Rainbow Rodeo

It’s time we stopped branding all cowboys as gun-toting, chaps-wearing, horse-riding white guys. Throughout history, there also have been gun-toting, chaps-wearing, horse-riding African-Americans, Native Americans, Latinos and women. More than 300 of them will be taking up lassos for this weekend’s Cowboys of Color Rodeo.

“On the subject of cowboys, the only thing that’s black in most history books is the ink,” says the event’s organizer, Cleo Hearn, who has been a member of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association since 1959. The championship saddle he won in 1990 is on display at the Dallas National Cowboys of Color Museum, which will benefit from the ticket sales.

Aside from a rompin’ good time, the rodeo plans to set the record straight. Many former slaves were drawn to cattle driving, where they faced less discrimination than they would in the city. They were ranch foremen or managers and went on to own farms and ranches (one example is the fourth-generation Taylor-Stevenson ranch outside Houston). Some became gunfighters and outlaws. Rodeo performer William Pickett is said to have invented the sport of bulldogging, and then there’s the Buffalo Soldiers, who have just started to get some of the credit they are due.

As for Latin influence, much of the dress and superior stock-handling techniques of the vaqueros (cowboys of Spanish and Native American descent) became so widely accepted that we simply think of them as Texan today. (Can we say “bandanna”?) Then, that’s sort of the point. In the end, the contributions of every stripe of cowboy have influenced the Texas label. Every now and then, it takes a tough old cowboy to remind us of that.