Brady poses for a portrait at his residence in Atlanta’s Midwest Cascade community.
Burton.Ī few Westerns have featured Black characters, and actors playing Reeves have been featured in film and TV series such as “Hell on the Border,” and in the opening scene of “Watchmen.” The feared deputy marshal character will also have a role in an upcoming Netflix project, an all-Black Western called “The Harder They Fall,” loosely based on Black cowboy Nat Love and co-produced by Jay-Z. Popular culture and Hollywood often focused only on whites in the Old West, but Blacks played a significant role as well, said historian Art T. And, perhaps, the truth is somewhere in between. Explore Where do you find Black cowboys?īrady said he’s been approached by Hollywood types about doing a film project on Reeves.Īs with many stories about the old frontier, sometimes it’s hard to separate fact from fiction. “They did not like the white deputies because they looked down on them, so they helped Bass,” who was fluent in several of their languages. “I knew he respected them (Native Americans) and they respected him,” said Brady. He had many close friends among the Cherokee, Creek, Seminole, Chickasaw and Choctaw, who sometimes assisted him in the hunt.
Reeves, who towered over others at more than 6 feet tall and sported a bushy walrus-styled mustache, sometimes wore disguises to catch thieves, killers and the like who fled to the Indian Territory to escape the law.
One of those people arrested, historians say, was his own son, who was accused of killing his wife.