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“Cross that River”
Allan Harris
Cross That River
((( >>> )))
“Blue Was Angry”
Allan Harris and his band at the South Miami Cultural Center (2015).
Allan Harris tells the seldom told African American story. The story of the cotton-picking slaves in 1850s Louisiana, those who escaped across the Red River, and entered Texas, where they were FREE, and worked as cowboys on the Chisholm Trail.
1855 — Having been born, imprisoned, and worked like a machine on a northwest Louisiana cotton plantation, Blue was an angry young man when he planned his escape across the nearby, fast-running Red River. After a sucessful run, Blue “found” his freedom in Texas. ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE RIVER.
Blue was one of the first in a community that grew fast, big and strong. A movement known as “THE BLACK COWBOYS.”
Blue, with thousands of others, drove cattle on the Chisholm Trail, where, it mattered not the color of your skin, your native language, or your homeland. At the time, west of the Mississippi (River), a man’s “VALUE” was in his ability to cowboy.
BEFORE HIS ESCAPE, Blue, like all slaves in America, was bought and sold as “PROPERTY,” rather than employed and cared for as a human being.
Blue was born in Louisiana, on a cotton plantation, the only place he knew as home. The year was 1850, and after 20 years of being worked, driven, and beaten nearly to death, Blue was angry, and felt he had no choice other than taking the death-defying reach for FREEDOM.
Blue. A Black Cowboy’s Story
After the record (2003), Allan wrote a script, and took “Cross That River” to the stage. (2017)
PREMIERE @ 59E59 THEATER (NYC)
((( 2HR )))
dave.
Mississippi Divide
Cross That River is the story of a young, angry, and rebellious, cotton-picking slave named Blue. He was born a slave on a cotton plantation in northwest Louisiana, and after twenty years being treated as the “property” of an especially sadistic Southern “Gentleman,” Blue was ready to find his freedom on the other side of the nearby Red River, or die trying.
Glowing in a full Moon’s light, broken clouds raced across a stormy, summer sky. Blue was hiding in the tall reeds on the fast-running river’s edge, preparing his small, wooden raft for his run. For the past year, he had risked sneaking away from his shack at night to cut logs and rope to tie them together.
On this night, Blue prayed (to the Lord, God, Jesus) that both his boat and he would survive.
Blue made it across the Red River that night, and until the end of his long life, thrived as a free man, as a Cowboy, a Buffalo Soldier, and a Businessman in Texas and Oklahoma.
In the decades after his escape, Blue drove cattle, bought a wife, killed Indians (Native Americans) as a Buffalo Soldier, and ended a successful businessman, on “Black Wall Street” in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
End of the Line — Many Black Cowboys settled in the cities where they had driven cattle to be slaughtered. Tulsa was most popular, and the place where many black banks and businesses thrived. The Greenwood neighborhood was nicknamed “Black Wall Street“ because of the community’s success. [TULSA RACE MASSACRE]
Buffalo Soldiers
Allan Harris
Cross That River
2003 — African
((( Native Killers )))
—yZ.
Buffalo Soldiers — Originally members of the 10th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army, the Buffalo Soldiers formed (September 21, 1866) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. This nickname was given to the Black Cavalry by Native American tribes who fought in the Indian Wars. The name eventually came to represent all the African American regiments formed in 1866:
Riding Free on The Chisholm Trail
1880s — Nearly half the working cowboys in Oklahoma and Texas were free black men, many who joined the U.S. Army’s Buffalo Soldiers. The “Negro Cavalry” that fought alongside the “White-Anglo” Army in its war against the Native American “Indians” from the upper plains to the United States Southwestern desert.
After surviving the 19th Century torture, pain, and suffering, Blue retired quietly, and sought refuge in South Florida, the same as so many do today.
Black Seminoles
Allan Harris
Cross That River
2003 —
((( Retired to Florida )))
—yZ.
Take Me (Back) To The River
1851 — Texas Longhorns, driven to Missouri, were found to be carrying disease-ridden ticks, and entire herds had to be turned away.
Cattle Rustling, vigilantism, and violence were also problems, and by 1859, driving cattle was outlawed in much of Missouri.
By the end of the Civil War, most cattle were being moved up the western branch of The Trail at Red River Station in Montague County, Texas.
