May 14, 2021 • 47 mins
Zaron grew up watching Westerns with Pop, and together they explore the history of Black cowboys on the big screen.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
I've been coming from my late night meetings were not
have something, to have a drink telling the TV. Almost
as soon as I turned on, here is Aaron sting.
He would jump up, come in there with his blanket
and then on the sofa, get under my blanket. And
then Megan would get up and she would just walk
in there and get onto the coverage to go back
(00:26):
to sleep, but she wanted to be at there too.
We might sit up until four or five o'clock watching movies,
then get back up and make breakfast and watch another one. Yeah,
we've watched a lot of Westerns together and it's been
like something I think people find surprising. They're like, wait
a minute, you're your your pop with them with the
long dreadlocks. He loves watching westerns, and I'm like, yeah,
(00:47):
like bad with everyone of my family. He and I
love watching westerns. Is that something that your friends find
it interesting that you have such a love for western Oh? Yeah,
my friends find humor law. My choice movies like how
with musical like Guys and Dolls and Cat Blue The Ladner.
I watched those and then I love western Did do
you remember like We're Atlanta? When you managed to get
(01:09):
cable to the house very early, and we started being
able to watch all those movies. Do you remember how
many times you and I would watch The Electric Horseman. Yes,
that's a modern Western. The Long Riders too. We watched
The Long Riders a bunch of times. But the Electric
Horseman that one scene but they're chasing him on the horse.
He gets the horse. That's like one of the best
chase scenes. And Western's gotta have a chase scene. I
(01:31):
also love the image where he's like riding out of
the Las Vegas casinos. He's all lit up and the
horses all lit up, and then he like they walked
through the casino and like and then all of a sudden,
they're all the way through the casino. Then they're out
on the strip and then he's riding along. That man's
like he's got the electric suit. And then also he
turns those lights off and you're just like, oh, man, like,
it's just all now we're back to the West. It's
(01:51):
all you hear is the horse the horses up? Who's
on the street that left The next morning when he
wakes up and realized he stole the because when he
looked at noight, we watched that move almost every time
(02:13):
it came on. As you can hear, Westerns have always
been important to my pop and me. We like them
for different reasons. My pop likes the moral clarity, stories
of hard men performing admirably in hostile environments, people coming
together and rising to the challenge of making a society.
For me, I care less about the coming of civilization
(02:36):
and prefer the stories of frontiers, people escaping old societies,
charging into the wilderness, depending on themselves. I like westerns
about how a person can overcome the greedy, who exploit
the weak and delude the easily misled. I like to
see how one brave person can change everything and then
rides off into the sunset. Of course, my Papa and
(02:57):
I haven't had many black cowboys to root for on
the big screen or the TV screen. My favorite black
cowboy in cinemas wood he Strode. He is an indomitable
force on film. Wood he Strode reached back in time
and corrected the record of history. He made American audiences
imagine real, live black cowboys riding high and proud in
the saddle, men unbent by slavery, stout soldiers with iron wills,
(03:22):
hard men tempered in the heat of the Southwest, unrelenting
sun and baked desert landscape. In the mythic backdrops of
John Ford's west Wood, he Strode rival John Wayne as
a towering presence, a hero for the ages. It changed
everyone's view of what a black man could be, and
not just the Old West, but what an American who
is black could demand are his rights in the nineteen
(03:44):
sixties and nineteen seventies and beyond your favorite Wood he
Strode movie is the Professionals? Correct? Yes? Absolutely? Why do
you love that one so much? But he's a man,
full growing ass man. You know, he's not anybody sidekick.
He's nobody's assistant, nobody's partner. He's somebody that they needed.
(04:05):
Each person in that team was needed for the skills
that they alone possessed. So he was a full member
of the thing. He was a free man. There was
nothing to accommodate. How bad is that? Horror? Not too good?
No bottom, we can all do with the rest. Shape
would be a relief too. It's a little bad. No
(04:27):
one before had seen a black man be treated as
a white man's equal in a Western just one of
the crew of professionals. While he quietly demanded his dignity
be recognized. But then in The Man Who Shot Liberty
Valance for that same man to save John Wayne's ass
on the big screen, pulling him out of a burning house,
carrying up over his shoulders. No one before Woody Strode
(04:47):
had made American audiences reimagine how a black cowboy looks
and acts. Was there time he changed everything that followed
on screen and off. That was the power of wood
He Strode. The legacy of his presence in westerns would
lead directly to the badass black heroes of the urban
(05:08):
black exploitation era of the seventies. Woody Strode walked and
rode a horse so that Richard Rowntree, Jim Brown, and
Fred Williamson could stick it to the man. There's also
a direct line between Woody Strode's performance in Once Upon
a Time in the West and Jamie Fox in Django
unchained an unbroken legacy of badass black cowboys. As we've
(05:29):
discussed in this podcast, one in four cowboys were black.
Hollywood has never really shown this historic reality to its audiences.
There have, of course, been a few black cowboys in
major westerns, a few beloved characters like Sheriff Black bart
Emblazing Saddles and Malachi in Silverado. But they're like rain
drops compared to the oceans not shown. The great and
(05:51):
Buried truth has never been properly filmed since seeing is believing,
it's time to discuss the cinematic Black Cowboys and the
ways in which we amat pagine in the West, and
why it's been so difficult for America to understand our
present since we don't even properly imagine our past. Yeah,
(06:12):
this is a home. It's been a long road for us.
We take it ownership over everything else to us, realty.
We surrounded by our heritage, our fist up because we're
proud to be American. I'ms urn Burnette. Welcome to Black Cowboys,
And I heard the original podcast Cowboy Hey After itself
(06:33):
was really in the name Sitting on a mus stand Friday,
Through the Place, Buffalo Soldad, The King, Little Range, We
In Love With the Cowboy Way, Chapter nine, Woody Strode
and the Cinematic Black Cowboys. The bulldogger Bill Pickett was
the first black cowboy to appear on celluloid. He was
(06:55):
filmed for a number of early silent movies, but Bill
was always a real life cowboy, just put on film.
He wasn't acting. Soon the medium of cinema was born,
and then came the bigger than life cinematic cowboys, the
ones who existed on film beings of a luminous past.
The first true black cowboys star was a man from Detroit,
(07:15):
a smooth brother named Herb Jeffries. Before he became a
cowboys star, he was a nightclub singer. He often tells
a story about a turning point in his career. The
story goes that during one of his shows, Jeffrey saw
a little black child crying in an alley. The kid
had been playing a game of cowboys with a bunch
of white kids, but the white kids wouldn't let the
black kid pretend to be a white cowboy. Jeffries says
(07:38):
that seeing that black boy's crying face is what inspired
him to go to Hollywood to make black cowboy pictures.
Herb Jeffries made a series of westerns specifically for young
black boys and girls to have their own silver screen
cowboy to root for as he saves his love interest
and the town from villains. I don't know what his
fame was like. Contemporaneously. By the time we started watching them,
(08:02):
he had become like a cult figure among young progressive
black people. We were looking everywhere for positive examples of
our greatness. He was a perfect one because he was
a black cowboy movie star. It was like it was
like Roy Rises, Jane Autrey, hop Along Cassidy, and Herb Jeffreys.
(08:22):
As a kid, you could like any of the cowboys,
and you felt better because one of them was black.
You didn't have to be her of Jeffreys. I would
still be Jeane Autrey, but it was good that somebody
could play Herb Jeffreys. Half the time, the white kids
would want to play him because he was so cool.
N y U film professor Donald Bogel, author of Tom's
Coon's Molatto was Mammies and Bucks, once said that Herb
(08:44):
Jefferies was an undeniable star, but one whose brilliance was
limited by the small mindedness of his times. Bogel told
the l a times after Jeffrey's passed that quote, Herb
was a sex symbol with his wavy hair and his
Clark Gable mustache. He might have been a different kind
of star at America being a different kind of place.
This is all true. In his four films, The Black
(09:05):
Cowboys Star stirs American imaginations and he starts to correct
the historical record. Even if his films are just silly,
fun musicals, they still hint at the true past the
audience never ever gets to see with myral, my Sattin,
and my horse and my gun, my happy call boys.
(09:31):
In those first four Black Western Serb Jeffreys gave a
generation of black boys and girls a noble figure to
look up to, and he gave America a new dream
of the Old West. Jeffries told the l A Times quote,
little children of dark skin, not just Negroes, but Puerto Ricans, Mexicans,
everybody of color had no heroes in the movies. I
was so glad to give them something to identify with.
(09:54):
Ha Black kids, brown kids, kids of color wouldn't have
another black cowboy to look up to and to imagine
themselves as not for about another two decades, until the
(10:17):
early sixties, with the arrival of the cinematic presence known
as wood he Strode. Wood he Strode was a legendary
figure literally and figuratively. Figuratively, he embodies the West, particularly
the Black West. Literally, he looks like some kind of
black god who came to Earth to play a black cowboy.
(10:40):
His career spanned five decades, from the early nineteen fifties
to his last film in He died the next year
in four but before he passed, Woody Strode wrote a
memoir titled gold Dust. We had an actor reads some excerpts.
Had developed natural strength from working out with my own
body weight. I that's what I could do with that
and push ups, A thousand set ups and a thousand
(11:02):
nie squads every day. With the pushups, I would have
to rest after every hundred. The others I could do
without stopping. Pretty. Strode isn't from the South or from Texas,
Arkansas or Oklahoma. He was born in Los Angeles. My
daddy came to Los Angeles to escape racial pressure at Louisiana.
I remember he had a trunk full of guns and
(11:22):
thirty odd six bullets. That was based on his Southern
background and fear. But you saw white people out here
with different from the white people where he came from.
He wanted me to fall into his air path. That's
why we never talked about race growing up in l A.
What he Strode's childhood is far different than that of
his parents. He's not entirely free of racism, but it
(11:44):
also isn't a preoccupying force in his life. At that time,
most of the black people in Los Angeles lived in
the Central Avenue. Back then, it was really plush. It
had the best nightclubs, after hour spots. Central Avenue was
brightly it up like Hollywood Boulevard would be today, and
when the sunset, all the Hollywood producers and directors would
(12:07):
come down to soak up the atmosphere. Well, you can
imagine what a great place Central Avenue was. We had
so much freedom compared to any other area in the country.
