Black Rodeo

Exceptional documentary
First read about this film back around 1982 and so it's been a long trail...

Magnificent footage of Rodeo at Triborough Stadium (Harlem, New York), 1971. Historians were aware at the time of the African-American involvement and contribution to the development of "the West", doing all the things that the average citizen associated only with Caucasians.

Excellent stills of 19th Century Blacks of the Old West supported by a great, running narration (apprently filmed, for the most part, on the set of a Western, in California) by actor Woody Strode, who stopped by to watch the action. Of course Strode played Sergeant Rutledge in a John Ford Classic. He tells the story of the "Buffalo Soldier"; and his own experience in 1959 as a Black man penetrating Hollywood and all the stereotypes.

Muhammad Ali is listed above Strode but his footage amounts to about ten minutes and seems to be just another personal appearance. Not much for his fans.

There is...





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