When people picture a cowboy, they often imagine popular depictions like Clint Eastwood with white skin and a grizzly beard, lassoing on horseback in classic Western films.
Images like this have shaped how generations of agriculturalists’ stories are told. In North Central Florida, Black agriculturalists continue to challenge those portrayals, preserving an often overlooked legacy. Historians say up to one in four cowboys in the American West were Black.
For generations, Black people have taken part in this culture as cowboys, ranchers and farmers. John “Ronnie” Nix, a third-generation rancher and Alachua native, has played a significant role in bringing light to the culture’s niche in North Central Florida. Nix has a career in agriculture that not only spans his farm in Rochelle, but across the state of Florida…