John proposes a challenge: man against machine. But despair sets in again when the railroad sends a steam hammer to replace the crew and burns the contract. John, though, has the strength of ten men, and revitalizes all of them. An entire crew of freed slaves has been promised land if they can finish by deadline, but they’re exhausted and unable to continue. “John Henry, a freed slave, happens across a railroad building project. John Henry was later released on Blu-ray in Walt Disney Animation Studios Short Films Collection on Augand is the perfect story to explain hard work and pride in one’s work to children. The film’s new short is based on John Henry and stars Alfre Woodard and Tim Hodge. The story of John Henry was released in 2002 as direct-to-video animated anthology film hosted by James Earl Jones on the Disney’s American Legends DVD. He is put to the ultimate test when he faces a mechanical power hammer that threatens to take away his land. Wielding a sledge hammer forged from the chains that bound him in servitude, he was a one-man railroad crew who ‘could move mountains’. The clerk, fearing for his life, found a suitable room for the Black cowboy.Īfrican American cowboys were a presence and a force on the cattle drives from Texas to northern railheads from the 1860s until the railroads reached central Texas in 1885.John Henry was a former slave who’s mighty strength made him one of the earliest African-American role models. According to the hotel clerk, the African American cowboy drew out the longest barreled six-shooter that he had seen and pointed at him, telling the clerk he was a liar. One racial incident occurred in 1876 when a hotel clerk in the Dodge House told an African American cowboy that no rooms were available. African Americans and white drovers shared hotel rooms, card games, café tables, and on occasion jail cells. The state of Kansas had a reputation for racial toleration, and the promise of hundreds of Black cowboys spending wages in the saloons, restaurants, hotels, brothels, and other businesses along notorious Front Street encouraged social mixing in this raw new town founded in 1875. Black and white men on trail drives faced common dangers and received equal pay for their labor. Yet other evidence suggests considerable camaraderie and a semblance of equality on the trail. During an 1878 Texas to Kansas trail drive, a principal drover named Poll Allen directed Black cowboys to eat and sleep away from the rest of the crew. Racial tensions sometimes arose between African American and white drovers on the trail. … He was the most skilled and trustworthy man I had.” As a lasting tribute, Goodnight constructed a tribute marker to Ikard which now stands near Weatherford, Texas. We went through some terrible trials during those four years on the trail. He was my detective, banker, and everything else in Colorado, New Mexico, and the other wild country I was in. Goodnight wrote of the Black cowboy, “Ikard surpassed any man I had in endurance and stamina. Bose Ikardīose Ikard, a Black drover who worked for Charles Goodnight, won the praise of his boss, one of the founders of the 2,000-mile Goodnight-Loving cattle drive trail from central Texas to Denver. These examples reflect the long history of African American cowboys in the Texas range cattle industry beginning in the 1850s when they were the majority of drovers in the state. In 1885, Lytle and Stevens sent north a herd of 2,000 steers bossed by a Black Texan, Al Jones. Jim Ellison went up the trail in the same year with an all-Black crew. Galbreath arrived in Kansas, leading a crew of four whites and three Blacks. Butler drove a herd of cattle from South Texas to Abilene, Kansas, with a crew of 14, including three Chicanos, nine whites, and two African American drovers, Levi and William Perryman. One of the first major cattle drives occurred in 1868, when Trail Boss William G. The nation’s growing demand for beef, coupled with the concentration of beef cattle in Texas, led that state’s ranchers to organize cattle drives to bring herds north to railheads so they could be shipped to slaughterhouses in Chicago and other cities. Post-Civil War cattle drives from Texas north to railroad depots in Missouri, Kansas, and Colorado were a necessary part of the American economy in the late 19th century.
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