BLACK COWBOYS | THE AMERICAN BLACKSTORY

Every 8 seconds, Jesse Stahl’s life must have flashed before his eyes.

Jesse Stahl at the Pendleton, Oregon Roundup. (Courtesy of Oregon Historical Society)

He was more than “just” a rodeo rider.

Jesse Stahl demonstrated some of the most legendary horsemanship the world’s rodeo circuit has ever seen.

When his name was called, the whole arena knew they were about to see the show of a lifetime.

They also knew that no matter how skilled, how risky, or how dazzling Jesse’s ride, there was no way he’d actually win.

An assortment of historical Jesse Stahl postcards

Though his talent was famously touted far and wide, Jesse Stahl was infamous, even among his competitors for “winning first, but getting third.”

No matter how hard Jesse rode, almost all of the judges he faced refused to score his ride higher than a white man’s. Dozens of others would allow him to ride for show, but wouldn’t let him compete at all.

The adage is that we have to work twice as hard to get half as far. And Jesse worked even harder, becoming widely renowned for feats of horsemanship no other cowboy would even attempt.

His pièce de résistance was riding a bucking bronco backwards. As if that weren’t already incredible, Jesse’s routine variations on that trick were almost superhuman.

He and Kentucky Black cowboy Ty Stokes often teamed up for what they called the “suicide ride,” where both men rode a bucking bronco simultaneously, with Ty facing forward and Jesse facing backward. According to another cowboy, Jesse even rode at least once backwards with a suitcase in his hand, exclaiming “I’m going home!”

Jesse Stahl rides backwards at a 1912 rodeo.

But riding backwards was hardly the only trick up Jesse’s sleeve.

“Hoolihanding,” the act of jumping from the back of a horse directly onto a bull’s before taking it down by the horns was invented and perfected by Jesse before it was eventually outlawed as too dangerous for the animals.

(Fellow Black cowboy Bill Pickett altered the move, jumping from a horse to simply wrestle a steer down by the horns, inventing what’s today known as “bulldogging.”)

A 1912 rodeo in Salinas, CA brought Jesse one of his most fearsome opponents, a bucking bronc forebodingly named Glass Eye. This unbroken horse terrified other competitors, but Jesse handled the gravity-defying ride with such ease, he even had time to ham it up.

Despite these daring displays that literally put his life on the line, most sources—from fellow cowboys to local oral histories to museums—all agree that Jesse rarely ever won.

But as 2019 Blackstory feature Shelby Jacobs said, “If you impress the crowd, the coach can’t put you on the bench.”

Jesse may not have been able to win the judges, but he had so much crowd appeal, that today, some local writers credit Jesse for putting whole rodeos on the map, while giving him the superstar status of a “cowboy Steph Curry.”

Jesse is spoken of warmly as news of his passing is publicized in the April 24, 1935 *Corning (CA) Daily Observer*

And his fellow riders loved him most of all. Because Jesse depended on rodeos that would allow him to ride AND place well AND pay him—all tall orders for a Black person in the early 20th century—he died penniless. Rather than allow a legend to rest in a pauper’s grave, friends and competitors paid for his proper burial.

And though his name receded into history for a while, he was finally honored by the whole of the rodeo industry with his 1979 induction into the National Rodeo Hall of Fame, only the second Black cowboy after his friend Bill Pickett.

Like so many other incredible Black people, Jesse’s only just recently begun to receive his flowers. It speaks not only to the resurgence of Black cowboy culture, but why it had to resurge in the first place.

Leaps and bounds beyond his competitors, one single attribute kept Jesse Stahl’s name in the depths of history: his Blackness.

In the wake of that resurgence, we’re celebrating brand new milestones like the 8 Seconds Juneteenth Rodeo where I first learned of Jesse’s marvelous rides, and most recently, Beyoncé’s wins for her debut country record Cowboy Carter, including Best Country Album, the first EVER in the genre by a Black woman.

A Jesse Stahl banner at the 8 Seconds Juneteenth Rodeo and Beyoncé’s GRAMMY announcement. A century apart, a culture forever.

One of many unsung Black rodeo cowboys, and perhaps one of the best of any race, Jesse Stahl’s legacy made way for the spectacular accomplishments Black people are making in the rodeo, Western lifestyle, and country music industries today. Every moment of it that we’re able to enjoy now, he fought for 8 seconds at a time.

