This is the story of John William Rogan, known to the world as Bud Rogan, the tallest man of African descent ever recorded, and one of the tallest human beings in history.
John William Rogan was born in 1868 in Sumner County, Tennessee, just three years after the end of slavery. He was born an ordinary-sized Black child in the Reconstruction South, into a world already hostile to Black bodies. No one could have imagined that this quiet boy would grow into a figure that would challenge science, spectacle, and racism all at once.
At the age of thirteen, Rogan began to grow at an extraordinary rate. His height increased rapidly, driven by a rare medical condition later understood to be related to pituitary gigantism. As his body stretched upward, his joints began to stiffen. Ankylosis slowly fused parts of his skeleton together, robbing him of mobility. By adulthood, Rogan could no longer stand or walk on his own.
By the time of his death, Rogan measured approximately eight feet eight inches tall while seated. Earlier estimates placed him as tall as eight feet nine inches. He weighed just 175 pounds at the end of his life, his body elongated and fragile, stretched beyond what medicine of the time could understand or support. He became the tallest African American ever recorded and the second tallest man in documented history.
But Rogan refused to be turned into a spectacle.
At a time when tall bodies, disabled bodies, and especially Black bodies were routinely exploited by carnivals, freak shows, and traveling exhibitions, Rogan said no. He rejected every offer to be displayed, examined, or paraded for entertainment. That decision cost him financially. He had no steady income, no institutional support, and no medical care capable of easing his condition.
Instead, Rogan chose dignity.
Unable to walk, he built a cart from his own bed and moved through his community pulled by goats. He taught himself to draw and became an artist. He sold his sketches, portraits, and postcards at the local railway station. His artwork circulated where his body would not. It was his way of surviving in a society that had no place for him except as a curiosity.
Even in life, scientists were obsessed with him. They measured him, speculated about him, and treated his body as a medical puzzle rather than a human being. That obsession did not end when he died.
John William Rogan passed away in 1905 at just thirty-five years old from complications related to his condition. His family knew exactly what would come next. In an era when Black bodies were routinely stolen, dissected, and displayed without consent, they took a radical step.
They buried him beneath a layer of concrete.
Not out of shame, but protection.
They did it to stop grave robbers, doctors, and so-called scientists from stealing his remains. They did it to ensure that even in death, Rogan would not be claimed, owned, or violated by institutions that never cared for him while he lived.
Bud Rogan’s story is not just about extraordinary height. It is about boundaries. About a Black man who lived in a time when his body was seen as property and refused to surrender it. It is about choosing self-respect over survival at any cost. About creativity in the face of isolation. About family protecting dignity when the world would not.
He was not a sideshow.
He was not a specimen.
He was not a mistake.
John William “Bud” Rogan was a man who stood taller than history expected him to, even when he could no longer stand at all.
And they had to pour concrete just to let him rest in peace.