That's how I got my liberated attitude, and I thank
God for that because it's helped me every step of
the way. It would certainly help him as he becomes
a standout athlete in high school and his vistas expand
(12:27):
as his potential future stretch out before him, reaching in
so many different directions. My senior year, I made the
All City team. I would selected captain based on that.
In my all state and trying, I got five scholarship offers.
I got one from cal Washington, Oregon, Loyola, and U C.
L a usc enough Dame had the best teams every year,
(12:49):
but USCU No Tre Dame didn't give black athletes a
chance to play at that time. So I ended up
at U c l A and that turned out to
be one of the best things that ever happened. Interestingly,
it's at U c l A that wood he draws
the attention of Adolph Hitler. I was contacted by Lenny Reriefenstall.
(13:10):
She was a beautiful, intelligent German who was also a
great athlete. She was famous as a filmmaker. Her film Olympia,
a documentary on the Olympics, is possibly the greatest sports
film ever made. She contacted me and asked me to
meet her at this club down in the in the
Wilshire district. She had an artist with a little man
(13:30):
that stood about as tall as her shoulder, the studious
looking fellow with a full beard and glasses. He wore
a powder blue smock that almost touched the ground. They
pulled me into a small curtained off room and I
stripped off until I had nothing on but my jockey shorts.
I crouched down and the little German artist walked around
me eyeball and me tugging on his beard. Lenny Riefenstell
(13:54):
was standing in the corner. She said, we saw your
picture and we couldn't believe it. You have the greatest
physique of any athletes were of a scene. What Hitler
saw my pictures, He couldn't believe how I looked. He
sent Lenny Riefenstall back here to shoot some film on
She said, we'd like to take you up to Carmel
and film you against all that white scenery. I was
ready to go, but people started whispering, don't you know
(14:16):
who she is? Don't you know what's happening over there
in Europe. I said to myself, no, no, I can't
be a part of that. Around that same time, wood
he Strode is also training for the ninety six Olympics.
He plans to compete in the decathlon. They trained me
right up until cut off time, but I never did
(14:36):
go to the Olympic trials of Randalls Island, New York.
The school said I needed another half unit to maintain
my eligibility, so I took a shop class and I
never went to the Olympics. Instead of Olympic glory, what
he Strode learns to use a band saw Three years later,
wood He Strode finds a different sort of national fame
as part of the super Stacke u c l A
(14:57):
football team. The headline grabbing offense features Woody Strode, Kenny Washington,
and Jackie Robinson. They are arguably the best college team
in America that year and certainly one of the greatest
backfields of all time. Perhaps the most interesting fact about
the nine u c l A Bruins Stars is that
all three would later become the first black athletes to
(15:18):
play in a professional sports league, in Robinson and Strode's
case after they served in the army during World War Two.
Obviously in baseball, Jackie Robinson breaks the color line in
seven with the Brooklyn Dodgers, but one year earlier, in
ninety six, Kenny Washington and Woody Strode are signed to
the Los Angeles Rams, becoming the first black players in
(15:41):
the NFL. Woodie Strode doesn't stay in the NFL long, though,
By ninety nine he becomes a professional wrestler. Woodie Strode
has the body for it, the mystique for it, and
the sheer physicality and strength required. As Woody Strode makes
more and more of a name for himself, and wrestling.
He's confronted with issue use of how to use race
(16:01):
to become a bigger star. Professional wrestling at the time
is not the same sort of absurd caricatures and plot
lines of today's w w E, although you can certainly
see traces of the promotional ambitions that would lead to
wrestling as we know it. Woody Strode was part Native.
His mother had Cherokee blood, his father had Creek blood.
(16:21):
The wrestling promoters saw an opportunity. Mr Bell, who owned
all the racetracks in Calgary, asked me, why don't you
advertise your Indian blood? I said, Mr Bell, all of
us in America, all the Negroes and mixed breeds, one
way or another. If I advertise I'm an Indian, the
Black people will figure I'm putting them down. The Indians
already know. Let's just leave it at that. When I
(16:41):
wrestled in Canada, the whole black Foot nation would show
up at the arena one night, the Blackfoot chiefs setting
young tribeswoman to my dressing room before a match. She
measured my feet my in scenam. I waste my shoulders,
even my hands, which made me a dear skin outfit
they made me an honorary member of the tribe caricature
or not. What do these physical appearance leads to the
(17:02):
big breakthrough that would shape the rest of his career,
said Gold called me so. It was a theatrical agent.
He saw me wrestling on the tube and he said,
what he Strode. I'm a big fan. You have a
look I think I could sell. Would you be interested
in making some money? It's what he Strode is thirty
(17:22):
seven years old. He is an absolutely incredible shape. He
stands six ft four ways about two fifteen. He has
a towering presence, with the musculature of a Greek god
on steroids. Except it's America in the nineteen fifties, which
means America isn't exactly ready for a man like what
He Strode. There's a similarity between Woody Strode and The Rock.
(17:50):
They're both wrestlers. They both become movie stars, but yet
one becomes a huge star. Are you not surprised? But
do you think that in a different time, Woody Strode
could have been as big as the Yeah, oh yeah,
I think what Strode prepared to earth for the Rock.
You know, the path he took is basically the path
wood he Strode took. He was a college athlete. He
got injured playing football, so he couldn't go pro football,
(18:12):
and he became a pro wrestler, and then he became
a movie star. I mean, it's exactly the same path.
The first Hollywood movie to truly feature wood he Strode
and highlight on the big screen. What He's Capable Of
is an all time classic. Spartacus by Stanley Kubrick, released
in nineteen sixty. It's a tale of freedom, the story
of a slave revolt in ancient Rome led by a
(18:33):
gladiator Spartacus. During his time in the Gladiator Academy, Spartacus
must fight to the death against a terrifying opponent played
by what He Strode. Wood He's a gladiator too, but
he's mostly a scare tactive for the audience. He's just
quote a big, scary black man. But there's one moment
where his actions are virtuous inspiring. After his brutal clash
(18:55):
with Spartacus, Strode's character decides not to kill his fellow
slave and instead a text the Patricians of Rome. As
you might imagine, it doesn't end well for Woody Jim Killer,
but the death of woody Strode's character becomes a spark.
(19:17):
It sets off a slave revolt and widespread rebellion. His
valiant death a metaphor for the continuing sacrifices of black
Americans still longing to be free. In after his time
as a gladiator for Kubrick, Woody Strode gets to portray
a truly worthy cinematic icon, a black cowboy and buffalo soldier.
(19:40):
He's offered the title role as Sergeant Rutledge, a role
that explores his identity rather than leverage it for cinematic tension,
as quote, a big scary black man. When I got home,
john Ford was waiting for him. Anyway. We talked and
finally said, I hear you're trying to be an act.
I said, well, you know, say the line get the money.
(20:01):
I was underplanned. He said, I've got a little thing
going called Sergeant Rutlidge. I want you to play a
title role. I didn't get too excited because I thought
he was Joe. Director john Ford had done this before.
Quite famously. Ford took a washed up, injured usc football player,
a kid from Iowa named Marion Morrison, and turned him
into the most famous icon of the cinematic West. You
(20:24):
know him as John Wayne. The many films the two
men would make together, starting with Stage Coach in nine,
would come to be seen as the unofficial history of
the American West. Beyond that, Ford almost single handedly created
the myth and visual language of the American West. He
spun the dream that the West was a wild land,
were white men like him brought law and order and civilization,
(20:48):
ignoring the fact white men had been in the West
in Spanish California long before their English cousins ever arrived
in Jamestown, or that civilization was present before any Europeans
arrived in America. In the early post war period, as
civil rights starts to take a center stage in America,
John Ford makes a series of western's Ford Apache, The
(21:10):
Quiet Man, My Darling, Clementine, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon,
Rio Grand and The Searchers. The films are a kind
of cinematic therapy for a nation wondering what freedom means
now that the U. S Has beat the fascists but
is still fighting to maintain Jim Crow in America In
Woody Strode, Ford sees a way to call out America
(21:30):
on its racism on his own racism. John Ford was
interested in telling the story using the Knife in Tenth
Cavalry as the backbone. After slavery came to last, the
Great Indian Forms round eighteen sixty six, United States built
cavalry out of former slaves, young, tall, strong negroes who
ride horses. They were trained to think and act like Indians.
(21:50):
They learned to fight and to hand with a knife.
They could use a rifle. They were led by white officers.
The highest the black soldier breach was first sargent and
after they were trained to govern and set them loose
on the Indians like you would have bloodhound on the farms.
You know the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry as the Buffalo Soldiers.
It's nineteen fifty nine when the film begins production, eighty
(22:11):
five years after the Buffalo Soldiers fought in the Apache
Wars in the Southwest, the nation was still grappling with
the aftermath of the lynching of Emmett Till. To recap
the details, fourteen year old Emmett Till had been visiting
family in the South when he was falsely accused of
whistling at a white woman. He was then abducted from
his family home in the dead of night, beaten and lynched.
(22:33):
The white man who did it were found not guilty
by an all white jury. That moment galvanized the civil
rights movement. This is the racial backdrop when john Ford
makes his film about a huge, herculean black brother accused
of rape and murder. Sergeant Ruttledge is about a top sergeant,
the Knife Calvalry. He's accused of murdering his post commander
(22:53):
and raping his daughter. The catch Sergeant Rutledge scene of
the crime, the major and his daughter lying down the floor.
There's a moment early in the film where john Ford
plays on the fears of white Americans. Woody Strode grabs
a white woman by the face, covering her mouth with
his enormous black hand as he instructs her not to scream.
