African American Cowboys

February is African American History Month.  Largely forgotten by history, America’s black cowboys are an important part of America’s frontier heritage.

There’s a fascinating documentary on this crucial part of our history, African-American Cowboy: The Forgotten Man of the West.

In the real Old West, as opposed to the film depiction, black cowboys were a common sight. “Black cowboys often had the job of breaking horses that hadn’t been ridden much,” says Mike Searles, a retired professor of history at Augusta State University. “In my research of the black cowboys, there was often an unspoken pride in doing something well.”

The author and leading expert on the black cowboys in Western history emphasized that the job was a rare one that allowed African-American men of the era to openly express their masculinity.

In addition, the black cowboys were part of a great migration  west for former slaves freed by the Emancipation Proclamation. Their contributions to building America as it expanded into new territories are remembered by African-American cowboys today.

“It was the black cowboys that come out here, that brought the food for people, and to have a settlement of a town and way for Americans,” Wilbert McAlister, president of Oakland Black Cowboy Association, said in a 2010 article on these feats.