1860 — The (Wild) American West of 1860 provided a new beginning for Blue, and the other escaped slaves who chose to continue west after crossing the Mississippi, instead of north to New York and Chicago.
“Cross That River” is Allan Harris and Love Productions Theatrical presentation of Blue’s adventurous (African American) story.
Through voice and song, Allan integrates historical fact and colorful lore to tell an often overlooked story, an important chapter in the fight for Civil Rights and Equal Justice in The United States Of America.
The Wild Wild (Black) West
After his successful escape, and crossing of the Red River, Blue quickly found work (as a cowboy) on a cattle drive between San Antonio and Abilene, Texas … and later, Blue planted the roots of his new life in Kansas City, Kansas, where a community of Black Cowboys thrived.
Texas ranchers driving their cattle on The Chisholm Trail started from either the Rio Grande or San Antonio, and joined the Chisholm Trail at the border between Texas and Oklahoma, the Red River of the South.
From there, they continued to the railhead of the Kansas Pacific Railway in Abilene, Kansas, where the cattle were sold and shipped eastward.
The Trail is named for Jesse Chisholm, a half-Cherokee trader from Tennessee, who originally created the trail to transport his goods from one trading post to another.
[BUFFALO SOLDIERS: A BRIEF HISTORY]
1866 — Because The Civil War restricted access to The Trail, their was a tremendous overstock of cattle in Texas, where the cattle were worth $4 per head, compared to more than $40 per head in the hard-to-reach North and East of America.
1867 — Joseph G. McCoy encouraged Texans to drive their cattle to his new stockyards in Abilene, Kansas. They responded, and in that first year, McCoy shipped 35,000 head, and became the largest stockyards west of Kansas City, Kansas.
O. W. Wheeler was one of those Texas ranchers who answered McCoy’s call. He and his partners drove 2,400 steers on The Chisholm Trail, from Texas to Abilene.
Wheeler’s herd was the first of an estimated 5,000,000 head of Texas cattle to reach Kansas over The Chisholm Trail.
The construction of the Union Pacific Railway through Nebraska eventually offered a cattle drive destination which was an attractive alternative to the Kansas Pacific Railroad, and the Texas Trail emerged as an alternative to the Chisholm Trail. Between 1876 and 1884 some drives took the Texas Trail instead of the Chisholm Trail.
Sleepy River
Paul Roberson
1936 — Hope Across The Mississippi.
Free You On The Other Side
((( >>> )))
dave.
“Cry of the Thunderbird”
Allan Harris
Cross That River
((( ? )))
“Somewhere Down Crazy River“
Robbie Robertson
1887 — Catch the Blue Train
((( ? )))
the bridge
BRINGING AMERICA TOGETHER AGAIN.
BLUE (THE ORIGINAL COLOR OF SIN)
HELLHOUND ON HIS TRAIL (ROBERT JOHNSON)
SACRED GROUND (THE CROSSROADS)
ROBERT JOHNSON (THE ARCHITECT)
THE DEVIL IS SINGING OUR SONG
SEARCHING FOR ROBERT JOHNSON (VANITY FAIR)
A LIGHTER SHADE OF BLUE (THE YARDBIRDS)
BLUES (MARY McCLAIN)
MOUNTAIN MUSIC (ROCK N ROLL TIMELINE)
GUITAR LIST #1 (ELECTRIC EVOLUTION)
GUITAR LIST #2 (SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL)
ROCK N ROLL TIMELINE (NO ART)
MILES DAVIS (THE CREATOR)
JIMI HENDRIX (VOODOO’S CHILD)
PRINCE AMONG US (THE ARTIST)
HOLY TRINITY OF ROCK
HOLY TRINITY OF JAZZ
NEW ORLEANS (UNDER A CRESCENT MOON)
NEW YORK CITY (A RENAISSANCE IN HARLEM)
THEY ONLY COME OUT AT NIGHT
SUMMER IN THE CITY
TEXAS SWING
CHICAGO BOUND
MUDDY WATERS (CHICAGO)
ROLLING STONES (MUDDY WATERS)
ROLLIN’ ON THE RIVER (BO, IKE & TINA)
the color purple
POST APOCALYPTIC BLUES