The forgotten story of the US’ black cowboys - BBC Travel
BBC Travel • November 1, 2020
On a chilly afternoon in Mesquite, Texas, Cleo Hearn sat in the bleachers at a rodeo competition as hundreds of young cowboys trotted around the dirt in colourful Western yoke shirts. With his cloud of white hair poking out from under a cream-coloured cowboy hat, the 80-year-old analysed the wranglers’ techniques and explained what made each cowboy successful or fumbling as they tried to lasso the feisty yearling cattle.
“The key to calf roping is having a good horse,” Cleo said, the wrinkles around his eyes deepening as he studied the scene. “See how the horse pulls tight and stops when the rope is over the calf’s neck? You want him to pull tight, but not keep on pulling. The other thing is to slow down. You try to rope up the legs so fast, and you’ll get your hands all tangled. Slow down to get faster.”
As he spoke, a black yearling busted out of the shoot at a dead run. It had been roped before, so it knew what was coming. Wendell Hearn, one of Cleo’s sons, raced out on his horse after it, the rope swinging in a wide circular arc over his head. In one supple move, the rope flew over the calf’s head, and the horse pulled short.
The calf jerked, spun around and flopped to the ground. It clambered halfway back to its feet before Wendell grabbed it around its middle with both hands. He flipped it back on the ground, gathered up three of its legs and whipped the rope around its feet. Wendell then threw his hands up into the air to signal that he was done and walked back to his horse.
The entire episode took 9.3 seconds.
All four of Cleo’s sons are cowboys and travel to arenas throughout the United States to compete in calf roping, steer wrestling and other events. Families with generations of cowboys are common across the US’ Great Plains and West, where America’s rugged roping-and-riding culture is a way of life. Throughout history, images of these lonely figures riding off into the sunset have come to symbolise the American spirit and the identity of this vast nation itself. But in popular culture, these iconic wranglers rarely look like the Hearns, who are black.
Cleo grew up in Oklahoma during a time when black cowboys couldn’t compete in the big “whites only” rodeo events. Instead, he and other black cowboys honed their skills in Oklahoma’s historically all-black towns, many of which held rodeo competitions for local African Americans and neighbouring Native Americans. In fact, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Oklahoma had at least 50 all-black communities. Today, 13 of the original remain, and in some of those towns, rodeos are still a big deal.
Known as “Mr Black Cowboy”, Cleo is one of the most famous African American wranglers to come out of this region. For the past 49 years, he’s made it his mission to revive and remind America of its multi-racial cowboy roots by organising the Cowboys of Color Rodeo, which promotes the historical contributions of African Americans, Hispanic Americans and Native Americans to settling the Western US. Today, the Cowboys of Color is the largest multicultural rodeo circuit in the country, entertaining crowds across Texas and Oklahoma with everything from bull riding to bronco busting events, while honouring the largely forgotten wranglers who helped shape America’s frontier.
Even before Oklahoma became a state in 1907, it was a place where America’s downtrodden were sent. In the 1830s, an estimated 100,000 Native Americans from south-eastern states were forced off their land and ordered to trek roughly 1,200 miles across the Mississippi River to “Indian Territory” in the Trail of Tears. In an effort to prove their “sophistication” to whites, many of these tribes had embraced European practices of owning land and property – including black slaves. And when they were forced to march to what would later become Oklahoma, they brought their slaves with them.
According to Larry O’Dell, director of collections at the Oklahoma Historical Society, many of the slaves of Oklahoma’s relocated tribes became free after the war. But unlike other freed slaves in the South, Oklahoma’s freedmen were the only ex-slaves in the US that received land rights and allotments when new treaties were put into place after the Civil War.
“Oklahoma’s freedmen had rights,” O’Dell said. “They settled next to each other, like communities do.” When the 1889 Oklahoma Land Run further opened land and settlement, many freed blacks rushed in and considered the territory a “promise land”.
A notice in Muskogee, Oklahoma’s black newspaper, The Cimiter, in 1907 read: “To our colored friends throughout the United States, we send you greetings. The Indian Territory and Oklahoma are now a new state. Thousands of our [black] people are landholders, and have thousands of acres of rich lands to rent and lease. We prefer to rent and to lease our lands to colored people … You are invited to come and share and enjoy our lands and our prosperity in the new state of Oklahoma.”
