his skill in roping contests at rodeos, where he earned the nickname "Deadwood Dick" and was proclaimed "Champion Roper of the Western Cattle Country." Eventually Love walked away from the life of a cowboy and worked as a Pullman porter, becoming one of the most popular. Though some may be more fiction than fact, the vivid accounts in his autobiography tell tales of adventures with such characters as Billy the Kid, Buffalo Bill, Kit Carson, and the James Brothers. In this new offering, readers can discover the truth and tall tales Nat Love spun in his self-penned work.
Cathy Williams
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Few Americans today, black or white, know about the incredible life of Cathy Williams. From her beginnings as a slave in Independence, Missouri, to her enlistment with Company A, 38th U.S. Infantry, in November 1866, the story of this remarkable woman deserves to finally be told. By disguising herself as a man and assuming the name William Cathay, Williams became a 'buffalo soldier,' serving in one of the six black units formed following the Civil War. Her story tells us much about prevailing attitudes toward both race and gender in post-Civil War America. AUTHOR: "Phillip Thomas Tucker is the chief historian of the 81st Training Wing at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi. He is the author of several books on the Civil War including The Confederacy's Fighting Chaplain, winner of the Douglas Southall Freeman Award, Burnside's Bridge: The Climactic Struggle of the 2nd and 20th Georgia at Antietam Creek (0-8117-0199-9), and The Final Fury: Palmito Ranch, The Last Battle of the Civil War (0-8117-0652-4). He has also co-edited, with Jeffrey Smith, The 1862 Plot to Kidnap Jefferson Davis (0-8117-1271-0). " 10 b/w photographs
Black Valor
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They were U.S. Army soldiers. Just a few years earlier, some had been slaves. Several thousand African Americans served as soldiers in the Indian Wars and in the Cuban campaign of the Spanish-American War in the latter part of the nineteenth century. They were known as buffalo soldiers, believed to have been named by Indians who had seen a similarity between the coarse hair and dark skin of the soldiers and the coats of the buffalo. Twenty-three of these men won the nation's highest award for personal bravery, the Medal of Honor. Black Valor brings the lives of these soldiers into sharp focus. Their remarkable stories are told in the collected biography. Derived from extensive historical research, Black Valor will enrich and inspire students with its tales of trials and courage.
Brothers to the Buffalo Soldiers
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During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, African American men were seldom permitted to join the United States armed forces. There had been times in early U.S. history when black and white men fought alongside one another; it was not uncommon for integrated units to take to battle in the Revolutionary War. But by the War of 1812, the United States had come to maintain what one writer called "a whitewashed army." Yet despite that opposition, during the early 1800s, militia units made up of free black soldiers came together to aid the official military troops in combat. Many black Americans continued to serve in times of military need. Nearly 180,000 African Americans served in units of the U.S. Colored Troops during the Civil War, and others, from states such as Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Missouri, and Kansas, participated in state militias organized to protect local populations from threats of Confederate invasion. As such, the Civil War was a turning point in the acceptance of black soldiers for national defense. By 1900, twenty-two states and the District of Columbia had accepted black men into some form of military service, usually as state militiamen--brothers to the "buffalo soldiers" of the regular army regiments, but American military men regardless. Little has been published about them, but Brothers to the Buffalo Soldiers: Perspectives on the African American Militia and Volunteers, 1865-1919, offers insights into the varied experiences of black militia units in the post-Civil War period. The book includes eleven articles that focus either on "Black Participation in the Militia" or "Black Volunteer Units in the War with Spain." The articles, collected and introduced by author and scholar Bruce A. Glasrud, provide an overview of the history of early black citizen-soldiers and offer criticism from prominent academics interested in that experience. Brothers to the Buffalo Soldiers discusses a previously little-known aspect of the black military experience in U.S. history, while deliberating on the discrimination these men faced both within and outside the military. Chosen on the bases of scholarship, balance, and readability, these articles provide a rare composite picture of the black military man's life during this period. Brothers to the Buffalo Soldiers offers both a valuable introductory text for students of military studies and a solid source of material for African American historians.
Buffalo Soldier Regiment
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In a debate in the Senate on July 9, 1866, contemplating the formation of a black infantry regiment, some senators observed that "if it was a privilege to serve in the Army, the colored troops had earned the privilege by their gallantry, and that if it was a duty, they should not be allowed to shirk it." Indeed, black soldiers had been serving since the Revolutionary War, but now, for the first time, they became part of the regular army, enjoying the same privileges, performing the same duties, and facing the same tedium and occasional danger that were every soldier's lot, but with the added burden of the intense racism of the time. Buffalo Soldier Regiment offers a detailed record of the service, exploits, travels, and traditions of one of these units, the "grand old Twenty-fifth." nbsp; Drawing on a wealth of official records, reports, and personal recollections, this book reconstructs the experiences of the Twenty-fifth Regiment from its formation in 1869 through its service in the border town of Nogales, Arizona, in 1926. Following the troops as they move all over the country, we see the soldiers engaged in scouting, escort and guard duty, and road building; skirmishing with Indians; quelling labor riots; fighting forest fires; and even campaigning in Cuba and the Philippines. From its moments of drama to its depictions of garrison life and accounts of the regiment's Bicycle Corps and baseball team, this volume preserves a vital part of America's complex history.
