One of the most celebrated Texas books of 2024 was “Juneteenth Rodeo,” with photos and an essay by Austin author Sarah Bird (University of Texas Press).
It was everywhere: Perched on bookshelves, displayed on coffee tables, stacked for sale at book fairs and museums.
Smithsonian Magazine, no less, chose it as one of the Ten Best Photography Books of 2024.
A tribute to small-town Black rodeos in Texas, the project rescued images and memories from Bird’s early career as a photojournalist. They had been stored in a plastic tub under a bed in the author’s house.
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“Taken at a pivotal moment when the desegregation of rodeos were still honored more the in the breach than in the observance and when rodeo competitors with ranch backgrounds were more the rule than the exception,” Bird writes, “these photos are dedicated to the ropers and riders, the fans, and the many eventual friends who welcomed me into extraordinary world that was small-town Black rodeo in the late 1970s.”
Although I’ve paged through my copy dozens of times, it seemed right to publish an interview with Bird during Black History Month. Make no mistake: This is history. Crucial Texas history.
American-Statesman: You begin your book by quoting a friend who said during the 1970s, when you were taking these photos: “I didn’t know there were Black cowboys.” Recently, you told me while we wandered around the “Juneteenth Rodeo” exhibit at the Neil-Cochran House that you have run across that same lack of awareness many times in the decades that followed. Why do you think that perception is so widespread and persistent? Sarah Bird: The short answer is “Hollywood.” With a few exceedingly rare exceptions, the only cowboys audiences saw on the big screen were of the John Wayne ilk. Comic book cowboys like the Lone Ranger and the heroes of Louis L’Amour paperbacks all reinforced the belief that the job description for “cowboy” began with “Must wear big hat and boots” and ended with “Only whites need apply.” I have to admit, though, that I was surprised to hear that exact reaction recently from several visitors, young visitors, at the exhibit. So, yes, in spite of the recent spate of gorgeous photo books documenting the contemporary Black rodeo scene, the presence of a number of Black champions in pro rodeo, and Queen Bey herself releasing an album with “cowboy” in the title, we are still a long way from fully reclaiming the heritage of Blacks in the West.
As a freelance photographer just out of journalism school, why were you attracted to “renegade rodeos” that included all sorts of other underreported cowboy or cowgirl cultures. Please talk about some of those.You know the guiding wisdom in journalism and photojournalism: Tell the untold story, capture the unseen image. As a newcomer to Texas, and one who’d spent most of her childhood on overseas Air Force bases, I was fascinated by the state’s flamboyant oddities and excesses. Following my hunches about what might make for a publishable story, I photographed rattlesnake roundups, sorority rushes, honky-tonk dancing and rodeos.But it wasn’t mainstream rodeo that interested me. In fact, as an animal lover, I would have preferred that most of the events didn’t take place at all. No, I gravitated toward what I called the “renegade rodeos.” Prison, police, kids, girls (yes, it was called “Girls Rodeos” back then), Indian (again, the official name of the Indian Rodeo Association), oldtimers, charreadas, and gay rodeos, I photographed them all.
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To invoke a joke I’m sure I’ve worn out by now, I even heard of a nudist rodeo. In California, naturally. But I never got close enough to that one to learn the true meaning of bareback riding. To say nothing of rawhide.As with mainstream rodeos, my interest was not in the roping and riding. What truly intrigued me about these offbeat rodeos was how each group remade this most American, most mainstream of pastimes in their own image. How each culture created a distinct world that orbited the arena on its own unique trajectory.
What drew you in particular to Black rodeos? Since you were sometimes the only white person present, did you feel trusted with this access to their lives and cultures?I fell in love with Black rodeos from the moment I first set foot in one. Actually, I was smitten even before I got to the arena. In this case, it was the Diamond L Ranch and Arena. Once located on far south Main outside Houston, the Diamond L was a legendary venue for cowboys and girls of color. I arrived early, and was greeted by the aroma of brisket being slow-smoked over post oak. Not a bad start, right?