(23:17):
Don't scream, miss don't scream. It's a flashback scene where
the jury is supposed to be imagining what really happened,
and then Ford fast forwards and shows us what happens
all too often in the criminal justice system, where a
prosecutor plays up the image of a big, scary black
man was it was as though he'd sprung up at
(23:38):
me out of the earth. I couldn't move like, I
couldn't scream. It was like a nightmare. And that man
who sprang at you from the darkness like something from
a nightmare, is he here in this court Yes he is,
that man who sees you so brutally and viciously, is
he here in this courtroom. Yes, he's sitting there. That
colored soldier, I object. I withdraw the word colored. I
(24:02):
refer to the accused Sergeant Rustige. Now in the big
courtroom scene, I had the most emotional moment in my
acting crew. I took the stand. I felt like it
was like an exposed nerve. And the old man was
twisting the night. The old man as Wood, he calls him,
is john Ford. He had me all piste off, emotional,
(24:22):
teetering right on the edge. I sat and said real
stoic while the prostitute and attorney started to parade in
front of me. This negro breaked this little girl and
killed her father. If he's innocent of the crimes, And
why did this nick try to escape? And then he
turned me? Why did you come back? By then the
goose pimples were all over me, and the floodgates over
(24:46):
You're trying to trade your murderers bravery for the mercy
of this part. Isn't that? It? No? So that is
not that? Isn't it? What was it? It's because the
Night Calary was my home, my real freedom and my
self respect, and the way I was deserted that I
(25:07):
wasn't nothing the first that I was swamp running and
I hate that. Do you hear me? I'm a bad.
To make his urgent point about racism, john Ford relies
on the ugliest word in the English language. In fact,
(25:28):
it was Strode who insisted the word be used, As
he told The New York Times in one quote, john
Ford wanted to know if we could get away with
saying on the screen, and I said, why not. It
would be the first time a black man ever called
himself and on the screen, and I wanted it to
hit home. Certainly did, especially with that hard are. It
(25:49):
still hits home today. SARGEA. Rutlers comes out in sixty
and we're still very much in the civil rights are
at that time. But prior in the fifties, we would
see signs of black man holding up I am a man.
Was that a civil rights statement when you saw that
at that time? Yeah, I'm a man goes throughout African
American history. That statement is never out of context. I
(26:11):
am a man. It's almost like the first statement of
any argument Black man have had to make over the
years about anything. Before we get into anything. First of all,
I'm a growing ass man, So you're gonna talk to
me like I'm a man. You're not gonna talk to
him like I'm a child. Before we talk about anything.
The first thing we're going to established is that I
am a man. We can't talk about that, then we
(26:32):
can't talk about anything else. That's a recurring theme throughout
African American history, so when we see it, you would
expect that to be there. Sergeant Rutledge was so strong
because he said the things that were absolutely in time context,
that are absolutely alive now. Ultimately, Sergeant Rutledge is found
not guilty. A white man confesses to the crime. Ford
(26:54):
makes the white audience rethink their own biases and what
he Strode gets to ride off into the sunset of
free man. As he said in an interview before the
New York Times, in quote, you never seen a negro
came off a mountain like John Wayne before. I had
the greatest glory, Hallelujah ride across the Pacos River that
any black man ever had on the screen. And I
did it myself. I carried the whole black race across
(27:16):
that river alright got back. Sadly, john Ford's film Sergeant
(27:39):
Ruttledge was too far ahead of its time. The film
was an uncomfortable experience for a nation wrestling with his
own ideals. America didn't expect that from john Ford. Many
people now have never heard of Sergeant Ruttledge, even among
fans of westerns. Despite the fact the film was not
a hit, it didn't sour Woody Strode and John Ford's
working relationship. Two years after starring in Sergeant Rutledge, wood
(28:02):
He Strode returns to shoot another classic john Ford Western.
It's one we've mentioned before on this podcast. The Man
who shot Liberty Valence B. Marvin is the villainous Liberty Valance,
an outlaw and hired muscle for the ranchers who want
the West to remain free range for their cattle, undivided
(28:24):
by barbed wire fences. Jimmy Stewart is a lawyer from
the East who has come to the West with his
law books and his ideas of polite society. John Wayne
represents the hard but decent men who settled the West
and must now decide how they will embrace the coming
of civilization. Wood He Strode plays John Wayne's loyal ranch hand,
a character named Pompey. He's named after the ancient Roman general,
(28:48):
a great hero of democracy and an enemy of the
tyrant Julius Caesar. It's not a starring role, but it's
an honorable one. There's one scene that always stuck with me,
mostly for its naive American optim is. Um Ford shows
Strode learning to read in the class with school kids
and some other semi literate adults, all of them taught
by Jimmy Stewart. As a lesson in literacy, he has
(29:10):
Strode recite the beginning of the Declaration of Independence. Now,
I wonder if anybody in class remembers what the basic
law of the land is called. Now, you remember I
told you that it had to be added to and
change from time to time by things called amendments. Now
does anybody remember who lay out of your hands? Are
(29:30):
always happen here? Let's pompy you try this one. It
was written by Mr Thomas Jefferson of Virginia was written
written by Mr Thomas Jefferson, and he called it the
Constitution Declaration of Independence. It begun with the words, we
hold these truths to be uh self evident. Let I'm alone,
(29:54):
Charlotte self evidence that that all men are created equal.
That's fine, Pomping. I knew that, Mr Rance, but I
just plump forgot it. It's all right, Paump. A lot
of people forget that part of it. You did just fine, Pomping.
How did that scene play for you? Because I don't
think there's a black character in the West who's going
(30:15):
to forget that line of the Declaration of Independence. But
john Ford wants it to be said so that the
American people hear it. What would your thoughts about that?
I think artistically you're correct. I don't think anybody, any
black person who knew the line would have forgotten that one.
But I thought, uh john Ford was trying to underline
the point as opposed to just making it. That scene
(30:36):
right there, just him doing that exchange with Jimmy Stewart
was almost as powerful as what he did and Sergeant
Relics when he was on the witness stand, because you
could feel the emotion in him. There were members of
his family when he was young who could not read.
There were members of my family who could not read.
You had to read to them, and when they finally
figured out the words, they were as proud as if
(30:57):
they had found a diamond in the yard. It's a
very familiar scenario in black families, especially of his age.
He was born in nineteen fourteen. That's only forty nine
years after slavery ended, you know, so there were a
lot of people who couldn't read. Up until the forties
and the fifties. We were always reading to the old people.
Go read to ansists, go read the paper to pop pop,
(31:20):
you know, that's that kind of thing. Or they were
coming with with something they got from the mail. Read
this for me. He was expressing all of that because
that was a reading class. They were using a Decorats
of Independence as the text. I thought it was a
very powerful scene. John Ford makes a point that despite
the nation's idealism, day to day life is mired and systemic,
enduring racism. And at that same time, the American people
(31:43):
are very much divided over whether Martin Luther King Jr.
Is tearing apart the nation for reminding the country of
its own founding documents. Very intentionally, Ford mirrored the reality
of the times, the tensions of the day. Woody Strode
was a black cowboy and cinematic figure on which the
battles of civil rights could be projected. One year after
(32:07):
Malcolm X's gunned down in Harlem, what he Strode finally
gets to be a top billed star in the movie
The Professionals. Of course, he plays a trail hardened black
cowboy alongside three white cowboys. Wait, what's this? One in
four Cowboys is black? Look at that. Someone finally got
it right. Here's how wood he Strode recalls producer Richard
(32:29):
Brooks explaining the role to him, What it's about time
we showed the Negro cowboy in the Old West. Script
calls for a Mexican, Irish Indian, but I'm gonna make
him an Indian Negro half breed. Richard Brooks reached and
pulled a book on cowboys from michelf. I leaned over
his desk and we went through the pictures. The Professionals
came out in ninety six. I played Jacob Sharp, one
(32:51):
of the four male leads in the picture. That was
the first time I ever received on screen star villain.
I got my name up there ahead of Bird Lancasters.
That same year, nine six, Strode attempts to produce his
own Western film. It's called The Story of the Tenth Cavalry,
about the bravery of the Buffalo soldiers. It's meant as
(33:13):
a historic corrective and a thrilling good time, but Strode
can't find any producers willing to fund the film, so
he returns to acting in other people's movies, much like
Clint Eastwood before him would he Strode takes his cowboy
act to Europe. Italian director Sergio Leone loves what he Strode.
Leone cast him in his next movie, The Black Cowboy
(33:35):
Flies over to Europe to do what everyone's calling, quote
a spaghetti Western. The movie's title is a nod to
the grand mythos of America Once upon a Time in
the West. It was the only picture I did with
Sergio Leone. The close ups were great. I never got
a close up in Hollywood, and Sergio Frami on screen
for five minutes. After that, I said, that's all I needed.
(33:56):
He plays a bounty hunter who hunts down white men
and kills them if he has to. He's a black
badass with a sawed off Winchester rifle strapped to his thigh.
It's a gun known as a mayor's leg. He's not
in the film long, but somehow Woody Strode makes drinking
water out of his hat into a moment that film
lovers still talk about. Contemporary film critic Andrew Seras zeroes
(34:18):
in on the moment in his review for The Village
Voice in Ny. He writes, quote, in the very beginning, Strode,
shortly before he is to be gunned down, feels some
drops of water falling on his forehead as he's framed
and close up on the fresco like wide screen. He
places his stetson on his head so that it will
receive the water between its camel like humps, and then
(34:39):
he shortly thereafter drinks the water from the stetson in
a gesture so ceremonial as to make the hat seem
like a holy chalice. After this portentous, implacable technique, Leone
leaves no way out for his characters. It is kill
or be killed. Sergio Leone hates the turn used for
(35:00):
his films spaghetti westerns. He feels it diminishes his work.
Marginalizes it. It makes them seem like a side show.
He sees his work as vital and honest accounting of
the West. He wants the real West to be known,
including the black cowboys, and just like John Ford, he
can't understand why Hollywood hasn't made Wood he Strode into
(35:21):
a bigger star. I told him, I don't think they've
quite gotten used to me coming off the mountain on
a horse with John Wayne by my side. But Sergio
saw what I could do, and that was enough for him. See.
I was always opening doors, never knowing what I would
find on the other side. A hundred years from today,
they'll look at all this and say, ship man, that
guy did all this stuff before anybody did anything. I
(35:42):
never thought of it like that. I was just trying
to make a living, just trying to survive in my generation. Today,
the older white men see my cowboy had and they
identified with that. I don't wear boots, I wear moccasins.
