8/30/2023 0 Comments Black compton hat![]() ![]() "I grew up on Chicago's far South Side and went to Westerns on Saturday afternoons and always had cowboys as my heroes," Latting told American Cowboy magazine in 1996. He launched the Thyrl Latting Rodeo Spectacular, a black cowboy-centred rodeo, at Chicago's International Amphitheater in 1964. In the early 1950s, Latting competed in rodeos across the country and developed a reputation as a star horseman. Thyrl Latting, often considered Chicago's original black cowboy, was the first to introduce Chicago's inner-city kids to horsemanship. Welcome to Polebridge: one of the US' last frontiers.The forgotten story of the US' black cowboys.An average of 16,000 spectators attended each of the 318 performances, inspiring Chicagoans of all backgrounds to dream about becoming cowboys in the big city. The company, made up of more than 450 riders of Native American, Mexican, Arab, and African American descent, among other groups, performed to sellout crowds. In Philadelphia, the Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club, the inspiration behind the 2020 Netflix movie Concrete Cowboy starring Idris Elba, has been promoting black horsemanship for more than 100 years, raising awareness by simply riding through the city streets and parks and hosting regular races in Fairmount Park.Ĭhicago was first introduced to cowboys of colour when Buffalo Bill and his "Congress of Rough Riders of the World" galloped into the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893. The American Black Cowboy Association held its first black rodeo in 1971, in Harlem, New York City. ![]() Black horsemen weren't only confined to the Wild West either. Though the popular narrative and imagery of the American West often ignores African American cowboys, historians estimate that one in four cowboys were black. ![]() ![]() "My dad owned a little printing shop nearby and in return for my helping him out on occasion, he paid for my riding lessons," he said. He began riding as a boy at the city's 380-acre Washington Park, which once had its very own public riding stable. Murdock, who chooses to only go by his surname, adding to his cowboy mystique, grew up in Chicago's predominantly African American South Side. "I still compete locally in Latting Rodeos, doing the less dangerous events, barrel and flag racing." "I was involved in calf and tie-down roping for a while, until I injured my back," he said. At 73, Murdock hasn't hung up his cowboy hat either. Currently located in the city's southern suburb of Chicago Heights, his Broken Arrow Horseback Riding Club is beloved by Chicago's black cowboys, who compete in the local Latting Rodeo just outside Chicago as well as national rodeos across the US. The last city-sponsored public riding stable, Lincoln Park's New Parkway Riding Stables, closed in 1967.īut for the past 31 years, Murdock has been working to revive the Windy City's horse-riding heritage and make it more inclusive for the city's diverse residents. But as the city and automobile traffic grew, recreational horse riding's popularity sank. Until the 1950s, dozens of livery stables rented horses by the hour for recreational riding along the more than 17 miles of bridle paths that stretched along Lake Michigan and through Chicago parks. Horse racing also was among the city's most popular sports, and by the 1930s, Chicago boasted more horse racing venues than any other metropolitan area in the US, thanks to its legal gambling laws. ![]()
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