Black Jockeys Dominated The Kentucky Derby and Horse Racing BUT were Forced out by Racism

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]Okay.

[00:00:01]All right, how's everybody doing today?

[00:00:03]Good.

[00:00:04]Okay.

[00:00:06]All right, so we just want to need to comment give a brief history about African-American jockeys, especially in the Kentucky Derby. Okay, now how many people know that African-American jockeys used to dominate horse racing, but also used to win the Kentucky Derby?

[00:00:22]Well, so I'm going to break down this history and I've done some presentations on this in the past. So today is the 152nd But when it first ran, May 17, 1870 1875, it was won by a 19-year-old African-American man named Oliver Lewis.

[00:00:44]And Oliver Lewis was a former slave.

[00:00:46]Okay, his trainer's name was Ansel Williamson and the name of the horse was Aristides. So African-Americans used to dominate horse racing and this goes back to slavery. If you look at uh presidents like Thomas Jefferson, they were into horse racing, they had jockeys and they had black jockeys who were slaves.

[00:01:07]We got into horse racing because we were good at you know, there were at least 262 skills, trades, and crafts that we had in this country from 1619 to 1865. One of them was working with animals. Wasn't just agriculture, but it was tending to livestock, training animals, things of this nature.

[00:01:26]And uh being a jockey was one of them.

[00:01:30]And if you had some type of skill that your master could make money off of, then a lot of times you could profit from it as well. And we saw this take place. Now we saw this continue after slavery ends in in 1865. What a lot of people don't know is when the first Kentucky Derby is ran at Belmont Stakes in 1875, 13 of the 15 jockeys were black jockeys. How many people knew this?

[00:01:56]Okay. Now when I when I was doing my research about 2014, cuz I hosted African History Network show up in the media 16 years, and I was on the Kentucky Derby's official website doing research on the winners of the Kentucky Derby. And when I first started doing my research at the website, they listed all of the winners going back to 1875, but they didn't have a picture of the black jockeys on the website.

[00:02:22]Okay? So, I already knew what I was looking for, but if somebody just was looking from 1875 up into the present day, you wouldn't know that those were black jockeys. Now, today and in the past 5 or 6 years, they have about a 3-minute video at the uh Kentucky Derby's website that breaks down its history. But, you're going to have people like Isaac Murphy. Now, Isaac Murphy was the first jockey to win the Kentucky Derby three times.

[00:02:47]He ran in 1881, 1884, 1890, 1891. You have people like Alonzo "Lonnie" Clayton. Now, this brother won in 1892 when he was 16 years old. He was the youngest winner of the Kentucky Derby in history.

[00:03:02]Um we're going to go through to uh 1877, we have the uh collapse of Reconstruction, and we're going to start to have Jim Crow laws starting to be put in the place. And we're going to see a concerted effort to push these brothers out of horse racing. You're going to have Jimmy Winkfield who wins in 1901 and 1902. Now, he was the last uh African American to win the Kentucky Derby, and uh the last runner in the Kentucky Derby ran in 19 uh 21. And you're not going to have another African American to to win uh well, actually to run until the year 2000. Okay? So, people have to ask the question, "Well, how did these jockeys get pushed out?" Well, there's a number of different articles dealing with this. Number good articles dealing with this. One of them is from smithsonianmag.com.

[00:03:49]Another This history.com, official website of the History Channel. Well, what happened was you had a combination of Jim Crow laws, racism, and you had jealous white men as well. Because a lot of people were jealous of the type of money these brothers were making. When you look at somebody like Isaac Murphy, who was the who was the first winner of who was the first jockey to win the Kentucky Derby three times. At At the height of his career, this brother is making $20,000 a year. Okay?

[00:04:17]You're talking about back in the 1890s.

[00:04:19]That's equivalent to $100,000 today.

[00:04:22]Now, a lot of these Often times you have brothers who were former slaves making this type of money.

[00:04:27]Okay? And there was a an article from smithsonianmag.com called How African Americans disappeared from the Kentucky Derby. Came out May 5th, 2017.

[00:04:38]And there was a there was a quote that I wrote down. I said I had to share with with people because it talked about the Jim Crow laws. It talked about how often times the horses were sabotaged, how how black jockeys were threatened. But it said that, quote, "A Chicago sports writer grumbled that when he went to the track and saw black fans cheering black riders, he was uncomfortably reminded that black men could vote, v o t e. The 15th Amendment of 1870 and Isaac Murphy, who was the first jockey to win three times, had opened the door for black Americans, but many whites were eager to shut to to to slam it shut. Okay? So, when you deal with You got to understand How many people know what happened in Mississippi in 1890 at the Mississippi State Convention?

[00:05:33]So, in 1890, you know they rewrote the state constitution to impose poll taxes, literacy tests, and the felony disenfranchisement law to to lock African Americans out of voting.

[00:05:44]And Solomon Saladin Calhoun, who was the white county judge, who presided over the convention, said, "We came here to exclude the Negro."

