{"value"=>"<p>Porter's unpublished manuscript, <em>\"Black Riders: The Negro on the Frontier of the Cattle Country,\" 1953-1978,</em> also the title of the subseries, is a study that examines the role of African Americans in the West - specifically in the cattle country, mining regions and dry-farming areas. Porter wrote about African-American cowboys and their relationships with American whites and Native Americans, in addition to African Americans who lived in the cattle country but did not work directly with cattle. These occupations included agriculture, transportation, service occupations, entertainment, general labor, business, the professions, journalism and public office. He discusses Jim Crow, African-American resistance, retaliation and accomodation, as well as the portrayal of the cow-country African American in literature and on the screen.</p> <p> The collection consists of numerous drafts of Porter's manuscript for \"Black Riders.\" He had labelled the drafts \"early version,\" \"outmoded version,\" \"late version,\" etc. In processing the collection, these terms have been used but the material was not studied in sufficient detail to determine whether the arrangement of the versions is indeed in the order in which Porter wrote them. However, when possible, all of the manuscripts which pertain to each of the twenty-two chapters were kept together. The manuscripts are followed by reference material he compiled for each of the states he discusses; this material includes correspondence, notes and printed matter. Porter maintained a great number of notes on index cards; the titles he provided on these boxes have been retained. These notes have been placed at the end of the subseries relating to the particular subject. There are six such boxes for \"Black Riders.\"</p>"}