Cowboys of Color: Mollie Taylor-Stevenson, Jr. on Living Your Best Life with Genma Holmes

Remember growing wanting to be a cowboy or cowgirl? The old western movies captured all of our imaginations. But rarely did we see cowboys who reflected the diversity of the west and our country.

On Saturday, July 19, 2014, join us as we continue to discuss Cowboys of Color; their history, heritage, and culture on Living Your Best Life Radio. We will be joined by National Multicultural Western Heritage Hall of Fame Inductee, Mollie Taylor-Stevenson, Jr., founder of the American Cowboy Museum located in the Houston, Texas area. Mollie, Jr. will share with us her rich heritage and life as an American Cowgirl.

Mollie, Jr.'s family ranch is 150 year working ranch. Listen to Mollie, Jr. share about her great-grandmother, a former slave, who Mollie, Jr. has a copy of her slave papers. Mollie, Jr. parents were HBCU educated who became entrepreneurial ranchers. Hear her share about her mother, Fisk University grad, and her father, a Tuskegee graduate, and how they started the first Black owned airport and aviation school in the country, Sky Ranch, on their land.

Mollie, Jr. will also discuss keeping your family land, farm work ethnic, educating children about the west, and why it is important to know your country and family's history. This lively interview will be entertaining and educational as you learn more about our country's western heritage.

 Living Your Best Life Radio, radio that empowers, inspires, and motivates you to live your BEST life, can be heard on 760 AM in the Middle-Tennessee Region, Tune In, military bases, and streamed live on U-Stream.TV from 9-10AM CST. This show will also air on WTST, a member of the HBCU radio network (XM 142).

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 National Multicultural Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony and Banquet

More About Mollie Taylor-Stevenson, Jr. 

Mollie's parents believed that education was very important, they not only educated their own children, but countless others with food, books, tuition payments and entire college educations. Mollie, Jr., worked as a professional model in Houston, Kansas City and New York, but she was drawn back home where she worked side by side with her mother to preserve their legacy. She established the American Cowboy Museum, a 501(c)(3) organization in 1987. It honors the contributions to Western culture of African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, and women.

Mollie Jr. is a 1963 graduate of Houston's Jack Yates High School and attended Texas Southern University as a business major from 1963-1967. For 15 years, Stevenson worked as a professional model. The busy rancher and museum director finds time to volunteer for the black trail riding and rodeo associations, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo and the Black Landowners Association. She has appeared in numerous radio, television and newspaper interviews, and has been featured as a woman in a nontraditional occupation in such magazines as Texas Highways, Ebony, and Essence.

Mollie, Jr. is also a journalist and an active volunteer with the Sugar Shack Trailride and various other rodeo trailride associations. Mollie has been honored by numerous schools as a motivational speaker and event coordinator. She is also a charter member of the Speakers and Black Go Texan Committee of the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo, the Professional Black Cowboy & Cowgirl Association, the Landowners of Texas, and her favorite, the Diamond L Riding & Roping Club.

To acquaint a new generation with this rich history, Mollie offers school tours, leather crafts for visiting children, lectures, a traveling exhibit with a quilt display, horseback riding, a mobile petting zoo, and living history presentations. She also encourages young people to consider careers in agribusiness and land ownership and sponsors FFA and 4-H students.

Mollie and her mother are the first living African-Americans inducted in The National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Fort Worth. 

Photos: Submitted by Mollie Taylor-Stevenson, Jr.

Cowboys of Color on Living Your Best Life with Genma Holmes

Update: Audio of Show can be found here.

Join Living Your Best Life with Genma Holmes as we profile organizations, leaders, and volunteers who lead by example. With extraordinary acts of kindness and charitable giving that help countless lives daily, these organizations, leaders, and volunteers embody "Be the change you want to see in the world."

Gloria and Jim Austin being presented with art for NMWHM

On Saturday, May 31, 2014, tune in to hear Jim Austin, the founder of the National Multicultural Western Heritage Museum. Mr. Austin, a former executive with American Express, will share historical perspectives of people and activities that built the unique culture of the American West. Often, historians have left out the contributions of Black and Hispanic Cowboys and Native American Indians. And Hollywood's version of the American Cowboy rarely includes diversity.

"Cowboys of Color" Rodeo

Mr. Austin will discuss American heroes like Bill Pickett who is famously known for "bulldogging", women of the "wild wild west" like Mary Fields, also known as “Stagecoach Mary”  and recent inductees into the Cowboys and Cowgirls Hall of Fame.

Ebony Horsewomen Equestrian and Agricultural Center

Mr. Austin will share the significance of the  Hall of Fame and the importance of highlighting the excellent examples of American heroes of the past, present, and future.  He will share stories about individual contributors to maintaining the history of American Western Culture like Art T. Burton, scholar and author of Black, Red, and Deadly, actress Pam Grier, and Patrica E. Kelly, founder of Ebony Horsewomen, Inc., who is teaching a younger generation to the benefits of an Equine Education that promotes science, technology, engineering, math and horsemanship.

This show promises to keep you laughing while engaging you with one nugget of knowledge after another. 

Living Your Best Life Radio, radio that empowers, inspires, and motivates you to live your BEST life. can be heard on 760 AM in the Middle-Tennessee Region, Tune In, military bases, and streamed live on U-Stream.TV from 9-10AM CST. This show will also air on WTST, a member of the HBCU radio network (XM 142).

More About Jim Austin

James N. "Jim" Austin, Jr. is the broker and owner of The Austin Company Commercial Real Estate, established in 1981. The Austin Company has served the Fort Worth-Dallas metro area with commercial real estate and property management services for over thirty-three years. Austin served as Commissioner on the Texas Real Estate Commission for eight years. Jim Austine is a 1976 graduate of Howard University where he received his BA in Business. As a realtor, his commitment to his community service garnered him national recognition from the National Association of Realtors® as a recipient of the coveted Realtor® Magazine’s Good Neighbor Award in 2003. The Good Neighbor Awards recognize REALTORS® who’ve made an extraordinary strides to improving the quality of life in their communities through volunteer efforts.

 Jim Austin Online (JAO) originated in the fall of 2008 with 200 friends signing up to receive a e-newsletter from Jim. Jim Austine Online now has a community of over nearly 20,000 members. In conjunction with the weekly newsletter, JAO offers benefits that are exclusively found on JAO website such as monthly Networking Business Luncheons with high profile individuals as host like gubernatorial candidates and other relevant business and political figures. JAO also offers tickets to various theatrical, music and sporting events held at event venues such as Nokia Theater and the Dallas Cowboys Stadium.

More About the National Multicultural Western Heritage Museum 

The mission of the National Multicultural Western Heritage Museum and Hall of Fame is to offer visitors a true and complete historical perspective of the people and activities that built the unique culture of the American West. The works of artists who have documented the people and events of the time through journals, photographs, and other historical items are part of this new collection.  These long overlooked materials tell, perhaps, for the first time the complete story.  The American West of today still operates on many of the principles and cultural relationships begun so long ago.

The National Multicultural Western Heritage Museum was started to acknowledge the contributions of Hispanic Americans, Native Americans, European Americans, and African Americans in the settlement of the Western American Frontier.

The National Multicultural Western Heritage Museum is currently located at 3400 Mount Vernon Ave in Forth Worth, Texas. There are several featured exhibits such as the Tuskegee Airmen and the Buffalo Soldiers .

Photo Credits: NMWHM, JOA, and Ebony Horsewomen, Inc.