According to O’Dell, nowhere else in the US did so many African Americans create their own independent communities as in Oklahoma. Between 1865 and 1910, when many African Americans throughout the US – including many parts of Oklahoma – were still unable to own land or start businesses, many of Oklahoma’s more-than 50 all-black communities were successful and self-sufficient farming towns with schools, banks, businesses, black newspapers and black colleges, said O’Dell.
“These towns were agricultural-based,” he added. “Many of the crops included wheat, cotton, cattle, that kind of thing.” And where there are ranches and agriculture, there are cowboys.
“When people think of cowboys, they think John Wayne, but not all the cowboys were white,” said O’Dell. “Most of the cowboys got their traditions from Mexican Americans who were working cattle drives that ran from Texas to Kansas. Black cowboys were a part of that, too.”
In fact, according to The Smithsonian, historians estimate that one in every four American cowboys from the mid 1800s and early 1900s was black. In neighbouring Texas, where the US’ cowboy culture is arguably the most iconic, white Americans seeking cheap land often brought their slaves with them to help open cattle ranches and settle the frontier. After the Civil War, many ranches hired these skilled black cowhands and horse breakers to help work the increasingly large herd drives that were needed to sell more cattle to northern states where beef was more valuable.
As the ranches in Oklahoma’s all-black towns grew and Texas’ massive cattle drives began to stretch north into Kansas and west into Colorado, African American cowboys became a vital part of the US’ westward expansion. According to The Undefeated, more than 8,000 black cowboys rode in the great Western cattle drives of the late 1860s, often earning a reputation for their fearlessness and ability to tame horses that white cowboys wouldn’t dare touch. In subsequent generations, many of these daring black cowboys became employed at Wild West shows, including Bill Pickett, the son of a former black slave father and part-Cherokee mother, who is credited with inventing one of the most popular modern rodeo events: steer wrestling.
Today, perhaps no-one embodies the US’ proud-if-forgotten legacy of black cowboys more than “Mr Black Cowboy” himself, Cleo. Born in 1938 in Seminole, Oklahoma, and raised by a mother who was part Native American and part black, Cleo grew up idolising America’s cowboy culture.
“What made me fall in love with it? Horses. I wanted to be around horses, and I wanted to be a professional cowboy,” Cleo said. “My father’s grandmother had a farm, and I could ride. I was not allowed to ride in [white] rodeos, but I was a fast enough learner that I caught on to everything.”
Cleo won his first cash pot at 12 at a local event in Prague, Oklahoma, when he roped his first calf. At 16, he entered his first official rodeo in the all-black town of Drumright, Oklahoma.
Cleo soon became a familiar face in Oklahoma’s all-black rodeos. Although no official rules kept African Americans out of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) in the 1950s, harsh Jim Crow laws made competitors of colour feel unwelcome. But as more and more white horse owners started to notice Cleo’s talent, he become one of the first PRCA members in 1959 and competed throughout Oklahoma and Texas.
“When I rode out into an arena, all eyes were on me, because of my colour,” Cleo said. “But God sent me to be a cowboy. I had seen a lot of black cowboys judged improperly, and I decided to do calf-roping. I knew I would be judged by the clock, not a person. The clock doesn’t see your skin.”
In 1961, Cleo was drafted into the army and was the first African American to serve on President John F Kennedy’s Presidential Honor Guard – all while roping and riding in military rodeos on the weekends. After finishing his service in 1963, Cleo became the first African American to attend college on a rodeo scholarship to Oklahoma State.
It was at this time that Cleo’s roping ability and rugged good looks attracted the attention of executives at the Philip Morris tobacco company, who signed him to become the first black Marlboro Man. As Cleo recalls, the more he kept winning, the more endorsements kept rolling in. Soon, he was starring in commercials for Levi’s and Pepsi.
After graduating, Cleo went to work at the Ford Motor Company in Dallas and continued to compete in as many rodeos as possible, becoming the first black cowboy to win a national calf-roping event at Denver’s National Western Stock Show in 1970. A year later, inspired by the idea of educating younger African Americans about the country’s black cowboy roots, he produced his first black rodeo in New York City’s Harlem neighbourhood for 10,000 children.
“Most of these kids had never seen a black cowboy or knew they existed,” he said. “It was something new to them. They couldn’t believe their eyes.”
