Michael K. Johnson
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781617039287
- eISBN:
- 9781626740013
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781617039287.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
Hoo-Doo Cowboys and Bronze Buckaroos undertakes an interdisciplinary exploration of the African American West through close readings of select texts from a variety of media. This approach allows for ...
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Hoo-Doo Cowboys and Bronze Buckaroos undertakes an interdisciplinary exploration of the African American West through close readings of select texts from a variety of media. This approach allows for both an in-depth analysis of individual texts and a discussion of material often left out or under-represented in studies focused only on traditional literary material: heretofore unexamined writing by Rose Gordon, who wrote for local western publications rather than for a national audience; memoirs and letters of musicians, performers, and singers (such as W. C. Handy) who lived in or wrote about touring the American West; Percival Everett’s fiction addressing contemporary black western experience; the novels and films of Oscar Micheaux; black-cast westerns starring Herb Jeffries; largely unappreciated and unexamined episodes from the “golden age of western television” that feature African American actors; film and television westerns that use science fiction settings to imagine a “post-racial” or “post-soul” frontier. Despite recent interest in the history of the African American West, we know very little about how the African American past in the West has been depicted in a full range of imaginative forms. Hoo-Doo Cowboys and Bronze Buckaroos takes us another step further in the journey of discovering how the African American West has been experienced, imagined, and performed.Less
Hoo-Doo Cowboys and Bronze Buckaroos undertakes an interdisciplinary exploration of the African American West through close readings of select texts from a variety of media. This approach allows for both an in-depth analysis of individual texts and a discussion of material often left out or under-represented in studies focused only on traditional literary material: heretofore unexamined writing by Rose Gordon, who wrote for local western publications rather than for a national audience; memoirs and letters of musicians, performers, and singers (such as W. C. Handy) who lived in or wrote about touring the American West; Percival Everett’s fiction addressing contemporary black western experience; the novels and films of Oscar Micheaux; black-cast westerns starring Herb Jeffries; largely unappreciated and unexamined episodes from the “golden age of western television” that feature African American actors; film and television westerns that use science fiction settings to imagine a “post-racial” or “post-soul” frontier. Despite recent interest in the history of the African American West, we know very little about how the African American past in the West has been depicted in a full range of imaginative forms. Hoo-Doo Cowboys and Bronze Buckaroos takes us another step further in the journey of discovering how the African American West has been experienced, imagined, and performed.
Michael K. Johnson
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781617039287
- eISBN:
- 9781626740013
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781617039287.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
From the earliest incursions into the Americas by Spanish explorers to the California Gold Rush and to the Oklahoma land rush, African Americans have been present at every frontier and have been ...
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From the earliest incursions into the Americas by Spanish explorers to the California Gold Rush and to the Oklahoma land rush, African Americans have been present at every frontier and have been active participants in transforming those frontier settlements into thriving communities. Those experiences have been represented in a variety of forms, memoirs, novels, film, and television, even as literary and cultural criticism has neglected that body of work. This chapter surveys the field of texts related to the African American West and establishes three central concepts for understanding those texts, erasure, double-consciousness, and the trickster tradition. All three concepts are representational strategies used by African American artists to adapt unfriendly and even hostile cultural narratives (such as the genre western) to articulate their own experiences.Less
From the earliest incursions into the Americas by Spanish explorers to the California Gold Rush and to the Oklahoma land rush, African Americans have been present at every frontier and have been active participants in transforming those frontier settlements into thriving communities. Those experiences have been represented in a variety of forms, memoirs, novels, film, and television, even as literary and cultural criticism has neglected that body of work. This chapter surveys the field of texts related to the African American West and establishes three central concepts for understanding those texts, erasure, double-consciousness, and the trickster tradition. All three concepts are representational strategies used by African American artists to adapt unfriendly and even hostile cultural narratives (such as the genre western) to articulate their own experiences.
Christine Bold
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199731794
- eISBN:
- 9780199332441
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199731794.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History, American History: 19th Century
Chapter Four explores the processes by which Black Westerners were displaced by, and even on occasion transformed into, white heroes in frontier clubmen’s writings. The first case concerns Wister’s ...
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Chapter Four explores the processes by which Black Westerners were displaced by, and even on occasion transformed into, white heroes in frontier clubmen’s writings. The first case concerns Wister’s private encounter with a Black cook and ranch-hand, named Homer, who, the chapter argues, is the model for his fictional character Scipio. The second concerns Roosevelt’s much more public suppression of African American military contributions to the Spanish-American War, especially through the propagation of the white Rough Rider. The third focuses on Remington’s attention to Black soldiers, which produced a particularly conflicted representation of the Cuban campaign. The chapter also documents African American resistance to this erasure, through the creation of a distinctively Black popular culture and forms of cultural memory-making. Publications by Black servicemen, F. Grant Gilmore, Sutton E. Griggs, James Ephraim McGirt, and the Colored Co-operative Publishing Company all foregrounded Black rough riders as figures of racial pride.Less
Chapter Four explores the processes by which Black Westerners were displaced by, and even on occasion transformed into, white heroes in frontier clubmen’s writings. The first case concerns Wister’s private encounter with a Black cook and ranch-hand, named Homer, who, the chapter argues, is the model for his fictional character Scipio. The second concerns Roosevelt’s much more public suppression of African American military contributions to the Spanish-American War, especially through the propagation of the white Rough Rider. The third focuses on Remington’s attention to Black soldiers, which produced a particularly conflicted representation of the Cuban campaign. The chapter also documents African American resistance to this erasure, through the creation of a distinctively Black popular culture and forms of cultural memory-making. Publications by Black servicemen, F. Grant Gilmore, Sutton E. Griggs, James Ephraim McGirt, and the Colored Co-operative Publishing Company all foregrounded Black rough riders as figures of racial pride.
Marne L. Campbell
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781469629278
- eISBN:
- 9781469629292
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469629278.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
Chapter 2 focuses primarily on African Americans with some comparisons to other racialized groups. It lays the foundation for understanding the collective black experience from 1850 to 1870. It ...
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Chapter 2 focuses primarily on African Americans with some comparisons to other racialized groups. It lays the foundation for understanding the collective black experience from 1850 to 1870. It considers the racial climate and social hierarchy, particularly, the ways in which black Angelenos established a community within the larger society. By examining the lives of the first families in the city, this chapter shows how people connected with one another in order to secure access to education and economic opportunity.Less
Chapter 2 focuses primarily on African Americans with some comparisons to other racialized groups. It lays the foundation for understanding the collective black experience from 1850 to 1870. It considers the racial climate and social hierarchy, particularly, the ways in which black Angelenos established a community within the larger society. By examining the lives of the first families in the city, this chapter shows how people connected with one another in order to secure access to education and economic opportunity.
