Like many people, Jim Austin - a college-educated, 45-year-old businessman - hadn't heard about the black presence in the Old West.
The discovery inspired him and his wife Gloria to set up the National Multicultural Western Heritage Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. It pays tribute to some of the forgotten black cowboys - men like Bill Pickett, a champion rodeo rider who invented bulldogging, a technique where he would jump from a horse on to a steer and take the animal down by biting on its lip.
Vincent Jacobs, now 80, battled racism as a rodeo rider in the 1950s
"The kids who are learning history in our schools are not being told the truth about they way the West was," says Austin.
"I bet you nine out of 10 people in this country think that cowboys were all white - as I did.
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