El Fig Stables: A Home Off the Range

They don’t call themselves “urban cowboys.” In fact, these African-Americans shudder at the sound of it--even though some of them hail from South-Central Los Angeles.

But what else would they be called?

“Plain cowboys,” explained Edward McClain while hosing down his horse’s bedding at El Fig Stables. “Regardless of where you come from, we are all cowboys at heart.”

Although they live in the heart of Los Angeles, own horses and often train, compete and live with their four-legged partners, the cowboys have opted for a pastime that is time-consuming, expensive and tiresome.

Something You Love

“But it’s all worth it when you’re doing something you love,” added McClain, a horse trainer and cowboy who keeps his three horses, five dogs, four milk goats, several chickens and one goose on the land he leases at El Fig.

The empty lots of El Fig, on the corner of El Segundo Boulevard and Figueroa Street just off the Harbor Freeway, have been converted into horse shanties and stables. Surrounded by a war zone of street violence, they try to cut themselves off from the drugs and gangs that plague much of South-Central Los Angeles and focus on a more peaceful existence. This is the nesting ground for black cowboys from Los Angeles.

It was here that Charlie Sampson, the world’s champion bull rider, got his start. In 1982, the 5-foot-3 Sampson, nicknamed “Pee Wee,” became the first black to win a world championship in any rodeo event, according to the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Assn.

Working as a stable boy at El Fig as a teen-ager, Sampson met several veteran black cowboys, like C. B. Alexander, who told him about rodeo life.

“There were a bunch of kids around, watching you do your thing,” Alexander said. “I was riding bulls, and you know how young people are interested. You see the potential in them, and work with them and show them what you know. And Charlie went on his way to be a good bull rider.”

Glimpse of the Rodeo

It is under the auspices of these former Southwesterners, many of whom have migrated from as far as Texas and Louisiana, that many African-American youths catch their first glimpse of rodeo from a black perspective--the first time many see blacks in the sport.

It is ironic, for mainstream Hollywood has long ignored the existence of African-Americans in the Old West.

Maurice Wade, a Denver cowboy in Los Angeles recently for a rodeo, observed: “I watched Westerns on TV and it always stuck in my mind, ‘Why aren’t there any black cowboys?’ I knew there had to be something more to that.”

And there is.

According to historical accounts, such as “Black People Who Made the Old West” by Loren Katz, one out of every three cowboys in the Old West was black. Many drove Texas longhorns north to market. Others were buffalo soldiers in the United States cavalry. And still others, attempting to escape discrimination and slavery, settled in the West, farming and ranching. They even contributed to the creation of rodeo.

But, as in the past, racism takes a back seat to the knowledge these cowbosys pass on to the next generation.

Take Annie Mitchell. When she and her husband used their savings in 1968 to buy their first horse, Augustine, Mitchell lived in a Watts apartment project and was forced to keep her horse in a friend’s yard in the Richland Farms section of Compton.

Dreams of the ranch-style life--images of barrel racing, cattle driving and bulldogging--danced in her head. But not until 10 years later, when she moved next door to the house in Richland Farms, did Mitchell begin to live out her fantasy.

“We would ride up to El Fig,” she said. “And we’d watch the cowboys and girls. What struck me most was the women. You don’t expect to see women riding like the men, but I did, and it inspired me.”

That’s when she started barrel racing. In her back yard, Mitchell set up three barrels as the points of a cloverleaf pattern and practiced dashing among them.

Before long, the neighborhood children were lining up along her brick wall to watch her. That’s when she drew them into calf wrestling and roping the calves and goats she cared for in her shed.

But she never even attended a rodeo, choosing instead to open the sport to black children. “Our black kids now don’t have nothing to do,” she said. “Rodeo gets them all fired up.”

Besides roping and bulldogging, Mitchell joined the children in several parades and horse shows throughout Los Angeles County, helping the kids win first-place ribbons and giving them a sense of worth.

“Getting them into the horses and the animals, teaching them how to clean them, how to put saddles on correctly--it keeps them busy and off the streets,” Mitchell said.

End of the Rodeo

But times have changed. Mitchell must work now. There’s no more back-yard rodeo. She is slowly losing the kids to the streets again, but she hopes to make a comeback this fall.