Cleo founded the Texas Black Rodeo that same year and renamed it the Cowboys of Color Rodeo in 1995 to be more inclusive. Held in Oklahoma City, Mesquite and at the famous Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo in Texas, the event regularly attracts more than 200 competitors and thousands of fans who flock to watch cowboys of all colours rope and ride.
“The Cowboys of Color Rodeos features Native Americans, blacks, Hispanics and whites. White is a colour too, ain’t it?” Cleo said. “The black cowboy has been damn near forgotten in the history books, and no matter what colour you are, young people need to know. We share history here.”
In the past 25 years, the event has not only become the US’ most well-known multicultural rodeo, but also encouraged increasing numbers of black and minority cowboys to compete, spurring the careers of world champion Fred Whitfield and Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame bull rider Charlie Sampson.
Cleo’s four sons, Harlan, Wendell, Eldon and Robby, all attended college on rodeo scholarships and now help their father produce the Cowboys of Color Rodeos.
“You can say it’s in our blood,” said Cleo, who continued to compete in rodeos throughout the nation until about two years ago.
Robby grew up under the lasso of his calf-roping father and among other African American cowboys. He didn’t find it odd that he had a practice rodeo arena in the backyard or practiced roping after school.
“It was what we did,” Robby said. “Some kids grew up playing football; we grew up with rodeo.”
For the Hearn children, Cleo’s all-black rodeos weren’t all that different from the regular rodeos they competed in as well.
“To us, it was just calf-roping,” Robby said. “But even when I was younger and we’d go to the pro rodeos, you didn’t see a lot of blacks. Now, you see more. My dad had a lot to do with that. There’s a sense of pride knowing that.”
Still, when the Hearn boys compete in places like Kansas and Nebraska, their skin colour has caused heads to turn. “Some guys were shocked to see a black calf roper. This was before it got popular on TV,” Robby said.
Growing up, Harlan and Eldon competed alongside Cleo in several of the all-black rodeos held in Oklahoma’s historically African American towns, such as Boley.
Once touted as one of the most successful of Oklahoma’s all-black communities, today Boley’s boarded-up buildings make it look like a ghost town. Yet every May for the past 117 years, thousands of people have converged on its lonely streets for the annual Boley Rodeo. The parade and cowboy competitions attract visitors from across the Great Plains, making it one of the biggest events for the small town.
“I remember Cleo Hearn coming to the rodeos. He was reared over in Seminole, but his folk were born right here,” said Henrietta Hicks, president of the Boley Chamber of Commerce. “As a matter of fact, his grandparents were sharecroppers for my grandfather.”
“In my mind, Okmulgee, Boley, Drumright and other [all-black rodeos] were foundational for me,” Harlan said. “Although I have spent most of my time around PRCA rodeos, the black rodeos were home and always special for me. They were like reunions. It was not about separation; these rodeos are reminders of and a part of black rodeo history.”
Yet today, Hicks worries about Boley’s future and the future of the iconic rodeo event. “I'm old now, so I don't want to do all the things. I’m trying to push these young people to get them to put on the rodeo show and the rodeo weekend,” she said.
Danell Tipton, also grew up watching Cleo in all-black rodeos like Boley’s. A Spencer, Oklahoma, native, Tipton was born into an African American rodeo family, becoming a world-champion PRCA bull rider in 1995. He cut his teeth riding junior bulls at the age of 12 and learned under the black rodeo greats. As one of only seven black bull riders to ever qualify for the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas, the US’ premier rodeo event, Tipton now works with Cleo to help produce the Cowboys of Color Rodeo.
“Half these new kids don’t know their history. They should know who Cleo Hearn is or who Ken and Clarence LeBlanc [whose family has organised all-black rodeos in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, since 1956] are. These are the guys who paved the way,” said Tipton. “I give thanks to people like Cleo Hearn and the LeBlancs. They opened the door for us because prejudice was so big then. The young guys don’t take the time to learn their history now.”
Although the era of the all-black rodeos may eventually disappear along with Oklahoma’s historically all-black towns, for Cleo, the legend of the American cowboy is incomplete without painting the full picture.
“Black, white, Indian… it’s all colour, man,” he said. “It’s about getting out there to ride. But we can’t forget our history.”