Charles Sampson, who in 1982 was the first black man to win the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association bull-riding championship, knows special.
So it wasn’t surprising to hear him honor James Peters Jr., pastor emeritus of Denver’s New Hope Baptist Church, who marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma and Birmingham, Ala., and other cities that were battlegrounds in the civil-rights struggle.
“Anybody walking with Martin Luther King, that is like walking with God to me,” Sampson, 51, said Monday at a news conference that both men attended to announce Denver’s MLK events.
In a week, both plan to be among those celebrating the civil-rights leader’s life at Denver’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Marade (march and parade).
The federal and state holiday, celebrated on the third Monday in January, is the trigger for two weeks of local events celebrating African-American culture and diversity.
Among them is a celebration of the civil-rights hero’s 80th birthday featuring opera singer Denyce Graves at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House at 7 p.m. Friday.
There also is the MLK African-American Heritage Rodeo of Champions at 6 p.m. Monday at the Denver Coliseum as part of the National Western Stock Show & Rodeo.
Known for his fearless riding style, Sampson has a list of firsts, including first black cowboy inducted into the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame.
Growing up in Watts in Los Angeles, he went to work as a stable boy and met some cowboys who took an interest in him. He rode steers at first, but when his cowboy friends entered him in an amateur rodeo event, he mounted his first bull.
“When it came to getting on the bull, that is when my heart went to the back of my butt,” he recalled.
He was soon taking part in a sport whose participants were overwhelmingly white. If there was racism leveled against him, he said, it was subtle.
But it is hard to escape the fact that when he started, judges uniformly scored him lower than he deserved. “I don’t know if I encountered racism as much as ignorance,” he said.
Sampson said his hero, African American bull rider Myrtis Dightman, who is considered the Jackie Robinson of rodeo, and others were denied honors that they deserved.
Maurice Wade, 60, a calf roper who will compete at the MLK rodeo, credits Sampson with pioneering the way for blacks in the sport: “He was the start of all this.”
Tom McGhee: 303-954-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com
