Erased by Hollywood

The whitewashed cowboy was a cultural edit, not historical accuracy. When studios began cranking out Westerns in the early 1900s, they cast almost only white actors. The multiracial frontier got painted over one film at a time.

One man refused to accept it. Herb Jeffries, a singer, became the first Black singing-cowboy film star in the 1930s. When studios would not cast him, he helped produce his own Westerns and starred in them himself.