By Wayne Trujillo

Paul Stewart is stoked. The 80-year old sounds like a inquisitive child first discovering the world beyond his backyard. That is not to imply that Stewart is naive. Far from it. He is among the most knowledgeable experts on Black culture living today. His forte might be colored cowboys, but that doesn’t limit his interests to steers, bulldogging, and rodeos. Stewart’s explorations of Black culture and history has spurred him to travel countless unmapped roads and avenues. And his journey is far from finished. Stewart has already recorded a virtual atlas that offers a blueprint for future generations to appreciate a facet of American history that most people--even African Americans--didn’t realize existed.

Clinton, Iowa during the Great Depression was hardly the backdrop that a Hollywood director would envision to film an epic on Black cowboys. Stewart’s childhood home in the ‘30s didn’t boast a large Black population. Still, while many areas of the country suffered through Jim Crow, Stewart socialized with White children, often attending the local cinema and imagining himself riding beside them in the saddle. However, childhood recreation highlighted the difference between Stewart and his adolescent peers and brought into sharp focus a separation that didn’t project itself in the soft lighting of Technicolor, but in stark black and white. He might be able to attend the theater with White youth, but his skin color distinguished himself from his colleagues. When Stewart clamored to play the part the cowboy, he discovered that perceptions between the races were as different as night and day.

“I was told that there are no Black cowboys,” recalls Stewart. “And I couldn’t prove otherwise.” But lack of proof wasn’t for lack of trying. He haunted the library and squinted at movie screens, hoping to catch a glimpse of even a single Black vaquero. He couldn’t find a one. Stewart perpetually played the part of the Indian.

Today, he laughs at the irony that a great-grandmother belonged to a tribe of the Cherokee nation. Faded photos show several generations of his maternal ancestors--including his mother--pictured with a white streak running down the center of their scalp. He later learned that the Cherokee tribe customarily sported the skunk-like coiffure. At the time, he developed a feeling of separation from his White compadres. It’s easy to detect the lingering sense of isolation even today when Stewart relives his nascent years. He visited a cousin in Denver during the early ‘60s. They spotted a Black person sauntering through the streets in cowboy boots with kinky curls crowned by a ten gallon hat. “Who’s he trying to fool? Stewart asked his cousin. “There are no Black cowboys.”  His cousin’s response startled him. The information that the cowboy wasn’t an impersonator, but a bona fide rancher, revived Stewart’s long dormant quest to discover the Black cowboy.

He relocated to Denver and opened a barbershop at 2511 E. 34th Ave. Barbershops, stereotypically, are hangouts where the sound of stories and anecdotes make more noise than razors and clippers. Stewart could cut through a tall tale quicker than he could a mane of hair, so he knew when the clienteles’ talk of Black cowhands rang true. The customers also provided proof. His shop soon became a repository of photos and papers documenting the Black experience in Western history. A chain reaction took place with customers referring people claiming to be a cowboy or rancher into his business. He lined his walls with visual and legal proof that eluded his childhood--the Black cowboy existed.

Talk of Stewart’s virtual museum operating out of a barbershop attracted people seeking more than a haircut. “They came in for an education,” recounts Stewart. The public in turn informed Stewart of other Black rancheros and vaqueros. Soon Stewart investigated rumors of other Black cowboys. He traveled to lonely locales. He sought out the reclusive and the distant, taping their histories. He discovered Black ranchers, miners, homesteaders, and about every other western character.

In time, Stewart’s reputation earned him a legendary status of his own. Serious scholars and organizations began seeking him out. Schools invited Stewart to lecture and it wasn’t long before the barbershop became too cramped to house his burgeoning collection. He debuted the first official Black cowboy museum at Clayton College in the late ‘70s. Invitations from other states found Stewart traveling a circuit that spanned the continent. The Smithsonian extended a job offer and offered to relocate his museum to Washington, DC, but Stewart declined. “I didn’t want the museum to leave here (the West)... it’s the source,” stated Stewart.

