At the end of most episodes, after the Lone Ranger and Tonto leave, someone asks the sheriff or other person of authority who the masked man was. A silver mine supplies The Lone Ranger with the name of his horse as well as the funds required to finance his wandering life-style and the raw material for his signature bullets. The “lone” survivor thereafter disguises himself with a black mask and travels with Tonto throughout Texas and the American West to assist those challenged by the lawless elements. The fictional story line maintains that a patrol of six Texas Rangers is massacred, with only one member surviving. The series’ stated premise included an explanation for his masked appearance: But the television show The Lone Ranger (which aired from 1949 to 1957) could not depict its hero as a black man, so white star Clayton Moore was given a black mask instead. Advertisements In January 2019, a meme that appeared to be a screenshot of an older post asserting that the real Lone Ranger was a black man named Bass Reeves spread on social media:Ībove what appeared to be an archival photograph of a black man and the television character the Lone Ranger, a screencaptured Facebook post read:ĭid you know the real LONE RANGER was a BLACK MAN name BASS REEVES and yes he did live among the INDIANS ,The Lone Ranger “could not be cast in that era as a black man, so he was made into a white man with a black mask, Now you know.Īccording to the apparent original post, the television character was inspired by Bass Reeves.