They see my Indian cheek bones. They accept the moccasins.
This is my identity. Don't talk about what I am.
I defend myself. Quiet. That's always the aim of Wood.
(36:04):
He strode. Quiet dignity, and a steadfast demand of respect.
The Reagan years were tough on Woody Strode's career during
the eighties, he didn't star in any notable films. However,
to be honest, the Reagan years were tough on all
black people. But then with the coming of a new
decade arrived new opportunities for the aging black cowboy. At
(36:26):
the age of seventy nine, Woody Strode enjoys a late
career resurgence. He appears as the narrator for a new
black western made by someone of the young generation. The
movie is called Posse. I was super hyped to see
it when it hit theaters. I was a young kid
who loved westerns and was eager to see more of
the history and black cowboys up on the big screen.
The movie did well enough at the box office, but
(36:48):
it's not well remembered now. It did, however, mean a
lot to wood he Strode at the time, especially because
there was a black man in the director's chair. When
Mario van Peebles approached wood he Strode to be the
narrator for his new western, he wanted to honor the
black cowboy who first demanded that our history be respected.
As wood he told Entertainment Weekly, quote, I still can't
(37:09):
believe I lived to see the day when a young
black man like Mario would be given money to direct
this kind of movie and get to say the things
he's saying. And I'm the one that gets to say it.
Let me tell you, it's a real kick. In a
more recent interview, Mario van Peebles was asked about his
decision to cast Woody. He told The Decider quote, Woody
(37:29):
was almost eighty. But when I called him up because
I had seen him and once upon a time in
the West and Sergeant Rutledge, so he was one of
the first black cowboys I saw that didn't shuffle. He
stood up. He was a badass, and he got a
lot of screen time, a lot of it was in
spaghetti westerns, but it was always good to see him.
So I called him up and I said, I'm doing
a Western, and I've really enjoyed your work, and I'd
(37:50):
love for you to take a look at the script.
And he said, well, I'm not really doing a lot
of westerns anymore. And I said, no, I understand, but
if I could just get you to take a look
at a few pages, he said, all right, send it
over to me. About five minutes later he called me back.
Well when what he called me back after reading that
opening line? He said, sona, are they gonna let you
say this? And I said, well, in this case, I
(38:10):
am the day and he said, well, then color me in.
It was great. As the narrator for posse Wood, he
Strode gets to open the film and sets the stage
for a black version of the West, and frankly, it
sounds a lot like the beginning of this podcast, this
one thing about time. No matter how much or how
little passes, it changes, saying people forget their pass and
(38:35):
if you get the truth, but pictures online forgotten gutten
slingers like net Love I and Dart cherch Key Bill,
and truths too like to Night and the tents you
see people forget that. Almost one out of every three
cowboys was. But of course, when the slaves were free,
(38:58):
a lot of them hit it out West, built their
own town ship. They didn't have much choice. In fact,
over half of the original settles of Los Angeles or black,
but for some reason we never hear their stories. The
film did well at the box office, but it didn't
inspire many imitators that maybe due more to the style
(39:20):
of the film than the subject matter. As Roger Ebert
said in his review of the film at the time, quote,
the story needs to be told, but unfortunately that is
what director Mario van Peebles does not do in Posse.
This is an overdirected, over photographed, overdone movie that is
so distracted by its hectic, relentless style that the storyline
is rendered almost incoherent. As someone who had waited for
(39:44):
a film like Posse ever since my pop and I
first started watching westerns together and he told me about
the black cowboys not on screen, Honestly, I was more
than disappointed with the movie. Two years later, wood He
Strode appears posthumously in another big budget western, The Quick
and the Dead. He stars alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, Gene Hackman,
(40:04):
Sharon Stone, and Russell Crowe. It's Woody Strode's final film
after five decades in Hollywood. He's still starring alongside some
of the biggest names. Pretty damn impressive. In the film's
end credits, the western is dedicated to the Black Cowboy.
Quite some progress since Herb Jeffreys. That same year in
Woody Strode receives one other cinematic nod of respect from
(40:27):
his colleagues in Hollywood. The hero of the Breakout c
g I animated hit film from that year is named
after Strode. Can you guess who Wow Hey? Whoa wow
wow wow whoa? Did I frighten? You didn't mean to? Sorry, howdy.
My name is Woody and this is Andy's room. Sheriff
Woody from toy Story wild right and yet totally fitting.
(40:50):
Not that Woody's character was black, but maybe if that
same film were made today, he would be. There have
been a lot of cinematic black cow boys who followed
the trail of what he Strode in the early sixties,
stars like Sydney Portier. In the seventies, Harry Belafonte joins him,
and then there were also the funny black cowboys Clevland
Little and Richard Pryor. That same decade, it was all
(41:12):
about the black sploitation tough guys in westerns, like former
football players Fred the Hammer, Williamson and Jim Brown. In
the eighties, Danny Glover stars is two iconic black cowboys,
one in Lonesome dub and the other in Silverado. By
the next decade, Morgan Freeman becomes an iconic black cowboy
and an Academy Award winning Clint Eastwood western Unforgiven. Most recently,
(41:33):
we've seen a very different black cowboy from Jamie Fox,
who starred in a highly fictionalized world of plantation slavery
as imagined by Quentin Tarantino and rendered in his Ultra Violence.
The climax when the plantation explodes and Carrie Washington is
safe waiting on horseback and she sees Jamie Fox walk out, victorious,
the plantation smoldering behind him. That moment is a catharsis.
(41:57):
I can't explain to my white friends. They can never
understand how that cinematic moment feels to see a black
cowboy detonate the ultimate symbol of slavery. Tarantino called it
(42:19):
the first Southern And you know what, it doesn't matter
that it's pure wish fulfillment. That's what movies are fantasies.
How often do you think people watch stories of like
The West and think this is historically accurate, and then
I can treat this like almost a textbook. Do you
think that that is common that people are watching these
movies expecting them to be historic every time time? And
(42:41):
I think the American public is willing to suspend disbelief
at the drop of a hat. That's always the problem,
trying to get them to them believe the truth because
they've accepted it lie so completely that now you come up,
you know, they're one force to one third of the
cowboys were black. No, get out of here. So okay,
how do you prove it? People are not reading historical
(43:03):
books and not doing a lot of the things that
you would do to gain information about your culture. So
the way they get that information now is to go
and see Saving Private Ryan. Then that tells them what
happened in World War Two. They go see Apollo thirteen,
and then they think they know Nasa. You know, they
see Django, they think they know slavery, and those you get,
you get a taste of it, but you don't know it.
(43:25):
And then they can't discern those from the ones that
are pure bullshit because they don't have debility to judge.
The cowboy becomes cemented as the spirit of America. Why
do you think that is? What about the cowboy represents
America so well? I think the image makers seized upon
that because of the independence that is associated with cowboys,
(43:46):
the independence, the durability to the self assurances, the ability
to take care of yourself. You know what America wanted
the world to think about America after World War Two?
If they wanted to think that we were that cowboys.
So they seized on the Western and they really used
it to push an idea of America as when John
Wayne became like the real American image. Can you imagine
(44:08):
what it would be like if the American ideal of
the cowboy was realistic and wide enough to include the
Native and black cowboys, so that way, the image of
the American cowboy is actually one of complexity and variety.
Do you think that that was something that America, if
we could get behind, that would have like real value
or is that more of a symbolic thing. If that
ever could happen, they would have tremendous real value. The
(44:29):
truth is the only thing that every places lives, and
the truth that it matters. What you're talking about is
telling the history as it actually happened. Black kids would
feel better about non black cowboys, but all kids will
feel better about known about black cowboys. We already lack cowboys,
So all we have to do is know that we
know what the men lied to for two hundred years
(44:49):
by some people who are no longer here, and we
are no longer tied to those little stories. So let's
expose all the stories, tell the truth and keep calling forward.
Actually it's it's a better story, you know, it's a
much better story. It shows more of American backdone than
the story they made up. Recently, Hollywood brought us Concrete Cowboys,
starring i dress Elba. The film set in North Philadelphia
(45:12):
and tells the story of a group of black cowboys
struggling to stay true to their way of life as
civilization marches on. The film asks how can black cowboys
continue to exist in an urban modern world. The reality
is that black cowboys have always existed and continue to exist,
sometimes right underneath our noses, for all this time, and
(45:33):
they plan to be there in our future because they matter.
You know. All we have to do is is to
keep learning and keep being open to the truth, not
new information, but to true information. And then once we
get to two information, replace the bards ship, you know,
get rid of it. Black cowboys on films seem to
spark a conversation about the stories America tells itself. This
(45:54):
is partly due to the legacy of her Jeffreys certainly
would he Strode and all cinematic Black Cowboys heroes made
of light beams and thus they can shine on screen forever.
Thanks for listening. Black Cowboys is written by me Zaren Burnett,
(46:15):
produced and edited by Ryan Murdoch and Michelle Lands. Our
theme song is written and performed by Demeanor. Original music
and mixing by Jeremy Thal, additional music by Thomas Lee,
mixed by Sid Basil. A show logo by Lucy Quintinia.
Executive producers are Jason English and mangesh A Ticketer. Portions
of this episode were reproduced from gold Dust through Warm
(46:37):
and Candid Memoirs of a Pioneer Black athlete and Actor
by Woody Strode and Sam Young, published by Madison Books.
Follow me Zaron Benette on Twitter, where my handle is
zerin three, and stay tuned for a new show from
my heart called Ridiculous Crime, co hosted by me and
writer Elizabeth Dutton. Check back here for future bonus episodes
of Black Cowboys Special Thanks as always to my pop.
(47:00):
Take it easy, and if you can't take it easy,
take it so. Yeah, this is a home. It's been
a long road. For us. We take it on this
ship over everything, Oh to us, realty, We surrounded by
our heritage, are fisked up because we're proud to be American.