[00:05:51]They imposed the felony disenfranchisement law, so if you were convicted of a felony, you lost your right to vote for life.

[00:05:58]That felony disenfranchisement law is still in place in Mississippi today.

[00:06:02]And it was targeting African-American men. So, when you study the history of what happened, then that's directly tied to the Supreme Court ruling that in section two of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

[00:06:15]Do you Do you understand what I'm saying?

[00:06:17]That's directly connected because the reason why you need the 1965 Voting Rights Act is because of what happened in Mississippi in 1890.

[00:06:23]So, when you read the article from smithsonianmag.com, they're talking about the resentment that was seen after that As long as they were slaves making money for their masters, it was fine.

[00:06:34]But the resentment happened when they could start making money for themselves.

[00:06:38]And when you study this history, you'll see that these brothers were looked at as larger than life, and they were looked at as the really the first professional African-American athletes.

[00:06:48]Okay? So, I just want to break down uh some of that history for you all, where we saw a combination of Jim Crow laws and rewriting of state's constitutions, 1890, 1901 Alabama. We saw Georgia, things of this nature. And we see these brothers get uh pushed out of horse racing. So, today, uh first of all, I made the comment when I came in, this is excellent, this timeline of history. And I've done uh a lot of research on these brothers, and it's surprising how many people don't really know this history. But this is why understanding this history is so important. So, what you do for yourself, what you do for yourself, and what you allow other people to do to you is based on what you think about yourself. What you think about yourself is based on what you've been taught about yourself.

[00:07:32]What you've been taught about yourself is based upon everything you've read, heard, and seen about yourself. So, I'm going to wrap it up with uh that right there. So, hopefully you learned something today, and this should be a good race. It's 6:57 p.m.

[00:07:50]That's my question.

[00:07:52]Okay, so at the same time with the jockeys being pushed out, what about the trainers?

[00:07:57]Cuz the trainers Yeah, you're going to have the Well, the jockeys made more money than the trainers. So, some are going to remain as trainers, but they're going to be regulated Even some of the jockeys going to be regulated to feeding the horses and just taking care of the horses, but racing the horses, actually being a jockey, was high profile and you could make more money. So, they're going to be knocked down to those low-level positions when it comes to tending to the horses. And you also had, you know, in in the article from the Smithsonian, they they interviewed one of the white jockeys because one of the things that happened was white jockeys openly refused to race in races that were desegregated. Okay, so they openly refused to race in races with African-American jockeys. That's another way that we got pushed out of this as well. But there were there there stories of jockeys who ended up just being just taking care of horses and not being able to race anymore.

[00:09:03]Any other questions?

[00:09:05]I noticed one [clears throat] of our sources, and I want to give appreciation to Lori Brock Jackson who created this timeline for us.

[00:09:15]One of the things that she said she really enjoyed it because it really did give her a different perspective of the jockeys, and she learned a lot with doing this project. But one of the things that I noticed that was She did the luck of the Irish of the groom to Secretariat. Yes. So, well, what what is the groom uh when it comes to to races? Cuz it's not It wasn't I don't think he was a jockey.

[00:09:46]>> He was a trainer. Okay, so that is a trainer.

[00:09:50]Okay.

[00:09:51]And then we have here Okay, jockey, trainer, horse owner. Do you know any information or history on Edward Dudley Brown who was a horse owner? Not not specifically him.

[00:10:02]But a lot of a lot of it dealing with the jockeys. Okay. Cuz I I researched a lot of that history. I've done numerous presentations dealing with them. And also I've done them on radio and in person presentations. So a lot of it had to do with the jockeys.

[00:10:17]And if you guys haven't noticed, he is on Roland Martin like you have to get your They get Okay, he looks familiar to me. Yeah, I'm on 5 years. For 5 years he's been on Roland Mar- Martin is on Friday nights starting at Yeah, it's only Fridays. I was on this past Wednesday actually dealing with this uh Supreme Court ruling on Louis- Louisiana versus Calvin. Yes.

[00:10:41]Hi. Yes. Yes, you you kind of alluded to that a little bit early on in regards to the whole the whole change in the direction it seems this country's going in when it comes to our voting rights.

[00:10:52]But my question is relative to Do we know the percentage of current African American jockeys versus current trainers that are now currently Uh no, not off hand. But it is it's an industry that we we don't have a large presence in. I have to look I have to look up the percentage of African American jockeys to trainers. But it's not is because you know, it it's difficult to be what you don't see. So if you don't know that you had a history in that sport, then a lot of people growing up a lot of people growing up may not even think to go into to sport, you know. They may do soccer, they may do basketball, but they'll know that we have this deep history in horse racing and it's expensive to get into horse racing as well. That's another That's a barrier right there. Right, that's a That's a big Thank you.

[00:11:45]Any other questions?

[00:11:47]So, I want to thank you again for presenting but there is no other questions. Let's