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.

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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

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More from @AfricanArchives

Jan 3
In 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
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Jan 1
On this day in 1923, a lie by a white woman that she’d been sexually assaulted by a black man, led to the destruction of the predominantly African American town of Rosewood, Florida, thus the Rosewood Massacre.

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Rosewood was a quiet, self-sufficient town in Florida. By 1900 the population in Rosewood had become predominantly African-American. Some people farmed or worked in local businesses, including a sawmill in nearby predominantly white town.
A rumour spread by a white woman, Fanny Taylor, sparked a massacre in the predominantly black town. Taylor claimed she was sexually assaulted in her house by a Black man. A group of white men believed her claims that she was raped by Jesse Hunter, a recently escaped convict.
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Jan 1
History of the New Year’s Watch Night Service.

The Watch Night Services in Black communities can be traced back to gatherings on December 31, 1862, also known as “Freedom’s Eve.”

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On that night, black people came together in churches and private homes all across the nation, anxiously awaiting news that the Emancipation Proclamation actually had become law. Image
Just a few months earlier, on September 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the executive order that declared enslaved people in the rebelling Confederate States legally free. However, the decree would not take effect until the start of the new year.
Read 12 tweets
Dec 31, 2025
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."

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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.
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Dec 27, 2025
Did you know Singer, dancer and activist Josephine Baker was also a spy in World War 2 for the French Air Force!

She found fame and freedom after fleeing racism in America and led a double life informing on the Nazis.

A THREAD Image
A talented dancer and singer, in 1927, Baker caused a sensation by performing at the Folies Bergère in Paris in a skirt made from bananas. Image
In 1934 she also became the first black woman to star in a major motion picture. Image
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Dec 25, 2025
The Baptist War: The Christmas Rebellion.

On this day in 1831, Over 60,000 enslaved Jamaicans, led by one man, Baptist preacher, Samuel Sharpe, went on to carry out one of the largest Slave Rebellions in West Indian history.

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So who was the Baptist preacher, Samuel Sharpe?

He was a baptist deacon and the leader of the native Baptists in Montego Bay. Also he was an avid follower of the growing abolitionist movement in London. Image
He led a plan for a peaceful general strike to start on Christmas Day in 1831, with the enslaved jamaicans demanding: —more freedom and
—a working wage
and refusing to work unless their demands were met by the state owners and managers.
Read 10 tweets

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