Living Legend: Mollie Taylor Stevenson, Jr.

Mollie Taylor Stevenson, Jr. is a native Houston, Texas rancher, cowgirl and historian. She is the daughter of deceased Mollie Taylor Stevenson, Sr., a Fisk graduate, and Ben Stevenson, 1930’s Tuskegee University football legend. Stevenson is a 1963 graduate of Jack Yates High School and attended Texas Southern University as a business major from 1963-1967. She spent fifteen years as a professional model in Houston, New York and Kansas City, Mo. before she returned to Houston to live on the family owned 150 year old working ranch (where she was raised). It is one of the oldest black -owned ranches in the United States. Stevenson’s great grandmother, Ann Taylor, was purchased as a slave for E. R. Taylor, (the white son of a major land baron). Together they had six children who inherited the land that the family currently owns. Today, Stevenson and three of her siblings live on the premises. One other sister Barbara Marshall, a retired college professor, lives near the ranch property. The youngest sibling, deceased, Major Stevenson, was a long-time esteemed master educator and historian. Stevenson is married to Elicious Scott whom she met on a trail ride in 1993 and married one year later in a historic western-African wedding on the ranch grounds. Her hobbies are entertaining, cooking and craft making.

In 1988, Stevenson assisted her mother in establishing The American Cowboy Museum in Houston, Texas. The mission of this museum is to preserve the multicultural history of the west. Thanks to Stevenson, thousands of visitors and school children have learned about contributions of African-Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans and women’s history and culture of the West. The museum conducts heritage tours, picnics, a Historical Traveling Exhibit with oral presenters and a petting zoo. Stevenson and her mother are the first living African-Americans inducted in The National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, Texas. She is a member of the Diamond “L” Riding and Roping Club, volunteers for the Black Land Owner’s Association, FFA and 4-H Clubs. She has appeared in numerous radio, television and newspaper interviews, and has been featured as a woman in a nontraditional occupation in such magazines as Texas Highway, Ebony, Essence and others.

Source: cowboysofcolor.org
Photo credit: americancowboy.com