However, his decision to remain grounded in Colorado didn’t preclude him from teaching multicultural audiences about the Black contributions to frontier development. Stewart also authored two books, Westward Soul and The Black Cowboy. He’s also appeared in a couple films-- the 1977 flick, Were You There, and more recently, 1995’s Posse.

The most succinct enumeration of Stewart’s accomplishments appeared in a press release saluting his 2005 induction in the Black American West Museum’s Hall of Fame’s Black Cowboy Walk of Fame. Stewart opened the museum in 1988 after Clayton College couldn’t contain his swelling collection. The press bio doesn’t offer flowery phrases, but sums up his dazzling milestones at a galloping, staccato clip: “Mr. Stewart is a historian, curator, master lecturer, musician, and has served on the Colorado Historical Records Advisory Board, and co-produced a documentary, Blacks Here and Now. He established Afro-American Bicentennial Corporation, is  guest lecturer at numerous universities, colleges, and corporations, taught as a professor of history at Metropolitan State College of Denver, appeared in television shows, movies, and is featured at the Smithsonian... his articles, collections, and photos have appeared in many distinguished magazines, major national newspapers, talk shows, movies, and numerous books have been based off of his research.”

With that bio announcing his arrival, Stewart’s audiences get the idea--this man knows his subject. Ironically, his presence in film and books fills the vacuum that lacked in his childhood. His restless energy and insatiable curiosity provoked Stewart to educate himself, before educating others, about the entire spectrum of Black culture. He discovered the rich trove of Black music, literary works, and endless offbeat subjects that continue to fascinate students. He’s even been photographed with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and decades later continues to promote the memory of the slain Civil Rights leader.

Those students travel from continents distant as Europe to meet Stewart and tour the museum. They’ve read about him in books and tour guides and often bypass New York to discover the folkloric western frontier. Metropolitan Goliath’s don’t hold sway over their imaginations like the legends of the rumble and tumble westerns that they’ve experience in European theaters and novels. Stewart’s books have been translated in several languages and he estimates that a third of the museum’s visitors hail from overseas.

Despite his international allure, there’s no doubt which students remain closest to Stewart’s interest and heart. He regularly decks himself out in cowboy gear and heads to classes in the Denver Public Schools where his nickname is the “Pied Piper of Black Western History”. The children clamor around him, eagerly offering their hands to try out the “cowboy handshake” that he’s taught them. They treat Stewart like a pop star, often recognizing him in supermarkets and dime stores. He’s signed autographs and posed in pictures, obliging the children’s requests for keepsakes. Even though the tour circuit excites Stewart and multinational audiences await his lectures, his most animated appearances and deepest love are reserved for the children. “My aim is to educate young people in school and encourage them to be successful.”

Stewart isn’t moping around the house and settling in a reclining chair. His plans includes writing a third book and lecturing in several states. However, despite his popularity with Europeans, his agenda doesn’t include a tour abroad. He chuckles and proclaims that those miles are behind him. Besides, there are plenty of enthusiasts within miles of Stewart’s home that commands his attention. One group of children that appear in the classrooms are the sizable Latino children. Stewart offers a few phrases in Spanish, showing that, while his accent might be strained, his enthusiasm is on target.

If anybody rivals the children as a testimony of Stewart’s importance, it would be Lu Vason, the brain and power behind the seminal Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo. “He gave me the idea and the motivation,” states Vason when asked about Stewart. “Paul tells the Black history as opposed to history in general that kept us out of the history books… he tells the real story, not his story. He’s a real historian. Not so much cowboys but all Blacks in the west.

”Stewart doesn’t take credit for his trailblazing successes. “God has blessed me and gave me the strength to take the history out to the people.” God opened the door, but Stewart stepped over the threshold. The steadfast steward of Black western history has told the story on the mountain and then some.