Black American West Museum and Heritage Center

An Untold Story

Description

Sometimes the iconic images of the west prevail all ideas that we have about the American West. Iconic portrayals of the American West with tales about Cowboys and Indians and heroics of frontiersmen and pursuers of the Wild West dominate our imaginations, but a glaringly huge void is left in that narrative. The Black American West Museum and Heritage Center attempts to fix that void by telling the story of the thousands of African Americans that were integral to the American West story. Here you will learn about the one third of all cowboys that were black as well as the countless number of miners, soldiers, homesteaders, ranchers, blacksmiths, schoolteachers, lawmen, and many others who had just as much to do with the expansion westward as anyone else. The museum was founded in 1971 by Paul W. Stewart, with the purpose of collecting, preserving and disseminating the stories of African Americans in not only Colorado, but beyond. The museum is actually housed in the former home of Dr. Justina Ford, Colorado's first Black woman doctor, and features a variety of different exhibits exploring different aspects of blacks in American life of the west. Included in the exhibits are stories about a small Colorado community of blacks established on the principles of Booker T. Washington, and the story of America's Buffalo Soldiers who fought in the great expanse of the West. Even learn about some of America's first black millionaires from the boom of Gold and other mining operations. The Black American West Museum and Heritage Center is a fascinating venue for a piece of American history buried underneath generalized ideas about the Old West.