Sins of omission are sins of commission and volition.
I speak now of the "Western"genre of books, movies, television, radio, in which all have purposely excluded tales of great epic, African Americans who were among the "Old West's" foremost explorers, trappers, cattle drivers, pioneers, scouts, hunters, rodeo wranglers, ranchers, fighters, frontiersman, prospectors, traders.
The period of the 1804-1890 included such black men and literature about them, as: "York" of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, who was "Big Medicine" to the Indians who deemed him to be the true leader of the expedition, because of his hair, color, size and strength like the bison, to which false concept the white leaders expediently demurred.
There was James Beckwourth, founder of the "Beckwourth Pass," California, and whose "Autobiography" is among one of the greatest ever written in fact or fiction.
There was Nat Love, a/k/a, "Deadwood Dick,"' great cattle-driving man, horseman, gunslinger , and companion some of the movies' white standard heroes, whose "Autobiography" is eye-popping and entertaining!
There are others who excluded, including pioneering black women in the Old West.
Such omission is sinful commission. Joining my class of the most accomplished, spellbinding authors, which had consisted of Alex Haley, Booker T. Washington, Mark Twain, Alexander Dumas, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Zora Neale Hurston, is that of the mountain man, adventurer, James Beckwourth of Missouri, whose amazing dictated autobiography has spawned a cottage industry, of citation materials .
