02/01/2025
Keeping the Black Cowboy Legacy Alive
By Ruth Ann Ruiz
The Post Newspaper Features Editor
Harold Cash is a Galveston County cowboy who has made his mark on the history of rodeos and cowboys.
Cash is called on frequently to speak to groups about cowboys, and his knowledge has been called upon by authors as they gather information for their books chronicling cowboys of the Gulf Coast and American Black cowboy history.
Sitting down to chat with Harold Cash, I thought I’d ask questions about him and his life as a cowboy. But we didn’t get very far about him because he wanted to talk about all the other Black cowboys whose stories he has memorized in the same way a preacher has memorized the Bible.
As he rattled off the names and experiences of people who had gone before him, along with those who had mentored him, I had to pause him and ask what had led him to become a cowboy.
He did let me turn the conversation to him for a few minutes.
“I got a lot of whoopings from my mama for leaving her broom outside,” Cash shared.
He explained that as a young child, he would take her broom outside and pretend it was a horse. At that early age in his life, his mama, Cora Lee Cash, had herself a cowboy growing up in her home with seven other children.
“Ever since I was a child, I wanted to be a cowboy,” Cash said.
He spent many childhood hours watching Roy Rogers and the Lone Rangers. These characters are what fostered in him the desire to gallop around on his mother’s broom and to get in trouble for it.
When school was out on May 31 back when he was a child, Cash remembers his daddy, George Cash Sr., would take him out to the country, where he would spend the entire summer on his granddaddy’s farm in Kendleton, Texas.
His granddaddy had typical farm animals, including several horses. But young Cash was not allowed to ride the horses alone. He recalls that someone always led him when he was atop a horse on his grandfather’s farm.
He shared many fond memories from that time in his life. One was the weekly trek into town.
“We only went into town once a week when I was out at my grandfather’s place,”
Cash began to tell the story of the afternoon a conversation inspired him to dig deeper into what it meant to be a cowboy.
According to Cash, some of the men in cowboy hats who were White men were talking about how a Black man would never win a rodeo championship.
As a black child who loved horses, hearing that got Cash’s curiosity going, and he asked his granddaddy about rodeos and Black cowboys.
From there, his grandfather began taking him to Black rodeos, and young Cash was captivated with the sight of Black men wearing cowboy hats while riding in a rodeo.
His grandfather passed away when Cash was 15. But that didn’t take the fascination with cowboys out of Cash. He then began to spend time at his uncle’s ranch in Dickinson.
Milton Colman Sr., his mother’s brother, raised cattle, and as Cash tells it, he added a rodeo pen to his property, and things started to change for Cash. At his uncle’s ranch, he got to spend time with a lot of cowboys learning about a cowboy's way of life.
One day, the cowboys decided to get 16-year-old Cash on one of the unbroken horses. Since he has long legs, they convinced him, he could ride the horse that none of the other cowboys had been able to tame.
He got on the horse, the other cowboys opened the pen, and away he rode till he was thrown off.
“I’ve been riding ever since that day,” Cash said. “From that day, I started getting my rigging together, and I’d borrow people’s spurs, and I was riding.”
Along with learning the ropes and spurs of becoming a rodeo cowboy, Cash graduated from Lincoln High School in La Marque.
With his eyes on rodeoing, he entered his first rodeo and was thrown off a horse named Brown Bamma. That didn’t sit too well with Cash. He wasn’t so sure he was cut out to be a rodeo rider, even though people told him Brown Bamma throws everyone.
Then, Millie Thomas, a professional Black rodeo rider came to Cash and told him the same thing others had said about the horse. From there, the two formed a bond of mentor and mentee.
Breaking legs as a rodeo cowboy happens, and it happened to Cash early in his rodeoing days. The injury kept him on the fence for a spell. Then he got back up and rode some more.
With Thomas, Cash traversed the rodeo circuit and enjoyed seeing places such as Chicago and Washington D.C. and traveling all over the state of Texas.
Cash vividly remembers the ways Black cowboys were held back from winning championships. One barrier to the success of Black rodeo cowboys was the timing of the ride. He explained that the pen would open, and the ride was supposed to last for 8 seconds. It was up to the man with the stopwatch to blow the whistle.
“If you were Black, you better get ready to ride for 10-15 seconds, 'cause they weren’t going to blow the whistle at 8 seconds,” Cash said.
Automation, he explained, helped take care of that problem. Now, when a pen is opened, a timer automatically starts, and the ride ends at exactly 8 seconds.
He shared that the cowboys themselves weren’t really into judging each other’s skin color.
“For the cowboys, it was about man against the beast,” Cash said.
But, he explained, others who weren’t rodeo cowboys but managed the events kept Black cowboys from winning championships.
While Cash loved being a rodeo cowboy, Thomas realized there wasn’t going to be a good living for Cash in being a rodeo cowboy and advised him to go to college and get a job. So that’s what he did.
After college, he went to work for Amoco and he kept riding in his spare time.
Though he didn’t make it into professional rodeos, he earned some money as a rodeo athlete, and based on the excitement in his eyes and his vivid descriptions of how you have to use your spurs and ropes at the right time to win points, I'd say Cash loved being a rodeo cowboy.
Cash has been inducted into five cowboy halls of fame and has earned 12 cowboy buckles.
His passions now are building the future for young rodeo athletes and recognizing the legacy of Black cowboys from the past.
Living Legend Rodeo is his newest rodeo venture and will include ladies' barrel racing, kids' mutton busting, bare back, tie down, and bull riding. Though he doesn’t yet have full financial support for the event, he is stepping out in faith and going forward with the rodeo on May 3. It will be held at Jack Brooks Park Rodeo Arena in Hitchcock, Texas. If you are interested in sponsoring the rodeo, reach out to Cash at [email protected].
He will be speaking at Nia Cultural Center in Galveston on February 8, along with Sarah Bird, author of the book "Juneteenth Rodeo" and Dr. Demetrius Pearson, author of the book "Black Rodeo in The Texas Gulf Coast Region: Charcoal in the Ashes." The event will begin at 12 p.m.
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