Lynn “Smokey" Hart — who was recently nominated for the South Dakota Hall of Fame — might be the only bull riding, bull fighting, rodeo clowning cowboy ever to successfully lobby a state legislature for two official holidays. If that's not enough, he holds the world record for most consecutively swallowed goldfish. Yet many South Dakotans don't know his name.
Maybe that's because Hart is a contradiction, at turns humble and flamboyant, a "regular guy" and a showman. He blends in or stands out depending on the situation. The term "chameleon" is often considered a pejorative, but Hart embraces it.
"My Dad was Black and my Mom was a full-blooded Yankton Sioux," says Hart, who was adopted and raised primarily in Watertown.
"I already know how to be white. I'm the best white, darkest person you've ever met in your life. I can talk white. I can act white, but I had to learn how to be black. And I had to learn how to be Indian, to speak my own language, which I'm still working on today. I can walk into any room in America and mingle so well that people don't even know. It's a survival technique, to become a chameleon — slide in, slide out, kind of like walking on rice paper."
Hart was introduced to rodeo as a Marine. "And then I never looked back, came back to South Dakota, my very first rodeo I [rode] a bull called Spectacular's Velvet of Jim Sutton's string. He was bucking bull of the year that year. And I rode him for 79, and that's when I get the attention. Everybody in South Dakota is like, 'Who are you? Where are you from.' Because nobody's ever seen a Black guy in a cowboy hat riding bulls in South Dakota."
He went onto ride for the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA), the All Indian Rodeo Cowboys Association (AIRCA), and regional circuits, but he found his rodeo home at the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo, a long-running all-Black traveling rodeo show, where he performs as a bull fighter and rodeo clown.
"I joined them in 1986. I wrote a poem called Four Fathers, I have four fathers in my life. The guy that owns it, his name was Lu Vason, out of Denver, Colorado, where they're headquartered. He hired me and that's when he started teaching me my Blackness, my history. I've been to Selma. I've been to Tuskegee. I've been all over the United States, learning all this Black history.
"A lot of people didn't believe there was Black Cowboys. People don't realize that the word cowboy was for people of color, Mexicans and Blacks. 'Hey boy, a cow over here.' Whites were called wranglers and drovers. Like Deadwood Dick out in Deadwood, he was a Black guy. His name was Nate Love. There's so much Black history in South Dakota. Get a book called Black People in South Dakota History [by Sarah Bernson]. See, when I was growing up South Dakota, nobody taught me any Black history.
"That's what got me so spurred on and upset with South Dakota, because they weren't going to recognize Dr. Martin Luther King. You know, South Dakota was not created by white people. There were Indians here first, obviously. you got to give credit where credit's due. And that was my whole complaint. Here we are, we've got Mount Rushmore in our backyard, which Thomas Jefferson basically states all men are created equal — that's what Dr. King was saying.
"So next thing I know, I called up Rex Hagg and I told Rex how I felt about all this. He goes, 'Lynn, do you think you can talk that passionate in Pierre? We you know, we really need you. You think you could say that? Without thinking I said yeah and I hung up the phone. Fifteen minutes later, he goes, 'Lynn, guess what? I got you on the docket.'"
The cowboy accustomed to turning heads in rodeo arenas was on his way to the Capitol, if he could get there.
"There was a blizzard. Big gust of wind blew me in the ditch and I'm in there, stuck. Two wheel drive, tires weren't that good. I'm thinking I'm done, I'm not going to make it."
Somehow he made it out of the ditch. "I pulled over and I prayed. He says you gotta go to Pierre, we've got to get there."
"I got there and I went to sign the book [for speakers at a legislative committee]. I was the only now there to sign that day. And... there they all sat in the committee room. Like wow. now I know how Custer felt. Now they're all looking at me and I'm scared to death. And then Jerry Lammers [asks if] there's anybody here to speak up as a proponent for Dr. King? I stood up there crying.
"I was planning on speaking five minutes. It turns out I spoke for 45 minutes and next thing I know they said we got to go lunch. We got to get to lunch, we're not going to do this."
"House Panel Dumps King Holiday," was the headline in the Rapid City Journal. The legislature balked at first, but Governor George Mickelson quickly intervened, and declared Martin Luther King Jr. Day and official state holiday. But that wasn't all, the governor also declared the creation of the nation's first Native American Day.
"I walked out. So the next day I get up, jump in my truck and drive back to Sturgis. And [a friend] comes up holding a newspaper. 'Lynn, you did it! You did it! Governor Mickelson and Jerry Lammers said that they watched that video tape of me testifying and it spoke to their hearts. Steve Young wrote an article on the front page of the Argus Leader — Lynn Hart Changes History, saying Lynn Hart created two holidays in one legislative session. I'm the only man in history that walked in one day with nothing, walked out with two state holidays overnight. It's never been done in any state in America, but it wasn't me that did it. I'm the guy that got in the way."
He got in the way again when he was prevented from boarding a plane with a Tribal ID. He reached out to Senator Tom Daschle, who sponsored legislation that made Tribal IDs valid forms of identification in South Dakota.
The guy who got in the way has received national attention and accolades for what he'd achieved. The King Center, founded by Coretta Scott King, presented him with the Making of the King Holiday Award. Bill Cosby featured him on "You Bet Your Life." He performed as a stuntman in Western films Buffalo Soldiers and The Cherokee Kid. Barack Obama made a point of meeting with him while on the campaign trail in 2008.
In 2020, he was inducted into the National Western Multicultural Museum Hall of Fame. Still, many South Dakotans don't know his story. He's trying to change that through speaking engagements at schools and other institutions. "I've waited thirty years to even get this interview," says Hart. "Why is that South Dakota? What are you scared of? I'm your history. Embrace it. Utilize it. Don't throw it away."
Lately Hart has been speaking to eligible Native American and Black South Dakotans about the importance of taking the COVID-19 vaccine. "A lot of people of color don't want to take the vaccine. Cause of our history, we're skeptical, don't trust the government. Because of sterilization with Black women and Indians. People thought they were getting shots they were getting sterilized. So the was not that long ago. But what I'm trying to do — I'm diabetic, and I'm Black and Indian. If I got COVID I'd probably kick the bucket. So what I'm trying to say is, I'm doing it, please do it. Do it for your grandkids. Let's get rid of this."
About those goldfish: Hart was in seventh grade when Watertown promoted a local event called Crazy Days. "They decided to swallow goldfish, and I had to go down and see who was doing this.
His competitive spirit took over from there.
"I went 236 the first year, set the world's record. Then a guy in California swallowed 400. So then Watertown asked me if I'd get the world record back. So the following year, I swallowed 501 goldfish in two and a half hours. There was a thousand goldfish in the tank, so that day if anybody tried to beat me, the most they could swallow was 499."
Hart does have a tendency for scoring two-fers.