Black History Month Special Film Screening: Harlem on the Prairie

The Briscoe Western Art Museum will show a special screening of “Harlem on the Prairie” starring Herb Jeffries. Considered the first “All-Black” western musical, Harlem on the Prairie put the spotlight on black actors highlighting the black cowboys of the west! Print Courtesy of the Academy Film Archive.

Herb Jeffries was an American singer and actor. When coming up with the idea for “Harlem on the Prairie” he aimed to create a character that young black children could look up to. After the success of the film, Jeffries continued his role as the protagonist in three more western films starring all black casts. 

The Academy Museum recently restored “Harlem on the Prairie”, a film that was unavailable for a long time, and even considered to be a “lost film” by some. 

Ronald Davis will give an introduction to the film as well as a presentation discussing the history of Black Cowboys.

Print Courtesy of the Academy FIlm Archive

🎟 The film is included with general museum admission and FREE for museum members.

Ronald W. Davis, II

Curator of American History, Witte Museum

Ronald W. Davis, II is Curator of American History at the Witte Museum in San Antonio, Texas and an African American Studies lecturer in Texas State University’s History Department. He is a PhD candidate in the History Department at University of Texas-Austin. His dissertation, “They Made Me the Best Bronc Rider in the Country, but They Weren’t Trying to Make Me a Rider:” Enslaved and Free Black Cowboys in Texas, 1830- 1865, examines enslaved cowboys, labor, and resistance in antebellum Texas. He co-curated the acclaimed exhibition Black Cowboys: An American Story. As a veteran of the U.S. military, Davis has served in various capacities over twenty-six years through five deployments to Iraq and received a 4^th Air Force Aircrew Excellence Award from the U.S. Air Force in 2010. Among other awards, he received The Portal to Texas History research fellowship, and was a featured speaker at The New Mexico History Museum’s 2023 Humanities Festival.