“I think the Western way of living keeps you honest,” she continued. “Being a cowboy is unique . . . you’re different . . . it’s a characteristic we have somehow lost over the years.”

But what are the characteristics of a cowboy? Houston cowboy Ben Stevenson said the true cowboy “is a hard-working, down-to-earth kind of person; 90% of the rodeo cowboys are pretty nice guys. A man’s word is held in the highest respect. We’re just like family; everybody helps one another. It’s the only kind of way you can make it.”

It is only natural, then, that cowboys from both the city and country share this need to help others. It also is fitting that there is a national forum for the two to join in honoring black cowboys of the past: The Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo.

In its sixth year, the event salutes black cowboys present and past but especially Pickett, the rodeo sportsman noted for his accomplishments in bulldogging--the event in which a cowboy wrestles a steer to the ground by its horns, bites its bottom lip and tosses it on its side, says Lou Vason, president-producer of the Pickett rodeo.

It was through the Pickett rodeo that Reginald T. Dorsey rediscovered his roots. The Dallas-born actor moved to California at age 10, but never forgot the long summers he spent on his uncle’s ranch in Texas.

“When I became grand marshal (of the Pickett rodeo) four years ago, it was a way for me to go back home without actually being there, because these guys were a part of everything that is home--from their Texas brims to their silver spurs,” said Dorsey, who now plays a recurring part on the television show “21 Jump Street.”

“It’s nice to be with people who don’t judge you on how much money you have and that was how I was raised,” he said.

But there was something more to the black rodeo for this Hollywood cowboy, he said, noting: “We go to inner-city schools and hospitals and try to inspire kids to realize their full potential and believe in themselves regardless of what their environment is or their current state.”

Coming from an economically disadvantaged background is, perhaps, the primary reason blacks have not advanced in the sport of rodeo or captured more world championship titles.

“It’s an expensive sport,” said Jim Louis, a professional rodeo cowboy and stunt man from Agua Dulce. Louis said he had been a “pretty hot item” on the rodeo circuit until a year ago, when he stopped entering competitions to return to the stunt work that provides him with a steadier income.

“With rodeo,” he said, “you spend money to make money. . . . It’s hard when you don’t come from money. Some cowboys are trying to hold down two or three regular jobs just to break even.”

Additional Expenses

Many rodeo cowboys not only must own a horse, which can range from $1,000 to $10,000 and more, but also must have a truck and trailer to haul the horse, the practice cattle and other rodeo livestock. They must pay traveling expenses, rodeo fees, and room and board. Such costs can exceed $5,000 a year, Louis said.

For many urban cowboys, rodeoing and the horse life are a part-time experience. Their full-time professions range from Hollywood stunt man to actor, truck driver and various other laboring activities. (Annie Mitchell is an elevator operator at Hollywood Park.)

But for those with a stereotypical notion of life in South Central L.A., this relatively expensive pastime may be hard to picture. Some might ask how they manage to afford it.

“It’s just like anything else that’s worth having,” Mitchell explained. “You save and work hard and use the money you earn to get it. It has nothing to do with where I live. It has everything to do with how I want to live.”

For Annie, keeping her livestock in her back yard cuts down considerably on her costs by eliminating the expense of boarding her horses at a stable. Mitchell only has to worry about hay and oats for the three horses she owns, which she estimates to be $300 a month.

McClain added that he defrays the cost of boarding his three horses at El Fig Stables with the money he gets from three other owners whose horses he trains and grooms. The owners pay $100 to $125 a month, which includes feeding and watering. Additionally, he and his sister share a home, making it easier for him to live on the wages he earns as a horse trainer.

If it seems a burdensome expense for many of the urban cowboys who must live in low-rent areas, it is a choice they make for a sport that is close to their hearts.

And still many have their dreams of owning a big ranch with all the “fixings.” They scrimp and save along the way in hopes of realizing their home on the range.

Dusk casts a light haze over El Fig. The recycled collection of old wood and tin supports the corrals that house McClain’s pets and friends, a shrine to his life and dreams.

The cowboy, he said, works “a long day, 16 hours most of the time. . . . And I don’t make any money off what I do. But it sure is good therapy from the rat race. . . .”

Wiping the dust from his Wrangler denims, McClain grinned and added: “Cowboying is just something you love to do. And that’s enough for me.”