Bass Reeves

This is Lee Habeeb, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America's the star and the American people.

Up next, a story from Professor Art T. Burton on Bass Reeves, the first Black deputy US marshal west of the Mississippi River, and quite possibly the basis of Django from Django Unchained or The Lone Ranger.

Art is the author of Black Gun, Silver Star: The Life of Frontier Marshal Bass Reeves, and has dedicated his life to the academic study of African Americans in the West.

Take it away, Art.

[gentle music]

And I remember asking him, "Was any of them like Wyatt Earp?" And he said, "No, they weren't like Wyatt Earp," [laughs] as far as he could know, with that type of celebrity.

And then he asked my grandmother, "What was the name of that Black deputy over in Muskogee?" And they both had said he had quite a reputation during the frontier days, and they couldn't think of his name.

And then my grandmother said, "Bass Reeves." [slow blues music] That discussion I had with my grandparents didn't come back to me till many years later, till '85 when I went to, uh, Oklahoma for a family reunion.

Oh, yeah.

And, man, I found a nigga that said that he was a Bass Reeves great, great, great, great nephew.

Did Bass Reeves have kids?

I don't think he did.

But Ezekiel Miller is talking right now.

Why do we need Bass Reeves?

Hold on, nigga.

Hold on real quick, real quick.

Historians estimate that between 6,000 and 9,000 of the roughly 35,000 cowboys working in the frontier cattle industry were black.

That's one in four with legends like Nate Love, Deadwood Dick, rodeo innovator Bill Pickett, and lawman Bass Reeves.

And in review, we have A Night with Janis Joplin, hearing the black women behind the voice.

There is a lot to appreciate about A Night with Janis Joplin, the Western New York premiere, now playing at the DeYouville Kavinoky Theater.

Let's see here.

Zoe on Discord says, I want Bass Reeves Lives Again to be uncancelled.

And there's a YouTube video here with kind of an Edmund McMillan art style here.

Gunfighter and farmer, apparently.

Oh, yeah.

His great-great-grandfather is Bass Reeves.

Now, for those wondering, he was a former slave and he became the first black lawman west of the Mississippi and one of the very first black U.S.

Marshals in history.

Right.

Bass Reeves.

There you go.

And I have seen, I watched some Old West documentaries on YouTube and there is a Bass Reeves.

And, and then I get the specificity, the regional specificity.

So, so there is much more, I, I, I, I've done Harriet Tubman, I've done Bass Reeves, and, and clearly there's a little more leeway, um, artistic freedom to, to create, um, to curate a sound based on what we, what we, based on research.

So now do you actually go to Washington to the, uh, to the Congress, uh, uh, the Library of Congress to start to get that information or are you able to get it online?

Oh, it's all available online.

But, uh, shout out to you, Macca.

But this week we have Bass Reeves.

Okay.

A lawman.

Outlaws, revolvers, horses, dusty little towns, and of course, lawmen trying to impose some sort of order in a place where the nearest backup could be days away.

Now, I want you to picture one of the most formidable lawmen in the world, 6'2", an expert with a pistol and a rifle, riding into some of the most dangerous territory in America to arrest murderers, thieves, and fugitives.

His name was Bass Reeves, and before he ever wore a badge, he'd actually been born into slavery.

Bass Reeves was born in Arkansas in nine- in 1838 and was enslaved by the Reeves family.

And this is a tribute to Chadwick Aaron Bozeman, who sadly passed away just before this film went into production in August of 2020.

As I mentioned before, these characters Nat Love, Marty Fields, Rufus Buck, Cherokee Bill, Bill Pickett, Jim Beckwith and Bass Reeves are all real historical figures of the old west.

And the film's actually built around that little known fact that one in four of all cowboys were black.

Zazie Beetz, apparently in real life she speaks fluent German, so she dubbed herself in the German version that appears on Netflix.

Also supported by Cherokee Bill, who holds an impressive kill record, I guess, the quickest puller of weapons.

And I guess the question about his character is that does he shoot people in the back and not necessarily being the fastest, but maybe a cheater in this quick draw.

Bass Reeves is the local marshal who sort of sides with... with Nat Love and his gang meaning that they're kind of the good guys I guess again um Jim Beckworth is this trigger happy guy who supports Nat Love and his intent on taking out Cherokee Bill he wants to see how quick he can draw uh Cuffy is this tomboy uh gunfighter who provides some humor to the film too and I guess the only other character I'll touch on is uh Wiley Esco which is uh Rufus's old partner who he disposes of pretty easily but turns sides against him as well Let's talk about some scenes.

What are some scenes that worked? What didn't work in this film? I think the things that worked, stage coach Mary, the first time she's on stage, the first introduction to her, Nat Love walking into this saloon, they have a kiss, some great editing, great scene.