(47:24):
I asked himself what's really in the name, Sitting on
a Mustang Friday through the place Bufalo So to the
King of the Range. We in love with the childboy
way
I've been coming from my late night meetings were not
have something, to have a drink telling the TV. Almost
as soon as I turned on, here is Aaron sting.
He would jump up, come in there with his blanket
and then on the sofa, get under my blanket. And
then Megan would get up and she would just walk
in there and get onto the coverage to go back
(00:26):
to sleep, but she wanted to be at there too.
We might sit up until four or five o'clock watching movies,
then get back up and make breakfast and watch another one. Yeah,
we've watched a lot of Westerns together and it's been
like something I think people find surprising. They're like, wait
a minute, you're your your pop with them with the
long dreadlocks. He loves watching westerns, and I'm like, yeah,
(00:47):
like bad with everyone of my family. He and I
love watching westerns. Is that something that your friends find
it interesting that you have such a love for western Oh? Yeah,
my friends find humor law. My choice movies like how
with musical like Guys and Dolls and Cat Blue The Ladner.
I watched those and then I love western Did do
you remember like We're Atlanta? When you managed to get
(01:09):
cable to the house very early, and we started being
able to watch all those movies. Do you remember how
many times you and I would watch The Electric Horseman. Yes,
that's a modern Western. The Long Riders too. We watched
The Long Riders a bunch of times. But the Electric
Horseman that one scene but they're chasing him on the horse.
He gets the horse. That's like one of the best
chase scenes. And Western's gotta have a chase scene. I
(01:31):
also love the image where he's like riding out of
the Las Vegas casinos. He's all lit up and the
horses all lit up, and then he like they walked
through the casino and like and then all of a sudden,
they're all the way through the casino. Then they're out
on the strip and then he's riding along. That man's
like he's got the electric suit. And then also he
turns those lights off and you're just like, oh, man, like,
it's just all now we're back to the West. It's
(01:51):
all you hear is the horse the horses up? Who's
on the street that left The next morning when he
wakes up and realized he stole the because when he
looked at noight, we watched that move almost every time
(02:13):
it came on. As you can hear, Westerns have always
been important to my pop and me. We like them
for different reasons. My pop likes the moral clarity, stories
of hard men performing admirably in hostile environments, people coming
together and rising to the challenge of making a society.
For me, I care less about the coming of civilization
(02:36):
and prefer the stories of frontiers, people escaping old societies,
charging into the wilderness, depending on themselves. I like westerns
about how a person can overcome the greedy, who exploit
the weak and delude the easily misled. I like to
see how one brave person can change everything and then
rides off into the sunset. Of course, my Papa and
(02:57):
I haven't had many black cowboys to root for on
the big screen or the TV screen. My favorite black
cowboy in cinemas wood he Strode. He is an indomitable
force on film. Wood he Strode reached back in time
and corrected the record of history. He made American audiences
imagine real, live black cowboys riding high and proud in
the saddle, men unbent by slavery, stout soldiers with iron wills,
(03:22):
hard men tempered in the heat of the Southwest, unrelenting
sun and baked desert landscape. In the mythic backdrops of
John Ford's west Wood, he Strode rival John Wayne as
a towering presence, a hero for the ages. It changed
everyone's view of what a black man could be, and
not just the Old West, but what an American who
is black could demand are his rights in the nineteen
(03:44):
sixties and nineteen seventies and beyond your favorite Wood he
Strode movie is the Professionals? Correct? Yes? Absolutely? Why do
you love that one so much? But he's a man,
full growing ass man. You know, he's not anybody sidekick.
He's nobody's assistant, nobody's partner. He's somebody that they needed.
(04:05):
Each person in that team was needed for the skills
that they alone possessed. So he was a full member
of the thing. He was a free man. There was
nothing to accommodate. How bad is that? Horror? Not too good?
No bottom, we can all do with the rest. Shape
would be a relief too. It's a little bad. No
(04:27):
one before had seen a black man be treated as
a white man's equal in a Western just one of
the crew of professionals. While he quietly demanded his dignity
be recognized. But then in The Man Who Shot Liberty
Valance for that same man to save John Wayne's ass
on the big screen, pulling him out of a burning house,
carrying up over his shoulders. No one before Woody Strode
(04:47):
had made American audiences reimagine how a black cowboy looks
and acts. Was there time he changed everything that followed
on screen and off. That was the power of wood
He Strode. The legacy of his presence in westerns would
lead directly to the badass black heroes of the urban
(05:08):
black exploitation era of the seventies. Woody Strode walked and
rode a horse so that Richard Rowntree, Jim Brown, and
Fred Williamson could stick it to the man. There's also
a direct line between Woody Strode's performance in Once Upon
a Time in the West and Jamie Fox in Django
unchained an unbroken legacy of badass black cowboys. As we've
(05:29):
discussed in this podcast, one in four cowboys were black.
Hollywood has never really shown this historic reality to its audiences.
There have, of course, been a few black cowboys in
major westerns, a few beloved characters like Sheriff Black bart
Emblazing Saddles and Malachi in Silverado. But they're like rain
drops compared to the oceans not shown. The great and
(05:51):
Buried truth has never been properly filmed since seeing is believing,
it's time to discuss the cinematic Black Cowboys and the
ways in which we amat pagine in the West, and
why it's been so difficult for America to understand our
present since we don't even properly imagine our past. Yeah,
(06:12):
this is a home. It's been a long road for us.
We take it ownership over everything else to us, realty.
We surrounded by our heritage, our fist up because we're
proud to be American. I'ms urn Burnette. Welcome to Black Cowboys,
And I heard the original podcast Cowboy Hey After itself
(06:33):
was really in the name Sitting on a mus stand Friday,
Through the Place, Buffalo Soldad, The King, Little Range, We
In Love With the Cowboy Way, Chapter nine, Woody Strode
and the Cinematic Black Cowboys. The bulldogger Bill Pickett was
the first black cowboy to appear on celluloid. He was
(06:55):
filmed for a number of early silent movies, but Bill
was always a real life cowboy, just put on film.
He wasn't acting. Soon the medium of cinema was born,
and then came the bigger than life cinematic cowboys, the
ones who existed on film beings of a luminous past.
The first true black cowboys star was a man from Detroit,
(07:15):
a smooth brother named Herb Jeffries. Before he became a
cowboys star, he was a nightclub singer. He often tells
a story about a turning point in his career. The
story goes that during one of his shows, Jeffrey saw
a little black child crying in an alley. The kid
had been playing a game of cowboys with a bunch
of white kids, but the white kids wouldn't let the
black kid pretend to be a white cowboy. Jeffries says
(07:38):
that seeing that black boy's crying face is what inspired
him to go to Hollywood to make black cowboy pictures.
Herb Jeffries made a series of westerns specifically for young
black boys and girls to have their own silver screen
cowboy to root for as he saves his love interest
and the town from villains. I don't know what his
fame was like. Contemporaneously. By the time we started watching them,
(08:02):
he had become like a cult figure among young progressive
black people. We were looking everywhere for positive examples of
our greatness. He was a perfect one because he was
a black cowboy movie star. It was like it was
like Roy Rises, Jane Autrey, hop Along Cassidy, and Herb Jeffreys.
(08:22):
As a kid, you could like any of the cowboys,
and you felt better because one of them was black.
You didn't have to be her of Jeffreys. I would
still be Jeane Autrey, but it was good that somebody
could play Herb Jeffreys. Half the time, the white kids
would want to play him because he was so cool.
N y U film professor Donald Bogel, author of Tom's
Coon's Molatto was Mammies and Bucks, once said that Herb
(08:44):
Jefferies was an undeniable star, but one whose brilliance was
limited by the small mindedness of his times. Bogel told
the l a times after Jeffrey's passed that quote, Herb
was a sex symbol with his wavy hair and his
Clark Gable mustache. He might have been a different kind
of star at America being a different kind of place.
This is all true. In his four films, The Black
(09:05):
Cowboys Star stirs American imaginations and he starts to correct
the historical record. Even if his films are just silly,
fun musicals, they still hint at the true past the
audience never ever gets to see with myral, my Sattin,
and my horse and my gun, my happy call boys.
(09:31):
In those first four Black Western Serb Jeffreys gave a
generation of black boys and girls a noble figure to
look up to, and he gave America a new dream
of the Old West. Jeffries told the l A Times quote,
little children of dark skin, not just Negroes, but Puerto Ricans, Mexicans,
everybody of color had no heroes in the movies. I
was so glad to give them something to identify with.
(09:54):
Ha Black kids, brown kids, kids of color wouldn't have
another black cowboy to look up to and to imagine
themselves as not for about another two decades, until the
(10:17):
early sixties, with the arrival of the cinematic presence known
as wood he Strode. Wood he Strode was a legendary
figure literally and figuratively. Figuratively, he embodies the West, particularly
the Black West. Literally, he looks like some kind of
black god who came to Earth to play a black cowboy.
(10:40):
His career spanned five decades, from the early nineteen fifties
to his last film in He died the next year
in four but before he passed, Woody Strode wrote a
memoir titled gold Dust. We had an actor reads some excerpts.
Had developed natural strength from working out with my own
body weight. I that's what I could do with that
and push ups, A thousand set ups and a thousand
(11:02):
nie squads every day. With the pushups, I would have
to rest after every hundred. The others I could do
without stopping. Pretty. Strode isn't from the South or from Texas,
Arkansas or Oklahoma. He was born in Los Angeles. My
daddy came to Los Angeles to escape racial pressure at Louisiana.
I remember he had a trunk full of guns and
(11:22):
thirty odd six bullets. That was based on his Southern
background and fear. But you saw white people out here
with different from the white people where he came from.
He wanted me to fall into his air path. That's
why we never talked about race growing up in l A.
What he Strode's childhood is far different than that of
his parents. He's not entirely free of racism, but it
(11:44):
also isn't a preoccupying force in his life. At that time,
most of the black people in Los Angeles lived in
the Central Avenue. Back then, it was really plush. It
had the best nightclubs, after hour spots. Central Avenue was
brightly it up like Hollywood Boulevard would be today, and
when the sunset, all the Hollywood producers and directors would
(12:07):
come down to soak up the atmosphere. Well, you can
imagine what a great place Central Avenue was. We had
so much freedom compared to any other area in the country.
