I cannot name the exact years in which these movies were made, but in some of those movies in the 1950s and at the beginning of the 1960s showed out people of color in positive roles.
In the movie Vera Cruz starring Garry Cooper and Burt Lancaster, there is an African american male riding along with a band of outlaws. He is not negative; he is seen doing just about what everybody else is doing.
Island in the Sun is the other one starring James Mason, Joan Collins, Harry Belafonte, and Dorothy Dandridge.
Sammy Davis Jr. played a cowboy in the tv series The Rifleman. Then there is the Ten Commandments starring Charlton Heston in which Woody Strode played an African king or warrior.
More to come
Joseph