Buffalo Soldiers
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African American soldiers distinguished themselves for valor during the Civil War and their service in defense of the Union went a long way toward securing the civil rights of all black Americans after the war. On the frontier, African American units of the U.S. Army (nicknamed "Buffalo Soldiers" by their Indian opponents) became renowned for fortitude, courage, and being able to handle difficult assignments. Despite this progress in the military, by the end of the nineteenth century, black folks at home were still being subjected to Jim Crow laws, lynchings, and continuous discrimination. Paradoxically, at the same time newspapers were reporting glowing accounts of the heroism of four black regiments during the Spanish-American War of 1898.In an effort to bolster black pride and stem the increasing racism of the age, Dr. T. G. Steward, chaplain of the U.S. Army's 25th Infantry, requested and received permission from the Army to publish this interesting account of the black soldier's military service in Cuba. After summarizing the exploits of African American soldiers during all of the wars and conflicts leading up to the Spanish American War, Steward then concentrates on the war in Cuba. Among the many intriguing episodes recounted are the rescue of the Rough Riders led by future President Theodore Roosevelt, the capture of the stone fort at El Caney, the service of black infantrymen as volunteer nurses in the yellow fever camps, and long excerpts from the diary of Medal of Honor winner E. L. Baker of the Tenth Cavalry.Enhanced by an extensive foreword by Frank N. Schubert, chief of Joint Operational History for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and an expert on the Buffalo Soldiers, this work remains a model of careful narrative history and still the single best source of information on the role of the black soldiers in the war against Spain.
Buffalo Soldiers
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This book covers the history of African American soldiers, beginning with the American Civil War and the Plains Wars, when they were nicknamed 'Buffalo Soldiers'. It then examines their role during the age of 'American Imperialism,' before distinguishing themselves in the trenches of World War I. Finally, it examines their participation in World War II, where almost half a million African Americans fought for their country, and the desegregation of the armed forces that followed.
Buffalo Soldiers in the West
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In the decades following the Civil War, scores of African Americans served in the U.S. Army in the West. The Plains Indians dubbed them buffalo soldiers, and their record in the infantry and cavalry, a record full of dignity and pride, provides one of the most fascinating chapters in the history of the era. the lives they developed for themselves, their relationships to their officers (most of whom were white), their specialized roles (such as that of the Black Seminoles), and the discrimination they faced from the very whites they were trying to protect. In short, this volume offers important insights into the social, cultural, and communal lives of the buffalo soldiers. history of black soldiers in the West. Previously published in scattered journals, the articles are gathered here for the first time in a single volume, providing a rich and accessible resource for students, scholars, and interested general readers. Additionally, the readings in this volume serve in some ways as commentaries on each other, offering in this collected format a cumulative mosaic that was only fragmentary before. each of its four parts, surveying recent scholarship and offering an interpretive framework. The bibliography that closes the book will also commend itself as a valuable tool for further research.
Fighting for Uncle Sam
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From the American Revolution to the present day, African Americans have stepped forward in their nation's defense. This book breathes new vitality into a stirring subject, emphasizing the role men who have come to be known as "buffalo soldiers" played in opening the Trans-Mississippi West. This concise overview reveals a cast of characters as big as the land they served. Over 150 images painstakingly gathered nearly a half century from public and private collections enhance the written word as windows to the past. Now, 150 years after Congress authorized blacks to serve in the Regular Army the reader literally can peer into the eyes of formerly enslaved men who bravely bought their freedom on the bloody battlefields of the Civil War, then trekked westward, carried the "Stars and Stripes" to the Caribbean, and pursued Pancho Villa into Mexico with John "Black Jack" Pershing.
African Americans on the Western Frontier
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This book is designed to remedy the historic neglect of the significant contribution made by African-Americans to the settlement and development of the West. The African-American western experience during the frontier era (1850-1912) is a story that is rich and diverse. The fifteen authors in this volume highlight many of the contributions African-American men and women made to the western frontier -- as miners, homesteaders, town builders, entrepreneurs, and ordinary, civic-minded citizens.
African American Women of the Old West
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The brave pioneers who made a life on the frontier were not only male--and they were not only white. The story of African-American women in the Old West is one that has largely gone untold until now. The stories of ten African-American women are reconstructed from historic documents found in century-old archives. Some of these women slaves, some were free, and some were born into slavery and found freedom in the old west. They were laundresses, freedom advocates, journalists, educators, midwives, business proprietors, religious converts, philanthropists, mail and freight haulers, and civil and social activists. These hidden historical figures include Biddy Mason, a slave who fought for her family's freedom; Elizabeth Thorn Scott Flood, a teacher determined to educate black children and aid them in leading better lives; and the mysterious Mary Ellen Pleasant, a civil rights crusader and savvy businesswoman. Even in the face of racial prejudice, these unsung heroes never gave up hope for a brighter future.
