The Jackie Robinson of Rodeo

howdy folks and greetings from the Great Plains of North Texas
where the "Cold Front" has been broken with 99 degrees F and
that's about what..46C? Anyway it's warm again.

Well guys while reading up on some Old West cowboy stuff I found an
article about another cowboy but from more modern times that I
was thrilled to discover and wanted to share with you, but this post
is just an introduction.

To give you a little background history, I last talked about the start of
the modern rodeos in the late 1800's which were made wildly popular
by the Wild West Shows put on by the likes of Buffalo Bill and those
guys.

Black cowboys were performing in those shows and working the
ranches all over but most were in Texas. There were over 5,000
black cowboys working the cattle drives so when the drives ended
these men worked on ranches doing what they did best and that's
when the ranches started competing with each other in cowboy
skills and from those was born the rodeo format.

like these guys:

source
There were no prejudices among the cowboys and no racism, part
of the Cowboy Code was to treat all men equally. Same in the Wild
West Shows.

But in the 1930's when the Jim Crow laws came in and the rodeo's
became commercialized with advertisers and more money flowing in
things changed dramatically.

For some reason the livestock holders who were furnishing the stock
for the rodeos were predominately racist. I have no idea why. Maybe
the big money advertisers were too and when the national rodeo
organizations were formed they put together a payment system so
that fulltime cowboys could make a living on the rodeo circuit.

EXCEPT...for black cowboys who were excluded from being paid.
at all. So we went from black cowboys being treated as totally equal
to suddenly being severely discriminated against!

Of all the stupid, ignorant, asinine thinking and hatred that was
going on here, it just makes no sense at all.

But there was one man who bucked the entire program, stood firm,
was determined to make it in this sick, twisted system and became
one of the greatest bull riders who ever lived and I'm going to tell you
his story in the coming posts. He's still alive and his name is Myrtis
Dightman.

here he is in 1967
source

When Myrtis turned Pro in 1964 there were 5,000 professional
cowboys on the circuit and he was the only black one. And ohhhh
boy did he go through it! It's an inspiring story of guts, determination,
courage and stubbornness that I think you'll enjoy.

thanks for reading folks, God bless you all!
-jonboy Texas
the gentleman redneck

ps- ya know...you might just be a redneck if:

Your stereo speakers used to belong to the Drive-in Theater!