The West, Retold

The frontier was never as white as the movies made it look. Roughly one in four cowboys was Black, and Hollywood quietly wrote them out.

• Bass Reeves caught 3,000 outlaws and may have inspired the Lone Ranger
• Bill Pickett invented bulldogging but waited decades for his honors
• Nat Love turned his cowboy years into a legendary memoir
• Herb Jeffries made his own films when studios shut him out

The real West was built by Black, Mexican, Chinese, and Native hands. Putting them back in the picture is overdue.