African-American Cowboy - PART 1

[Music] the actual American cowboy that we know today is a culmination of West African heritage and the Spaniards which the West Africans are herdsmen and it still hurts men today during the slave era they were brought here for their herdsmen ship the herdsmen worked their cattle with dog sticks and rocks and whistling and sounds and that combination of those two people put together made the expert horseman and every third cowboy back in that era was up either Spanish Indian or some African descent that's why they call cowboys that can do you boy call you boy that's cowboy to come in there black cowboy you did get on the range the black cowboy but Hollywood would have you believe that there weren't anything but anglo-saxon Cowboys it's the rich rich rich heritage in history that has been not fairly documented going into Chicago I saw a sign that said black cowboy the forgotten man of the West and after doing research I always thought when I grew and up I didn't know anybody but the long range in Roy Rogers and he is now beginning to know the history but we go to some shows back in the day they learn all the school kids out in little black kids would come up to you and fear you and take off running because they had never experienced black Cowboys from the guys that I've talked to that that have told me about the rodeo back in the day when there was the rodeo cowboys Association RCA which is now known as the PRCA it was predominantly white and you had to be invited in through two of the Cowboys that were already there which had most of time was one two of the white Cowboys who invited you in that brought about some of the associations that were created by blacks Cowboys that worked on ranches are on actual working ranches who created rodeos for themselves Floyd Frank is on record I think him and his brother were the first black guys to put on a black rhodium and that was in the anti wack area between Beaumont and Houston all we know they will I need the rutile stock aboard the rule you'll talk and I take it in and then take them out to different places and bring him out so you know it's been four generations in this family of Frank's four generation two Cowboys rodeo promoters horse trainers calf Ropin any of the parts that you would play in a rodeo black cowboy to come from a long always no coming up we had one rodeo a year there was only stir Sunday and the rest of the time without on the ranch reckon cattle instead so the itch of segregation in rodeos was true so that made us have backyard rodeos midnight rodeos so to speak and when we had midnight rodeos album talked exhale and whatever I tried to do and I was taught that we buy segregation where rias segregation said to us in our school I would instruct to see it back then you'd have to be as twice as good as the white man to make it in this world which doesn't ordinary hold true but it was a concept they would give us making us the incentive to motivate I would thinking personally only thing I wanted to do was be the best it wasn't trying to beat somebody just because I was black and they were white it was riding with the best because at the black rodeos the guys that rodeo there were just as tough as the guys at rodeo anywhere else like cowboy and then have much of a chance I was nothing but a little kid I don't remember a rufus green he used to come with some white guys you know and if you didn't run with a wet man that had trucks and trailer you couldn't go nowhere and those that was around the country they had backed their horse in a truck in the ditch like this year and jumped the horse in the back of the truck to make it to rodeo my dad his first cousin name was Leo Frank and he owned a mule that he called honeysucker that knew how to do all kinds of tricks and in 1953 he bought a brand-new 53 Pontiac full door and took the backseat side of it and he would put that Muse in the back seat of that car and hauled him all the way up to Oklahoma and he would hire him as a bullfighter at these rodeos like this but when they saw that he could ride a bareback horse and he can ride a bull or he could rope like that they would let him participate and he was good friends with a lot of rodeo cowboys so when you was liked amongst the white guys you wasn't discriminated against but if you was just outside of coming in and you were really good and they saw that she was a real competitor that's what a problem came in at rodeo and back in the days it was just a part of life like I say it wasn't the Cowboys the prejudiced side was the town that you went to right in Texas and murders Dyckman I guess was the first started blacks to ride with whites because they sent a newscast in the town in Dallas Texas to do a story he was a new on a book haul yellow fever that had nobody ever ridden and he thought he had lost his job he didn't see yellow fever he went to the stock producing say hey they told me yellow fever was coming out tonight he said yeah but he going after the rodeo and that's what it was blacks would always ride after the rodeo they sent everybody home then they would let the black Cowboys ride and then Mertes died when rolled to boom yellow fever had to ride about 16 17 seconds and the next day in the newspaper in Dallas Texas it was out that yellow fever had been rolling people in Allis Texas they almost dawn RCA because they say we felt like we would deprive the best part of the rodeo to see somebody ride yellow fever so this got detention at our RCA and when they say that any time a black man would ride after a rodeo it had to be two White's right after rodeo - and that's what they watch didn't wanna ride after rodeo so they said let's let him rodeo with us the murderous diamond was the first one that did this but Willa Thomas but the guy that never got the credit because he came along we have a full-time for the black cowboy he's the one that really nice for black Cowboys well he started after AP judges wrench when he was voted yelling back when he was a feeder he was brave enough to jump down on him and start just riding him with no hands so that's what led him into rodeo and the first time he was out in a rodeo I think he won a third you never bucked off a bull ignited in a long time I think he wrote about 50 of 60 Bulls in a row before he ever got bucked out back in the fifties I remember he was in the top 20 in the professional rodeo way back then they wasn't draw right there give him the baddest boy they thought it'd never been rolled and then they started letting ride during the show a couple of shows he had to go to it was so racial and he had to have you know put his hat way down on his faith and they couldn't tell who he really was so he had sneak in and ride and then once he got on his bull and rolled his bull after he whatever he did with hero2 got throw and so he had to hurry up and get out of there because it was so so bad but that's just the way it was back then you couldn't do nothing about it I grew up on a ranch my dad was a cowboy my grandfather was a cowboy and his dad was a cowboy I started rodeoing at the age of 15 I started going to rodeos black rodeos then I wanted to go to white rodeos when I was in the 7071 I tried to enter some rodeos and they wouldn't let me enter some up because I was black when you drive a hundred miles to a rodeo and they say you can't ride and that's kind of discouraging you know you want to quit

Channel: Short Documentaries

Views: 62,111

Rating: 4.9044118 out of 5

Keywords: african-american cowboy, black cowboy, rodeo cowboy, documentary, short film, short, cowboy, rodeo, civil rights

Id: JAr2UzErToA

Length: 9min 0sec (540 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 09 2010

Reddit Comments

[u/notacrackheadofficer]

''Yellow Back Radio Broke Down'' is a must read. MUST!!!!
Chosen as one of the 100 best books of the 20th century by a San Francisco Chronicle reader's poll and by the American Book Review

"Folks. This here is the story of the Loop Garoo Kid. A cowboy so bad he made a working posse of spells phone in sick. A bullwhacker so unfeeling he left the print of winged mice on hides of crawling women. A desperado so onery he made the Pope cry and the most powerful of cattlemen shed his head to the Executioner's swine."