Each year, thousands of attendees pack the Fair Park Coliseum for the Texas Black Invitational Rodeo. The event, which is the biggest fundraising effort for the African American Museum in Dallas, celebrates the contributions of Black cowboys and cowgirls to Western culture.
But who is behind all the western magic?
Cleo Hearn is the founder of Cowboys of Color and a rodeo legend. About 36 years ago Hearn partnered with Harry Robinson, the founder of the African American Museum Dallas, to produce the first Texas Black Invitational rodeo. But Hearn is not only one of the founding members of this historical event. He’s been blazing trails for Black cowboys for decades,
Here’s what you need to know about the iconic cowboy.
Broke barriers
Cleo Hearn was born in Seminole, Okla. He attended Oklahoma State University and made history as the first African American to attend college on a rodeo scholarship.
But that didn’t mean he had an open path to the sport.
In his early days, Hearn wasn’t allowed to compete in regular rodeos due to racial discrimination. But his talent couldn't be ignored. With roping times faster than the rest, the audience and the other cowboys pushed to let him compete.
Soon enough, Hearn made history again in 1970 by becoming the first Black man to win a major stock show tie-down calf roping event at the National Western in Denver.
![Cleo Hearn said that “before I got into it, they didn’t let black cowboys in professional rodeos, so black cowboys started [their own].”](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/0392487/2147483647/strip/true/crop/4512x3008+0+0/resize/840x560!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fcb%2Fe6%2Fd26fc7a34f9b8e081134a29cc230%2Flm4rivcofalqug62b3izcn5fo4-1.jpg)
National recognition
Over the decades, Hearn has racked up honors for his contributions to the sport and to cowboy culture.
He received a star on the Texas Trail of Fame in the Fort Worth Stockyards in 2005 for his lifetime commitment to rodeo and the cowboy way of life. In 2016 he was the recipient of the Lane Frost Award. More recently, he was inducted into the Texas Black Sports Hall of Fame in 2021 and inducted into the National Cowboy Museum and Hall of Fame in 2022 for his long legacy of promoting the Western and rodeo cowboy lifestyle.
Producing rodeos
Hearn traveled all over North America with his wife and four sons competing in rodeos. In 1971 he produced his first rodeo in Harlem for 10,000 kids. The event featured 100 other legendary black cowboys, such as Bud Bramwell, Rufus Green Sr. and Myrtis Dightman, who is known as the “Jackie Robinson of Rodeo.”
By 1985 he had settled in North Texas and founded Cowboys of Color. Robinson, who is a deep historian, reached out to Hearn to use his experience and lifestyle to help launch the first Black Invitational Rodeo. The event helps raise funds for the African American Museum of Dallas and to educate the public about the Black contributions to Western history.
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