SCLC #386 — 1980 Image Awards essay traces Black stunt association to a Buffalo Soldiers troupe
Finding 386: a 1980 Beverly Hills/Hollywood NAACP Image Awards souvenir essay by Ernest O. Polk Jr. gives a two-stage origin story for Black stunt work — a Buffalo Soldiers / Tenth Cavalry performance-training group that later informed a 1966 Black Stuntmen’s Association — without proving a 53-person 1966 membership roll.
Primary leaves (LOC Rosa Parks Papers, box 21 folder 3): contents page dating the 13th annual program to 7 December 1980 at the Hollywood Palladium; Polk feature naming Lenton W. Glascow’s Tenth Cavalry / Buffalo Soldiers group (began with two people, later “53”); Eddie Smith credited with suggesting an association dated to 1966; High Chaparral 1968 credit and a Western Heritage Award claimed in the essay.
Craft limits held: the number 53 belongs in Polk’s narrative to the earlier troupe, not as proof the 1966 association enrolled 53 members. Television credit, award, chronology, and “firsts” are retrospective claims, not checked production records. Program custody among Rosa Parks’s papers ≠ authorship, membership, or attendance. Essay paraphrased, not reproduced.
Repo: 1980-image-awards-black-stuntmen-buffalo-soldiers-1966-association