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Black Life in the Sacramento Valley (1919-1934) (36 pages)
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Page: of 36
Black Life in the Sacramento Valley Page 10 of 37
weren't separate rodeos for blacks and whites.
Stahl was so good that none of the white competitors wanted him to enter any events, and he was paid
just to give exhibitions of his skills.
Stokes became the comedian of the rodeo. Like Stahl, he could probably do anything better than the
other bronco busters, but he wanted to make sure that he made some money. He would try to antagonize
the bulls; they would come charging at him, and he'd do all sorts of funny flip-flops to get out of the
way. He was entertaining, and he knew what he was doing all the time.
Henry knew everyone in town, and one of his close friends was a white boy named Tommy Stewart,
whose father, Bob Stewart, owned a spread of land in which he had built a slaughterhouse. Henry and I
frequently went out to their ranch, where we could ride a donkey, horse, or goat, or attempt to bulldog
calves, as we saw the cowboys do. We always had a meal at the home with the family and with some of
the young males who worked in the slaughterhouse.
The senior Stewart used to let Henry and me clean up after the livestock was killed. Our job was to hose
down the cement floor and sweep it of all entrails except the liver, heart and other edible portions. This
experience turned me against eating pork, for we swept everything to the hogs in the yard, and I noted
that they ate everything, including fetuses which tumbled out of the stomach of a sow as she was gutted.
A word about blacks in the ranching business: Chico had none. But in Red Bluff, the Williams family
had about 3000 acres, most of it in grain and the rest in beef cattle. The founding father of the Williams
clan came to California during the Gold Rush days in a covered wagon. I never learned whether he was
a slave or not.
Two railroads stopped at Chico, the Sacramento Northern and the Southern Pacific. One day, Henry and
I were eating some fruit near the depot when a passenger got off and offered us money for our peaches.
We got an idea to become youthful entrepreneurs.
We loaded up baskets with apricots, figs, peaches, and apples, and starting that very evening. When #14
arrived, we paraded up and down, exhibiting our wares.
We did this for a couple of weeks or so, and usually sold out. Then the vendors of candies, magazines
and beverages noted that we were interfering with their captive buyers on the trains, and complained to
the Southern Pacific about our being on their property. They in turn notified the local police, who told us
to stop. We were just trying to pick up a few honest pennies.
Hadwick Thompson, the only black to farm rice in Northern California, lived in Willows, 25 miles west
of Chico. He had attended the University of California's College of Agriculture at Davis, and was a
veteran of World War I, who had served overseas in France.
When he came back, everybody in that little town loved him. He was invited to join the Willows chapter
of the American Legion, and they named an athletic field after him. Some white people never let him
know that he was black. He owned a lot of acreage up there, and stayed in Willows until he died.
http://www.cmonline.com/boson/freebies/blackhistory/fleming2.html 12/28/04