The Truth About Hollywood Cowboys

Dan Snow's History Hit

History Hit

History

4.7 • 12.9K Ratings

🗓️ 27 October 2021

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

At the end of the American Civil War, thousands of African Americans ventured west to the frontier in a bid to achieve freedom and escape the prejudice they faced. Many of these frontiersmen became cowboys with up to 25 per cent of cowboys were in fact black. Whilst Westerns became big business in Hollywood this fact was largely been ignored by major film studios. Why is this? To find out Dan is joined for today's podcast by Tony Warner, a historian who runs Black History Walks in London and an expert on Black Westerns including the new Netflix film The Harder They Fall. He and Dan discuss the history of Black Westerns during the segregation era, the amazing real-life individuals that have inspired these films, the role of black cowboys on the frontier and why they have largely been ignored by history and Hollywood.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi everyone, welcome to Dance No History. Everyone's very excited about the long-delayed release
0:05.4	of the new Netflix film The Harder They Fall. It's long awaited, COVID messed with it,
0:12.3	but thankfully it's here. Nat Love reassembles his former gang to seek revenge against the
0:19.0	man who murdered his parents. It's a Western folks, we love being this.
0:23.1	Nat Love's a real human being. The film's loosely based on a true story, which is Nat Love
0:27.9	was a cowboy who was a formerly enslaved person. And in the period after the American Civil
0:32.8	War, he headed west and became one of the most famous heroes of the Old West. It's a
0:37.6	star-studded car, Scott Idriselba, it's produced by Jay-Z, we're loving it. But what I want
0:43.4	to know is the truth about like black cowboys.
0:45.8	Too often I think our assumption is that the frontier was a white man's place where the
0:50.0	white man fought against the Native Americans, the Indians. In fact, it's not true. It's
0:55.8	going to play a minus podcast. Do you know the lone ranger was probably black? The person
1:01.0	the character was based on was probably black. Check this out. Tony Warner is his story,
1:05.6	and he runs History Walks Run, London, Black History Walks, and he's the historical consultant
1:09.8	on The Harder They Fall. This is an eye opening, eye opening episode of the podcast, and it
1:15.6	puts black cowboys back at the heart of the frontier where they belong. It's awesome.
1:22.4	If you want to check out our History Documentaries, please go to History Hit TV. It's like Netflix
1:26.8	or History. It's got hundreds of documentaries on there. It's got thousands of podcasts.
1:31.4	All for a very small subscription, it can be yours. It's a safe place for true history
1:34.8	fans. Please go and check it out. Go to History Hit.tv. If you've subscribed today, you get
1:39.7	30 days free, so you can check it out, see if you like it. And I know you will. You're
1:43.8	going to love it. So in the meantime, everyone, enjoy listening to Tony Warner and the truth
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from History Hit, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of History Hit and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.