That's how I got my liberated attitude, and I thank
God for that because it's helped me every step of
the way. It would certainly help him as he becomes
a standout athlete in high school and his vistas expand
(12:27):
as his potential future stretch out before him, reaching in
so many different directions. My senior year, I made the
All City team. I would selected captain based on that.
In my all state and trying, I got five scholarship offers.
I got one from cal Washington, Oregon, Loyola, and U C.
L a usc enough Dame had the best teams every year,
(12:49):
but USCU No Tre Dame didn't give black athletes a
chance to play at that time. So I ended up
at U c l A and that turned out to
be one of the best things that ever happened. Interestingly,
it's at U c l A that wood he draws
the attention of Adolph Hitler. I was contacted by Lenny Reriefenstall.
(13:10):
She was a beautiful, intelligent German who was also a
great athlete. She was famous as a filmmaker. Her film Olympia,
a documentary on the Olympics, is possibly the greatest sports
film ever made. She contacted me and asked me to
meet her at this club down in the in the
Wilshire district. She had an artist with a little man
(13:30):
that stood about as tall as her shoulder, the studious
looking fellow with a full beard and glasses. He wore
a powder blue smock that almost touched the ground. They
pulled me into a small curtained off room and I
stripped off until I had nothing on but my jockey shorts.
I crouched down and the little German artist walked around
me eyeball and me tugging on his beard. Lenny Riefenstell
(13:54):
was standing in the corner. She said, we saw your
picture and we couldn't believe it. You have the greatest
physique of any athletes were of a scene. What Hitler
saw my pictures, He couldn't believe how I looked. He
sent Lenny Riefenstall back here to shoot some film on
She said, we'd like to take you up to Carmel
and film you against all that white scenery. I was
ready to go, but people started whispering, don't you know
(14:16):
who she is? Don't you know what's happening over there
in Europe. I said to myself, no, no, I can't
be a part of that. Around that same time, wood
he Strode is also training for the ninety six Olympics.
He plans to compete in the decathlon. They trained me
right up until cut off time, but I never did
(14:36):
go to the Olympic trials of Randalls Island, New York.
The school said I needed another half unit to maintain
my eligibility, so I took a shop class and I
never went to the Olympics. Instead of Olympic glory, what
he Strode learns to use a band saw Three years later,
wood He Strode finds a different sort of national fame
as part of the super Stacke u c l A
(14:57):
football team. The headline grabbing offense features Woody Strode, Kenny Washington,
and Jackie Robinson. They are arguably the best college team
in America that year and certainly one of the greatest
backfields of all time. Perhaps the most interesting fact about
the nine u c l A Bruins Stars is that
all three would later become the first black athletes to
(15:18):
play in a professional sports league, in Robinson and Strode's
case after they served in the army during World War Two.
Obviously in baseball, Jackie Robinson breaks the color line in
seven with the Brooklyn Dodgers, but one year earlier, in
ninety six, Kenny Washington and Woody Strode are signed to
the Los Angeles Rams, becoming the first black players in
(15:41):
the NFL. Woodie Strode doesn't stay in the NFL long, though,
By ninety nine he becomes a professional wrestler. Woodie Strode
has the body for it, the mystique for it, and
the sheer physicality and strength required. As Woody Strode makes
more and more of a name for himself, and wrestling.
He's confronted with issue use of how to use race
(16:01):
to become a bigger star. Professional wrestling at the time
is not the same sort of absurd caricatures and plot
lines of today's w w E, although you can certainly
see traces of the promotional ambitions that would lead to
wrestling as we know it. Woody Strode was part Native.
His mother had Cherokee blood, his father had Creek blood.
(16:21):
The wrestling promoters saw an opportunity. Mr Bell, who owned
all the racetracks in Calgary, asked me, why don't you
advertise your Indian blood? I said, Mr Bell, all of
us in America, all the Negroes and mixed breeds, one
way or another. If I advertise I'm an Indian, the
Black people will figure I'm putting them down. The Indians
already know. Let's just leave it at that. When I
(16:41):
wrestled in Canada, the whole black Foot nation would show
up at the arena one night, the Blackfoot chiefs setting
young tribeswoman to my dressing room before a match. She
measured my feet my in scenam. I waste my shoulders,
even my hands, which made me a dear skin outfit
they made me an honorary member of the tribe caricature
or not. What do these physical appearance leads to the
(17:02):
big breakthrough that would shape the rest of his career,
said Gold called me so. It was a theatrical agent.
He saw me wrestling on the tube and he said,
what he Strode. I'm a big fan. You have a
look I think I could sell. Would you be interested
in making some money? It's what he Strode is thirty
(17:22):
seven years old. He is an absolutely incredible shape. He
stands six ft four ways about two fifteen. He has
a towering presence, with the musculature of a Greek god
on steroids. Except it's America in the nineteen fifties, which
means America isn't exactly ready for a man like what
He Strode. There's a similarity between Woody Strode and The Rock.
(17:50):
They're both wrestlers. They both become movie stars, but yet
one becomes a huge star. Are you not surprised? But
do you think that in a different time, Woody Strode
could have been as big as the Yeah, oh yeah,
I think what Strode prepared to earth for the Rock.
You know, the path he took is basically the path
wood he Strode took. He was a college athlete. He
got injured playing football, so he couldn't go pro football,
(18:12):
and he became a pro wrestler, and then he became
a movie star. I mean, it's exactly the same path.
The first Hollywood movie to truly feature wood he Strode
and highlight on the big screen. What He's Capable Of
is an all time classic. Spartacus by Stanley Kubrick, released
in nineteen sixty. It's a tale of freedom, the story
of a slave revolt in ancient Rome led by a
(18:33):
gladiator Spartacus. During his time in the Gladiator Academy, Spartacus
must fight to the death against a terrifying opponent played
by what He Strode. Wood He's a gladiator too, but
he's mostly a scare tactive for the audience. He's just
quote a big, scary black man. But there's one moment
where his actions are virtuous inspiring. After his brutal clash
(18:55):
with Spartacus, Strode's character decides not to kill his fellow
slave and instead a text the Patricians of Rome. As
you might imagine, it doesn't end well for Woody Jim Killer,
but the death of woody Strode's character becomes a spark.
(19:17):
It sets off a slave revolt and widespread rebellion. His
valiant death a metaphor for the continuing sacrifices of black
Americans still longing to be free. In after his time
as a gladiator for Kubrick, Woody Strode gets to portray
a truly worthy cinematic icon, a black cowboy and buffalo soldier.
(19:40):
He's offered the title role as Sergeant Rutledge, a role
that explores his identity rather than leverage it for cinematic tension,
as quote, a big scary black man. When I got home,
john Ford was waiting for him. Anyway. We talked and
finally said, I hear you're trying to be an act.
I said, well, you know, say the line get the money.
(20:01):
I was underplanned. He said, I've got a little thing
going called Sergeant Rutlidge. I want you to play a
title role. I didn't get too excited because I thought
he was Joe. Director john Ford had done this before.
Quite famously. Ford took a washed up, injured usc football player,
a kid from Iowa named Marion Morrison, and turned him
into the most famous icon of the cinematic West. You
(20:24):
know him as John Wayne. The many films the two
men would make together, starting with Stage Coach in nine,
would come to be seen as the unofficial history of
the American West. Beyond that, Ford almost single handedly created
the myth and visual language of the American West. He
spun the dream that the West was a wild land,
were white men like him brought law and order and civilization,
(20:48):
ignoring the fact white men had been in the West
in Spanish California long before their English cousins ever arrived
in Jamestown, or that civilization was present before any Europeans
arrived in America. In the early post war period, as
civil rights starts to take a center stage in America,
John Ford makes a series of western's Ford Apache, The
(21:10):
Quiet Man, My Darling, Clementine, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon,
Rio Grand and The Searchers. The films are a kind
of cinematic therapy for a nation wondering what freedom means
now that the U. S Has beat the fascists but
is still fighting to maintain Jim Crow in America In
Woody Strode, Ford sees a way to call out America
(21:30):
on its racism on his own racism. John Ford was
interested in telling the story using the Knife in Tenth
Cavalry as the backbone. After slavery came to last, the
Great Indian Forms round eighteen sixty six, United States built
cavalry out of former slaves, young, tall, strong negroes who
ride horses. They were trained to think and act like Indians.
(21:50):
They learned to fight and to hand with a knife.
They could use a rifle. They were led by white officers.
The highest the black soldier breach was first sargent and
after they were trained to govern and set them loose
on the Indians like you would have bloodhound on the farms.
You know the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry as the Buffalo Soldiers.
It's nineteen fifty nine when the film begins production, eighty
(22:11):
five years after the Buffalo Soldiers fought in the Apache
Wars in the Southwest, the nation was still grappling with
the aftermath of the lynching of Emmett Till. To recap
the details, fourteen year old Emmett Till had been visiting
family in the South when he was falsely accused of
whistling at a white woman. He was then abducted from
his family home in the dead of night, beaten and lynched.
(22:33):
The white man who did it were found not guilty
by an all white jury. That moment galvanized the civil
rights movement. This is the racial backdrop when john Ford
makes his film about a huge, herculean black brother accused
of rape and murder. Sergeant Ruttledge is about a top sergeant,
the Knife Calvalry. He's accused of murdering his post commander
(22:53):
and raping his daughter. The catch Sergeant Rutledge scene of
the crime, the major and his daughter lying down the floor.
There's a moment early in the film where john Ford
plays on the fears of white Americans. Woody Strode grabs
a white woman by the face, covering her mouth with
his enormous black hand as he instructs her not to scream.