Black Gun, Silver Star
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In The Story of Oklahoma, Deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves appears as one of "eight notable Oklahomans," the "most feared U.S. marshal in the Indian country." That Reeves was also an African American who had spent his early life as a slave in Arkansas and Texas made his accomplishments all the more remarkable. Black Gun, Silver Star tells Bass Reeves's story for the first time, sifting through fact and legend to discover the truth about one of the most outstanding peace officers in late-nineteenth-century America--and perhaps the greatest lawman of the Wild West era. Bucking the odds ("I'm sorry, we didn't keep black people's history," a clerk at one of Oklahoma's local historical societies answered to a query), Art T. Burton traces Reeves from his days of slavery to his soldiering in the Civil War battles of the Trans-Mississippi Theater to his career as a deputy U.S. marshal out of Fort Smith, Arkansas, beginning in 1875 when he worked under "Hanging Judge" Isaac C. Parker. Fluent in Creek and other southern Native languages, physically powerful, skilled with firearms, and a master of disguise, Reeves was exceptionally adept at apprehending fugitives and outlaws and his exploits were legendary in Oklahoma and Arkansas. Black Gun, Silver Star restores this remarkable figure to his rightful place in the history of the American West.
Black Rodeo
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African American westerns have a rich cinematic history and visual culture. Mia Mask examines the African American western hero within the larger context of film history by considering how Black westerns evolved and approached wide-ranging goals. Woody Strode's 1950s transformation from football star to actor was the harbinger of hard-edged western heroes later played by Jim Brown and Fred Williamson. Sidney Poitier's Buck and the Preacher provided a narrative helmed by a groundbreaking African American director and offered unconventionally rich roles for women. Mask moves from these discussions to consider blaxploitation westerns and an analysis of Jeff Kanew's hard-to-find 1972 documentary about an all-Black rodeo. The book addresses how these movies set the stage for modern-day westploitation films like Django Unchained.  A first-of-its kind survey, Black Rodeo illuminates the figure of the Black cowboy while examining the intersection of African American film history and the western.
The Black West
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Looks at the history of Blacks in the American Western frontier.
Expectations of Equality
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In this concise and engaging new volume, the latest in our growing Western History Series, Professor Broussard examines how African Americans over the course of nearly five centuries attempted to find their place in the states and territories west of the ninety-eighth meridian. Although black westerners, like white immigrants or native-born whites, defy easy characterization because they came to the West for a variety of reasons, blacks have shared certain commonalities with these groups. The majority of African Americans who settled in the West saw the region as a place where they could fashion a better life for themselves or their families. Some naively viewed the West as an oasis, a place free of racial or class restrictions. While many white immigrants, native-born whites, Hispanics, and Asians also saw the West as a place of opportunity, the experiences of African Americans differed profoundly from whites, people who never faced such a pervasive pattern of discrimination based solely on their race. In addition to covering central themes and important figures, Expectations of Equality tells the stories of every-day African American men and women, persons who lived in the West from the early 1500s until the turn of the twenty-first century. Many of them led ordinary lives that are difficult to reconstruct in detail-working, raising families, attending church, and educating their children. Yet some of them forged colorful careers as scouts and mountain men, Buffalo Soldiers, businesswomen, athletes, activists, and politicians, their stories helping to make Expectations of Equality the perfect choice as supplementary reading--not only for courses in the history of the U.S. West, but also for survey courses in United States and African American history.
Gloryland
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"A work of extraordinary imagination and sympathy, a journey from slavery to the mountaintop, perfectly realized." -Ken Burns, American filmmaker Born on Emancipation Day, 1863, to a sharecropping family of black and Indian blood, Elijah Yancy never lived as a slave-but his self-image as a free person is at war with his surroundings- Spartanburg, South Carolina, in the Reconstructed South. Exiled for his own survival as a teenager, Elijah walks west to the Nebraska plains-and, like other rootless young African-American men of that era, joins up with the US cavalry. The trajectory of Elijah's army career parallels the nation's imperial adventures in the late 19th century- subduing Native Americans in the West, quelling rebellion in the Philippines. Haunted by the terrors endured by black Americans and by his part in persecuting other people of color, Elijah is sustained only by visions, memories, prayers, and his questing spirit-which ultimately finds a home when his troop is posted to the newly created Yosemite National Park in 1903. Here, living with little beyond mountain light, running water, campfires, and stars, he becomes a man who owns himself completely, while knowing he's left pieces of himself scattered along his life's path like pebbles on a creek bed. "Seen through the fresh eyes of buffalo soldier Elijah Yancy, Yosemite is Gloryland, his true home. Shelton Johnson has written a beautiful novel about Elijah's journey." -Maxine Hong Kingston, author of China Men and The Woman Warrior
Red Black White
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Red White Black tells the true story of the 1911 Pendleton Round-Up. Three men of different skin colors-Jackson Sundown, John Spain and George Fletcher-are brought together during the finals of the NW Saddle Bronc Championship. What happened that September day, the judges' decision and the reaction of the crowd in the aftermath, forever changed the sport of rodeo, and the way the emerging West was to look at itself.
