AFRICAN & BLACK HISTORY Profile picture
Sep 18, 2021 9 tweets 5 min read Read on X
One in every four cowboys was believed to be a Black man released from slavery despite the stories told in popular books and movies although the most famous cowboys of the old west were white.

Many of the slaves were familiar with cattle herding from Africa.

(THREAD) ImageImage
Bill Pickett (1871-1932), rodeo performer.

World famous black cowboy Bill Pickett "Dusky Demon" invented the rodeo sport, bulldogging (steer wrestling). ImageImage
This is the actual man on which the movie D'Jango Unchained is loosely based.

His name is Dangerfield Newby, and he was a member of the John Brown raiders. He joined the gang to save his wife, Harriet and children from slavery. ImageImage
Jesse Stahl (1879-1935), cowboy and rodeo star.

Jesse is considered the greatest of all bronco riders by many rodeo enthusiasts.

In a time when a bronc rider rode a horse until it stood still, Jesse became a legend and set the bar for bronc-riding during the 1912 Salinas Rodeo. ImageImage
Isom Dart, originally known as Ned Huddleston, gained a reputation as a late 19th Century Wyoming Territory outlaw. He had many aliases including "Black Fox," "Tan Mex," and "Calico Cowboy". Image
Nat Love, aka Deadwood Dick (1854-1921), cowboy and saddler

Nate earned the nickname "Deadwood Dick" after winning a rodeo in South Dakota. As he tells it, he could hit anything within range of his Colt .45 revolvers or Winchester Model rifle, but killed only out of self-defense ImageImage
Bass Reeves (1838-1910), lawman and deputy U.S. marshal.

Bass Reeves was the first African American commissioned to serve as a deputy marshal west of the Mississippi River. He brought to justice over 3,000 criminals and killed fourteen outlaws during his years as a marshal. ImageImage
George Fletcher (1890-1973), rodeo star and cowboy.

George Fletcher was the first Black cowboy to compete for a world championship in bronco riding at the 1911 Pendleton Round-Up, Oregon's largest rodeo. ImageImage
Texas cowboy Robert Lemmons was one of the greatest mustangers of all time. He became a legend in his day by perfecting his unique method of catching wild mustang horses. Image

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with AFRICAN & BLACK HISTORY

AFRICAN & BLACK HISTORY Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @AfricanArchives

May 6
In July of 1963, 15 black girls were arrested for protesting segregation laws at the Martin theatre. Aged 12-15, they were locked in an old, abandoned stockade for 45 days without their parents knowledge. They came to be known as The Leesburg Stockade Girls,

A THREAD Image
The girls marched from Friendship Baptist Church to the Martin Theater, attempting to buy tickets at the front entrance, defying segregation laws. Police attacked with batons and arrested them, transporting them to a Civil War-era stockade in Leesburg, Georgia, 15 miles away. Image
The stockade had no beds, a broken toilet, and only hot water from a shower. The girls slept on concrete floors in sweltering heat, ate undercooked burgers, and drank from a single cup. Parents were not informed of their location for weeks, heightening their fear and isolation. Image
Read 11 tweets
May 1
Did you know Sesame Street was originally created for black and brown inner city kids?

A THREAD Image
Children usually spend a lot of time watching a lot tv and technically it was sort of a babysitter. It was even worse for inner city children whose parents spent endless hours at work, thus their kids were usually exposed to long hours of mindless programs.
Lloyd Morrisett, regarded as the father of Sesame Street and vice-president of the Carnegie Corporation with a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from Yale University developed
a special interest in children's education. Image
Read 13 tweets
Apr 29
Did you know that the Oompa-Loompas In Roald Dahl's 1964 Charlie and the Chocolate were originally Black pygmies from "deepest, darkest part of the African jungle where no white man had been before" but was Revised in 1973 after the NAACP complained?

A THREAD Image
Dahl described Oompa-Loompas as a tribe of 3,000 "amiable Black pygmies" starving on green caterpillars in Africa. Wonka lured them with cocoa beans, smuggled them in crates, and housed them in his factory. The text framed them as enslaved.
Joseph Schindelman’s 1964 illustrations showed Oompa-Loompas as African pygmies in grass skirts, reinforcing racist imagery. Wonka treated them as property, even experimenting on them. This mirrored pro-slavery "positive good" narratives. Image
Read 9 tweets
Apr 26
66 years ago today, Mack Parker was murdered by a white mob. It’s considered one of the last civil rights era lynchings.

THREAD Image
Mack Charles Parker was a 23-year-old truck driver who had returned to his hometown of Lumberton, Mississippi, after receiving a general discharge following two years in the Army. Image
On the morning of February 24, 1959, Parker was awakened by Marshal Ham Slade and several deputies, who alleged that he had raped a young white woman, June Walters, the night before.
Read 10 tweets
Apr 24
More than 8000 black women in Mississippi and S. Carolina were given involuntary hysterectomies (removal of uterus) between 1920s and 80s when they went to see white doctors for other complaints.

These came to be known as ‘MISSISSIPPI APPENDECTOMIES’

—A THREAD— Image
In 1961, Fannie Lou Hamer, a Black sharecropper and civil rights activist, entered a Mississippi hospital to remove a benign uterine fibroid tumor. She returned to her family’s shack on the Marlow plantation to recover, unaware of the life-altering procedure she endured. Image
While Hamer recovered, unsettling rumors spread in the plantation’s big house. Vera Marlow, the owner’s wife & cousin of the surgeon who treated Hamer, gossiped to the cook that the surgeon had removed Hamer’s uterus during the procedure, rendering her sterile without consent. Image
Read 12 tweets
Apr 18
In 1780, Paul Cuffee, his brother & 5 other Black men petitioned the Massachusetts legislature demanding the right to vote.

He won free black men the right to vote in Massachusetts on the basis of "No Taxation Without Representation."

THREAD Image
Image
Paul Cuffee was born Paul Slocum on Jan. 17, 1759, Cuttyhunk Island, Massachusetts, to Kofi Slocum, a farmer & freed slave, and Ruth Moses, a native American of the Wampanog nation.
In 1766 he & his brother John inherited a 116 acre farm from their father in Buzzard's Bay, Massachusetts, near Dartmouth. He changed his surname to Kofi, spelled "Cuffee." The name Kofi suggests that his father came from the Ashanti or Ewe people of Ghana.
Read 15 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(