Black Heroes of the Wild West

 

Black Heroes of the Wild West: Featuring Stagecoach Mary, Bass Reeves, and Bob Lemmons

My thoughts:

The look of this book reminds me of those old western dime novels. It just has a similar style, but the historic importance of these stories is to highlight the fake narrative around America's wild west. The American west was not, in fact, made up of white cowboys (the heroes and outlaws) and the "savage" Native Americans as the only two groups existing on the frontier. By resurrecting these hidden stories through text and graphics, readers are introduced to these unsung heroes and suddenly our American narrative is much more accurate,  rich, and diverse. I would definitely love to see an animated short on each of these historical figures. Thanks to the author, the ancestors seem ready to jump off the page into more adventures. 

These are stories that need to be shared in a genre and style that is also a talk back to the western dime novels of our American literary history.