(23:17):
Don't scream, miss don't scream. It's a flashback scene where
the jury is supposed to be imagining what really happened,
and then Ford fast forwards and shows us what happens
all too often in the criminal justice system, where a
prosecutor plays up the image of a big, scary black
man was it was as though he'd sprung up at
(23:38):
me out of the earth. I couldn't move like, I
couldn't scream. It was like a nightmare. And that man
who sprang at you from the darkness like something from
a nightmare, is he here in this court Yes he is,
that man who sees you so brutally and viciously, is
he here in this courtroom. Yes, he's sitting there. That
colored soldier, I object. I withdraw the word colored. I
(24:02):
refer to the accused Sergeant Rustige. Now in the big
courtroom scene, I had the most emotional moment in my
acting crew. I took the stand. I felt like it
was like an exposed nerve. And the old man was
twisting the night. The old man as Wood, he calls him,
is john Ford. He had me all piste off, emotional,
(24:22):
teetering right on the edge. I sat and said real
stoic while the prostitute and attorney started to parade in
front of me. This negro breaked this little girl and
killed her father. If he's innocent of the crimes, And
why did this nick try to escape? And then he
turned me? Why did you come back? By then the
goose pimples were all over me, and the floodgates over
(24:46):
You're trying to trade your murderers bravery for the mercy
of this part. Isn't that? It? No? So that is
not that? Isn't it? What was it? It's because the
Night Calary was my home, my real freedom and my
self respect, and the way I was deserted that I
(25:07):
wasn't nothing the first that I was swamp running and
I hate that. Do you hear me? I'm a bad.
To make his urgent point about racism, john Ford relies
on the ugliest word in the English language. In fact,
(25:28):
it was Strode who insisted the word be used, As
he told The New York Times in one quote, john
Ford wanted to know if we could get away with
saying on the screen, and I said, why not. It
would be the first time a black man ever called
himself and on the screen, and I wanted it to
hit home. Certainly did, especially with that hard are. It
(25:49):
still hits home today. SARGEA. Rutlers comes out in sixty
and we're still very much in the civil rights are
at that time. But prior in the fifties, we would
see signs of black man holding up I am a man.
Was that a civil rights statement when you saw that
at that time? Yeah, I'm a man goes throughout African
American history. That statement is never out of context. I
(26:11):
am a man. It's almost like the first statement of
any argument Black man have had to make over the
years about anything. Before we get into anything. First of all,
I'm a growing ass man, So you're gonna talk to
me like I'm a man. You're not gonna talk to
him like I'm a child. Before we talk about anything.
The first thing we're going to established is that I
am a man. We can't talk about that, then we
(26:32):
can't talk about anything else. That's a recurring theme throughout
African American history, so when we see it, you would
expect that to be there. Sergeant Rutledge was so strong
because he said the things that were absolutely in time context,
that are absolutely alive now. Ultimately, Sergeant Rutledge is found
not guilty. A white man confesses to the crime. Ford
(26:54):
makes the white audience rethink their own biases and what
he Strode gets to ride off into the sunset of
free man. As he said in an interview before the
New York Times, in quote, you never seen a negro
came off a mountain like John Wayne before. I had
the greatest glory, Hallelujah ride across the Pacos River that
any black man ever had on the screen. And I
did it myself. I carried the whole black race across
(27:16):
that river alright got back. Sadly, john Ford's film Sergeant
(27:39):
Ruttledge was too far ahead of its time. The film
was an uncomfortable experience for a nation wrestling with his
own ideals. America didn't expect that from john Ford. Many
people now have never heard of Sergeant Ruttledge, even among
fans of westerns. Despite the fact the film was not
a hit, it didn't sour Woody Strode and John Ford's
working relationship. Two years after starring in Sergeant Rutledge, wood
(28:02):
He Strode returns to shoot another classic john Ford Western.
It's one we've mentioned before on this podcast. The Man
who shot Liberty Valence B. Marvin is the villainous Liberty Valance,
an outlaw and hired muscle for the ranchers who want
the West to remain free range for their cattle, undivided
(28:24):
by barbed wire fences. Jimmy Stewart is a lawyer from
the East who has come to the West with his
law books and his ideas of polite society. John Wayne
represents the hard but decent men who settled the West
and must now decide how they will embrace the coming
of civilization. Wood He Strode plays John Wayne's loyal ranch hand,
a character named Pompey. He's named after the ancient Roman general,
(28:48):
a great hero of democracy and an enemy of the
tyrant Julius Caesar. It's not a starring role, but it's
an honorable one. There's one scene that always stuck with me,
mostly for its naive American optim is. Um Ford shows
Strode learning to read in the class with school kids
and some other semi literate adults, all of them taught
by Jimmy Stewart. As a lesson in literacy, he has
(29:10):
Strode recite the beginning of the Declaration of Independence. Now,
I wonder if anybody in class remembers what the basic
law of the land is called. Now, you remember I
told you that it had to be added to and
change from time to time by things called amendments. Now
does anybody remember who lay out of your hands? Are
(29:30):
always happen here? Let's pompy you try this one. It
was written by Mr Thomas Jefferson of Virginia was written
written by Mr Thomas Jefferson, and he called it the
Constitution Declaration of Independence. It begun with the words, we
hold these truths to be uh self evident. Let I'm alone,
(29:54):
Charlotte self evidence that that all men are created equal.
That's fine, Pomping. I knew that, Mr Rance, but I
just plump forgot it. It's all right, Paump. A lot
of people forget that part of it. You did just fine, Pomping.
How did that scene play for you? Because I don't
think there's a black character in the West who's going
(30:15):
to forget that line of the Declaration of Independence. But
john Ford wants it to be said so that the
American people hear it. What would your thoughts about that?
I think artistically you're correct. I don't think anybody, any
black person who knew the line would have forgotten that one.
But I thought, uh john Ford was trying to underline
the point as opposed to just making it. That scene
(30:36):
right there, just him doing that exchange with Jimmy Stewart
was almost as powerful as what he did and Sergeant
Relics when he was on the witness stand, because you
could feel the emotion in him. There were members of
his family when he was young who could not read.
There were members of my family who could not read.
You had to read to them, and when they finally
figured out the words, they were as proud as if
(30:57):
they had found a diamond in the yard. It's a
very familiar scenario in black families, especially of his age.
He was born in nineteen fourteen. That's only forty nine
years after slavery ended, you know, so there were a
lot of people who couldn't read. Up until the forties
and the fifties. We were always reading to the old people.
Go read to ansists, go read the paper to pop pop,
(31:20):
you know, that's that kind of thing. Or they were
coming with with something they got from the mail. Read
this for me. He was expressing all of that because
that was a reading class. They were using a Decorats
of Independence as the text. I thought it was a
very powerful scene. John Ford makes a point that despite
the nation's idealism, day to day life is mired and systemic,
enduring racism. And at that same time, the American people
(31:43):
are very much divided over whether Martin Luther King Jr.
Is tearing apart the nation for reminding the country of
its own founding documents. Very intentionally, Ford mirrored the reality
of the times, the tensions of the day. Woody Strode
was a black cowboy and cinematic figure on which the
battles of civil rights could be projected. One year after
(32:07):
Malcolm X's gunned down in Harlem, what he Strode finally
gets to be a top billed star in the movie
The Professionals. Of course, he plays a trail hardened black
cowboy alongside three white cowboys. Wait, what's this? One in
four Cowboys is black? Look at that. Someone finally got
it right. Here's how wood he Strode recalls producer Richard
(32:29):
Brooks explaining the role to him, What it's about time
we showed the Negro cowboy in the Old West. Script
calls for a Mexican, Irish Indian, but I'm gonna make
him an Indian Negro half breed. Richard Brooks reached and
pulled a book on cowboys from michelf. I leaned over
his desk and we went through the pictures. The Professionals
came out in ninety six. I played Jacob Sharp, one
(32:51):
of the four male leads in the picture. That was
the first time I ever received on screen star villain.
I got my name up there ahead of Bird Lancasters.
That same year, nine six, Strode attempts to produce his
own Western film. It's called The Story of the Tenth Cavalry,
about the bravery of the Buffalo soldiers. It's meant as
(33:13):
a historic corrective and a thrilling good time, but Strode
can't find any producers willing to fund the film, so
he returns to acting in other people's movies, much like
Clint Eastwood before him would he Strode takes his cowboy
act to Europe. Italian director Sergio Leone loves what he Strode.
Leone cast him in his next movie, The Black Cowboy
(33:35):
Flies over to Europe to do what everyone's calling, quote
a spaghetti Western. The movie's title is a nod to
the grand mythos of America Once upon a Time in
the West. It was the only picture I did with
Sergio Leone. The close ups were great. I never got
a close up in Hollywood, and Sergio Frami on screen
for five minutes. After that, I said, that's all I needed.
(33:56):
He plays a bounty hunter who hunts down white men
and kills them if he has to. He's a black
badass with a sawed off Winchester rifle strapped to his thigh.
It's a gun known as a mayor's leg. He's not
in the film long, but somehow Woody Strode makes drinking
water out of his hat into a moment that film
lovers still talk about. Contemporary film critic Andrew Seras zeroes
(34:18):
in on the moment in his review for The Village
Voice in Ny. He writes, quote, in the very beginning, Strode,
shortly before he is to be gunned down, feels some
drops of water falling on his forehead as he's framed
and close up on the fresco like wide screen. He
places his stetson on his head so that it will
receive the water between its camel like humps, and then
(34:39):
he shortly thereafter drinks the water from the stetson in
a gesture so ceremonial as to make the hat seem
like a holy chalice. After this portentous, implacable technique, Leone
leaves no way out for his characters. It is kill
or be killed. Sergio Leone hates the turn used for
(35:00):
his films spaghetti westerns. He feels it diminishes his work.
Marginalizes it. It makes them seem like a side show.
He sees his work as vital and honest accounting of
the West. He wants the real West to be known,
including the black cowboys, and just like John Ford, he
can't understand why Hollywood hasn't made Wood he Strode into
(35:21):
a bigger star. I told him, I don't think they've
quite gotten used to me coming off the mountain on
a horse with John Wayne by my side. But Sergio
saw what I could do, and that was enough for him. See.
I was always opening doors, never knowing what I would
find on the other side. A hundred years from today,
they'll look at all this and say, ship man, that
guy did all this stuff before anybody did anything. I
(35:42):
never thought of it like that. I was just trying
to make a living, just trying to survive in my generation. Today,
the older white men see my cowboy had and they
identified with that. I don't wear boots, I wear moccasins.
