Art T. Burton

Art T. Burton (b, 1949) retired in 2015 after spending thirty-eight years in higher education as a history professor at Prairie State College and South Suburban College, both in Illinois, and as an administrator in African-American Student Affairs at Benedictine University, Loyola University Chicago, and Columbia College Chicago. He earned a B.A. and M.A. in African-American Studies at Governors State University, University Park, Illinois. He is the author of several books, including Black, Red and Deadly: Black and Indian Gunfighters in the Indian Territory, 1870–1907 (Eakin Press, 1991), Black Buckskin and Blue: African-American Scouts and Soldiers on the Western Frontier (Eakin Press, 2008), Cherokee Bill: Black Cowboy-Indian Outlaw (Eakins Press, 2020), and Black Gun, Silver Star: The Life and Legend of Frontier Marshal Bass Reeves (Bison Books, University of Nebraska Press, 2022). Burton was named a “Territorial Marshal” by Gov. David Walters of Oklahoma in 1995; inducted into the Hall of Fame at the National Multicultural Western Heritage Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, in 2008; and given the Living Legend Award by the Bare Bones Film Festival in Muskogee, Oklahoma, in 2015. He appeared on BET’s Teen Summit with Mario Van Peebles, discussing the film, Posse, and on FOX Cables’ Legends and Lies series, episode “The Real Lone Ranger,” and was a participant in the AHC Cable series Gunslingers episode on Bass Reeves. Burton spoke on African-American and Native-American cultures at the B.B King Symposium at Mississippi Valley State University in 2018 and was the keynote speaker at the 10th Anniversary Bass Reeves Western History Conferences in Muskogee, Oklahoma, in 2019.