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Learn more about Jesse’s exploits and those of many other Black Cowboys at the Oregon Historical Society.

Browse a more complete list of Jesse’s nationwide appearances & accomplishments over his decades on the rodeo circuit at The Active Historian.

Read “Let’s Go, Let’s Show, Let’s Rodeo: African-Americans and the History of Rodeo” at JSTOR.

Babies and cowboys have a reputation for being hard-headed.

So Ezekiel Mitchell’s mother was out of luck from the start when her baby quit football for the rodeo instead. Sorry, Waylon & Willie, you tried.

Most kids hop on YouTube to search for how to change a tire, or build a computer, or use chopsticks. Meanwhile, teenage Zeke used the platform to learn how to ride a bull. He even built his own mechanical practice bull right in the yard of his parents Texas home. His mother was NOT pleased.

His parents offered up roping and even bronc riding as alternatives, but Zeke was set on the rush of bull riding.

“It’s like driving a truck off a cliff and then trying to steer it down. I love taking that complete and utter chaos and being able to control it for once. For those eight seconds at a time.”

Those 8 seconds of chaos are a lot of pressure for anyone, but especially when you’re driving change as the only Black rider in the room.

In fact, Zeke Mitchell is the ONLY African-American rider at the elite level on the entire Professional Bull Riders circuit.

“The truth is there are people who hate me because I’m Black, but times change and they have to accept it. Y’all can hate all you want. I don’t care. I’m going to be me. I’m here to ride bull and that’s about it.”

Because regardless of the eyes on him, Zeke’s only got eyes for one thing: the PBR championship title. And he’s ranked as high as second in his race for it.

Charlie Sampson, the first and only African-American professional bull riding world champion.

But when he set that goal, even he didn’t know he was shooting for something historic. 1982 was the first and only year in professional bull riding’s history that a World Championship winner was African-American. Charlie Sampson is a recipient of the PBR Ring of Honor, the highest award a rider can receive.

Though Zeke, Charlie and others like them are anomalies today, that wasn’t always the case: at one point, at least 25% of cowboys were Black.

As it was furthest from Union troops, Texas was slavery’s final stronghold, and nearly 90,000 Texans enlisted in the Confederate Army. In their absence, those they were fighting to keep enslaved tended to the state’s ranches, farms and other agricultural businesses. Though their war was lost, Texans still in need of skilled labor were willing to pay for it rather than see their family ranches fall into disrepair. But take a look at any piece of cowboy lore, cinema, or ephemera, and aside from Bass Reeves, Nat Love, and Bill Pickett, you’ll find a distinct lack of color.

A Black cowboy who is neither Bass Reeves, Nat Love, or Bill Pickett. Amazing. Read more about the lesser known history of Black cowboys at Smithsonian Magazine.

“Cowboy” Mike Searles, a professor emeritus at Augusta State University puts it well. “If something is not in the popular imagination, it does not exist,” he says. In recent years, movies and documentaries like Posse, Django Unchained, Concrete Cowboy, and the Harder They Fall have begun to tell those stories. But why weren’t those stories included in the great American narrative sooner? “The West was where white men were able to show their courage. But if a black man could be heroic and have all the attributes that you give to the best qualities in men, then how was it possible to treat a black man as subservient or as a non-person?”

On a very small level, Denard Butler, another Black rodeo competitor, can relate to the treatment those early cowboys must have received. “When you’re black and competing in places like San Juan Capistrano, California; Price, Utah; and Prescott, Arizona… you will hear the N-word. A lot. I use it for power. I feed off it. I tell myself, ‘You’re going to read about me. You’re going to get sick of seeing me.’ I want it more than most, and so I use it as fuel.”

Zeke takes the arena amid fireworks, and brings his own flash too.

Zeke embraces his differences too. “I don’t fit the mold, but you don’t have to fit the mold,” he says. In fact, he’s intent on breaking it. Zeke Mitchell wears flashy riding gear, cares about growing his social following (he even has a 10-part Snapchat series), and hopes not only that he’ll win a title, but that he’ll become a star doing it, simply for the sake of bringing more people like him into the sport.

That infectious spirit and star power even brought his most reluctant supporter back into the fold: his mother Janie. “Every time I talk to Zeke, I tell him, ‘I’m proud of you, and you didn’t let anyone stop you, not even your mama.’

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