Paul Stewart grew up in the early 1930s as a black kid who loved nothing more than playing cowboys and Indians with his friends.

He daydreamed about life in the Wild West.

That idea of living with no rules and riding from town to town with just his trusty horse by his side.

Though he was just a kid in small town Iowa, he imagined himself in the image of the cowboy.

Until one day, Little Paul was told by another kid, there was no such thing as a black cowboy.

Little Paul was crushed.

Not only did this kid burst his bubble, but at the time, the cool cowboys in the movies

were all white guys, seemingly proving the kid's point.

Disappointed, Little Paul sort of let go of his fascination of Cowboys and the Wild West.

A few decades later, Paul's a grown man out in Denver, Colorado with his cousin,

when he walks past a real-life black cowboy.

Really, the dude was just going about his day, but Paul was awestruck.

This dude was in the full cowboy get-up that you'd imagine.

Boots, spurs, gun belt, and of course, a cowboy hat.

So much for black cowboys not existing.

My name is Baudelaire, and this is Atlas Obscira, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible, and wondrous places.

Today, we go to Denver, Colorado, to the Black American West Museum to hear how little Paul would go on to dedicate his life to telling the stories of the Black Cowboys.

And along the way, he'd surface stories about black contributions to the American West.

More after this. Paul Stewart didn't even talk to the black cowboy he came across in downtown Denver.

He was stunned, and it was almost like his younger self came back to the surface.

He'd never seen a black man dress like that,

except maybe in his old daydreams as a kid. Now a girl man, he started doing his own research.

...