The history and the man behind Denver's all-black rodeo

  • 4 years ago
When you hear the word "cowboy" you probably think of a gun-toting, horseback-riding, white man. In reality, 1 in 4 cowboys was black. A man named Lu Vason wanted to dispel the notion that cowboys were only white and honor the contributions African-Americans made to the American West. In 1984, he created an all-black competition called the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo, which still thrives today.