Long Drain School Santa Letters 2nd Grade Dear Santa, What is your favorite drink? I have been nice! I would like a baby doll with a child crib. Love, O
Randall Wagner
Abe Morris is a retired professional rodeo cowboy.
Today on Colorado Edition: We explore the history and contributions of Black cowboys in the West, and how Black cowboy culture lives on in rodeos today. We’ll also revisit a conversation with Denver-based artist Narkita Gold about her project
Today’s guests include: Eleise Clark, a historian with the Black American West Museum; Abe Morris, rodeo announcer and retired professional rodeo cowboy; Denver-based artist, Narkita Gold; and Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro League Baseball Museum.
Colorado Edition is made possible with support from our KUNC members. Thank you!
Ironically, “cowboy” itself was once quite racially specific and demeaning.
And not just Anglo ranch hands. Estimates of the number of Black cowboys in the post–Civil War cattle drives range up to 6,000. A quarter or more of the cowboys during the era of the great round-ups and drives were African American, Mexican, or Native American.
But ironically, “cowboy” itself was once quite racially specific and demeaning. In antebellum Texas, when slaves were as likely to be forced to work cattle and horses as cotton, “whites were referred to as ‘cowhands’ and African Americans were called the more pejorative ‘boy’ or ‘cow boy.’”