They see my Indian cheek bones. They accept the moccasins.
This is my identity. Don't talk about what I am.
I defend myself. Quiet. That's always the aim of Wood.
(36:04):
He strode. Quiet dignity, and a steadfast demand of respect.
The Reagan years were tough on Woody Strode's career during
the eighties, he didn't star in any notable films. However,
to be honest, the Reagan years were tough on all
black people. But then with the coming of a new
decade arrived new opportunities for the aging black cowboy. At
(36:26):
the age of seventy nine, Woody Strode enjoys a late
career resurgence. He appears as the narrator for a new
black western made by someone of the young generation. The
movie is called Posse. I was super hyped to see
it when it hit theaters. I was a young kid
who loved westerns and was eager to see more of
the history and black cowboys up on the big screen.
The movie did well enough at the box office, but
(36:48):
it's not well remembered now. It did, however, mean a
lot to wood he Strode at the time, especially because
there was a black man in the director's chair. When
Mario van Peebles approached wood he Strode to be the
narrator for his new western, he wanted to honor the
black cowboy who first demanded that our history be respected.
As wood he told Entertainment Weekly, quote, I still can't
(37:09):
believe I lived to see the day when a young
black man like Mario would be given money to direct
this kind of movie and get to say the things
he's saying. And I'm the one that gets to say it.
Let me tell you, it's a real kick. In a
more recent interview, Mario van Peebles was asked about his
decision to cast Woody. He told The Decider quote, Woody
(37:29):
was almost eighty. But when I called him up because
I had seen him and once upon a time in
the West and Sergeant Rutledge, so he was one of
the first black cowboys I saw that didn't shuffle. He
stood up. He was a badass, and he got a
lot of screen time, a lot of it was in
spaghetti westerns, but it was always good to see him.
So I called him up and I said, I'm doing
a Western, and I've really enjoyed your work, and I'd
(37:50):
love for you to take a look at the script.
And he said, well, I'm not really doing a lot
of westerns anymore. And I said, no, I understand, but
if I could just get you to take a look
at a few pages, he said, all right, send it
over to me. About five minutes later he called me back.
Well when what he called me back after reading that
opening line? He said, sona, are they gonna let you
say this? And I said, well, in this case, I
(38:10):
am the day and he said, well, then color me in.
It was great. As the narrator for posse Wood, he
Strode gets to open the film and sets the stage
for a black version of the West, and frankly, it
sounds a lot like the beginning of this podcast, this
one thing about time. No matter how much or how
little passes, it changes, saying people forget their pass and
(38:35):
if you get the truth, but pictures online forgotten gutten
slingers like net Love I and Dart cherch Key Bill,
and truths too like to Night and the tents you
see people forget that. Almost one out of every three
cowboys was. But of course, when the slaves were free,
(38:58):
a lot of them hit it out West, built their
own town ship. They didn't have much choice. In fact,
over half of the original settles of Los Angeles or black,
but for some reason we never hear their stories. The
film did well at the box office, but it didn't
inspire many imitators that maybe due more to the style
(39:20):
of the film than the subject matter. As Roger Ebert
said in his review of the film at the time, quote,
the story needs to be told, but unfortunately that is
what director Mario van Peebles does not do in Posse.
This is an overdirected, over photographed, overdone movie that is
so distracted by its hectic, relentless style that the storyline
is rendered almost incoherent. As someone who had waited for
(39:44):
a film like Posse ever since my pop and I
first started watching westerns together and he told me about
the black cowboys not on screen, Honestly, I was more
than disappointed with the movie. Two years later, wood He
Strode appears posthumously in another big budget western, The Quick
and the Dead. He stars alongside Leonardo DiCaprio, Gene Hackman,
(40:04):
Sharon Stone, and Russell Crowe. It's Woody Strode's final film
after five decades in Hollywood. He's still starring alongside some
of the biggest names. Pretty damn impressive. In the film's
end credits, the western is dedicated to the Black Cowboy.
Quite some progress since Herb Jeffreys. That same year in
Woody Strode receives one other cinematic nod of respect from
(40:27):
his colleagues in Hollywood. The hero of the Breakout c
g I animated hit film from that year is named
after Strode. Can you guess who Wow Hey? Whoa wow
wow wow whoa? Did I frighten? You didn't mean to? Sorry, howdy.
My name is Woody and this is Andy's room. Sheriff
Woody from toy Story wild right and yet totally fitting.
(40:50):
Not that Woody's character was black, but maybe if that
same film were made today, he would be. There have
been a lot of cinematic black cow boys who followed
the trail of what he Strode in the early sixties,
stars like Sydney Portier. In the seventies, Harry Belafonte joins him,
and then there were also the funny black cowboys Clevland
Little and Richard Pryor. That same decade, it was all
(41:12):
about the black sploitation tough guys in westerns, like former
football players Fred the Hammer, Williamson and Jim Brown. In
the eighties, Danny Glover stars is two iconic black cowboys,
one in Lonesome dub and the other in Silverado. By
the next decade, Morgan Freeman becomes an iconic black cowboy
and an Academy Award winning Clint Eastwood western Unforgiven. Most recently,
(41:33):
we've seen a very different black cowboy from Jamie Fox,
who starred in a highly fictionalized world of plantation slavery
as imagined by Quentin Tarantino and rendered in his Ultra Violence.
The climax when the plantation explodes and Carrie Washington is
safe waiting on horseback and she sees Jamie Fox walk out, victorious,
the plantation smoldering behind him. That moment is a catharsis.
(41:57):
I can't explain to my white friends. They can never
understand how that cinematic moment feels to see a black
cowboy detonate the ultimate symbol of slavery. Tarantino called it
(42:19):
the first Southern And you know what, it doesn't matter
that it's pure wish fulfillment. That's what movies are fantasies.
How often do you think people watch stories of like
The West and think this is historically accurate, and then
I can treat this like almost a textbook. Do you
think that that is common that people are watching these
movies expecting them to be historic every time time? And
(42:41):
I think the American public is willing to suspend disbelief
at the drop of a hat. That's always the problem,
trying to get them to them believe the truth because
they've accepted it lie so completely that now you come up,
you know, they're one force to one third of the
cowboys were black. No, get out of here. So okay,
how do you prove it? People are not reading historical
(43:03):
books and not doing a lot of the things that
you would do to gain information about your culture. So
the way they get that information now is to go
and see Saving Private Ryan. Then that tells them what
happened in World War Two. They go see Apollo thirteen,
and then they think they know Nasa. You know, they
see Django, they think they know slavery, and those you get,
you get a taste of it, but you don't know it.
(43:25):
And then they can't discern those from the ones that
are pure bullshit because they don't have debility to judge.
The cowboy becomes cemented as the spirit of America. Why
do you think that is? What about the cowboy represents
America so well? I think the image makers seized upon
that because of the independence that is associated with cowboys,
(43:46):
the independence, the durability to the self assurances, the ability
to take care of yourself. You know what America wanted
the world to think about America after World War Two?
If they wanted to think that we were that cowboys.
So they seized on the Western and they really used
it to push an idea of America as when John
Wayne became like the real American image. Can you imagine
(44:08):
what it would be like if the American ideal of
the cowboy was realistic and wide enough to include the
Native and black cowboys, so that way, the image of
the American cowboy is actually one of complexity and variety.
Do you think that that was something that America, if
we could get behind, that would have like real value
or is that more of a symbolic thing. If that
ever could happen, they would have tremendous real value. The
(44:29):
truth is the only thing that every places lives, and
the truth that it matters. What you're talking about is
telling the history as it actually happened. Black kids would
feel better about non black cowboys, but all kids will
feel better about known about black cowboys. We already lack cowboys,
So all we have to do is know that we
know what the men lied to for two hundred years
(44:49):
by some people who are no longer here, and we
are no longer tied to those little stories. So let's
expose all the stories, tell the truth and keep calling forward.
Actually it's it's a better story, you know, it's a
much better story. It shows more of American backdone than
the story they made up. Recently, Hollywood brought us Concrete Cowboys,
starring i dress Elba. The film set in North Philadelphia
(45:12):
and tells the story of a group of black cowboys
struggling to stay true to their way of life as
civilization marches on. The film asks how can black cowboys
continue to exist in an urban modern world. The reality
is that black cowboys have always existed and continue to exist,
sometimes right underneath our noses, for all this time, and
(45:33):
they plan to be there in our future because they matter.
You know. All we have to do is is to
keep learning and keep being open to the truth, not
new information, but to true information. And then once we
get to two information, replace the bards ship, you know,
get rid of it. Black cowboys on films seem to
spark a conversation about the stories America tells itself. This
(45:54):
is partly due to the legacy of her Jeffreys certainly
would he Strode and all cinematic Black Cowboys heroes made
of light beams and thus they can shine on screen forever.
Thanks for listening. Black Cowboys is written by me Zaren Burnett,
(46:15):
produced and edited by Ryan Murdoch and Michelle Lands. Our
theme song is written and performed by Demeanor. Original music
and mixing by Jeremy Thal, additional music by Thomas Lee,
mixed by Sid Basil. A show logo by Lucy Quintinia.
Executive producers are Jason English and mangesh A Ticketer. Portions
of this episode were reproduced from gold Dust through Warm
(46:37):
and Candid Memoirs of a Pioneer Black athlete and Actor
by Woody Strode and Sam Young, published by Madison Books.
Follow me Zaron Benette on Twitter, where my handle is
zerin three, and stay tuned for a new show from
my heart called Ridiculous Crime, co hosted by me and
writer Elizabeth Dutton. Check back here for future bonus episodes
of Black Cowboys Special Thanks as always to my pop.
(47:00):
Take it easy, and if you can't take it easy,
take it so. Yeah, this is a home. It's been
a long road. For us. We take it on this
ship over everything, Oh to us, realty, We surrounded by
our heritage, are fisked up because we're proud to be American.
(47:24):
I asked himself what's really in the name, Sitting on
a Mustang Friday through the place Bufalo So to the
King of the Range. We in love with the childboy
way
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