This is an IHeart podcast.

This is Lee Habib, and this is our American Stories,

the show where America is the star and the American people.

Up next, a story from Professor Art T. Burton on Bass Reeves, the first black deputy

U.S. Marshal west of the Mississippi River, and quite possibly the basis of Django from

Django Unchained or The Lone Ranger.

Art is the author of Black Gun Silver Star,

The Life of Frontier Marshal, Bass Reeves,

and has dedicated his life to the academic study

of African Americans in the West.

Take it away, Art.

At first... Take it away, Art. I first became aware of Western culture around the age of four years old. My mother was from Arcadia, Oklahoma, and the family lived in the country outside of Arcadia.

And at the first memory of around the age of four,

I can remember visiting relatives and my uncle

trying to break a horse that was in a pasture.

And I thought at the time, this is like Western films I've seen on TV,

people rat and bucking horses.

That was one of my first memories.

And originally, as a young man, I thought it was very strange because you didn't see

African Americans in movies and television shows who were cowboys. But in Oklahoma, there were

quite a few African Americans that were involved in ranching, owning horses, and there was a segregated black

rodeo circuit that traveled between Oklahoma, Texas, and Louisiana. And there were quite

...