Next, I heard a song pouring from the rickety loudspeakers. And it wasn’t the mournful sort of C&W favored by mainstream rodeos. No, the first song I heard at a Black rodeo was “Boogie Fever.” Then, when the events started, I was treated to the sight of a chute man helping a rider get settled. And that chute man was wearing a shirt with a Jackson Five decal emblazoned on the back.What wasn’t to like? From the first, Black rodeos were more vibrant, more alive with community spirit, and basically just a heck of a lot more fun than any other variety. It’s only in retrospect that I am deeply moved by how kind and welcoming everyone was to me. I don’t know if I was particularly oblivious of the fact that I was either the only white person, or one of only a very few whites, in attendance, or if, having grown up in a desegregated military world, I didn’t feel out of place. In any case, my melanin deficiency was never an issue.
Only later did I learn that these enchanted community affairs were in large part an answer to being shut out of mainstream rodeos. Knowing now how deeply un-welcome Black fans and participants would have been at a white rodeo makes me treasure the hospitality I was shown even more.
The photos of riders and livestock in action are visceral, thrilling, but you also captured what went on outside the arena, the little social interactions that were just as important to the people there that day — or night. Why did you choose these particular images? Any particular ones stay with you?
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I love this question because it brings up some of the discussions I had with the wise and highly accomplished experts who helped me put the book together. They introduced me to a rule that is sometimes invoked in documentary photography that is equivalent to the rule in film and theater about not breaking the fourth wall. For some documentary photographers, this translates into a taboo against subjects looking directly at the camera. Especially if that subject is smiling. The argument being that subjects are then “mugging,” playing to the camera, and that this disrupts the truth of the moment.My answer was that these events were parties, more reunion than rodeo. The clusters of fans celebrating being together were smiling more often than not. I believed it would have been untrue to the essence of the Black rodeos I documented not to capture the sense of joy that animated them.The other essential truth that I wanted to portray was that everyone was invited. I’m thinking now of the photograph of the women gathered at the edge of the arena on lawn chairs and on the gates of campers and pickups, gossiping and laughing about some bawdy comment. One woman is hoisting a drink my way as if to include me in the festivities.The images where subjects are looking directly at me capture that sense of inclusion, of a party where everyone is invited. Those smiling photos document the big-hearted welcome that even I — a clueless big-city-girl shutterbug — received.
So many of the images are celebratory. Did you get a sense that these rodeos were charged with an emotional energy perhaps rare in the hard lives of rural Texans?Great question, and one I have only confronted in retrospect. The happy images have taken on many layers of poignancy in recent years as I’ve learned about both the extent of segregation in Texas at that time and the dire plight of Black farmers and ranchers.
One particularly telling statistic brings home just how difficult it was for rural Blacks. In 1910, Black farmers and ranchers owned as many as 16 million acres of farmland. While that was only 1.8 percent of U.S. farmland at the time, that number is dramatically smaller today. Through a combination of racist violence, anti-Black legislation and discrimination at federal loan programs, as of 2017, Black farmland ownership had plummeted to 2.9 million acres.
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That fact is a big reason why the world I photographed — a world of working cowboys and cowgirls, farmers, and ranchers living in tiny rural outposts — has virtually vanished.
Bringing back all these images that you took more than 40 years ago seems to have been a sort of pandemic project for you. Talk a little about how you roped together all your negatives and notes and memories, and how technological advances such as digital photography helped out. I shot my first rodeo, the Huntsville Prison Rodeo, in 1975. So, huzzah, as of 2025 the project is half a century old. Once I was introduced to Black rodeos, I was certain that I had a hot property. A scoop, if you will. I was convinced that publishers would be beating down my door, eager to welcome Black buckaroos into the pantheon.Not quite. When I started submitting my work in the late 1970s, what I heard back was “no,” “no,” and “hell no.” I was told that there was “no market for” or “interest in” the subject. A couple of dubious editors even asked that familiar question, “Are there really Black cowboys?”So, heart and bank account broken, I stored my negatives and prints under my bed in a couple of —archivists everywhere will now shudder–plastic tubs from Target. And there they would have remained had it not been for the aforementioned worldwide pandemic. Shamed by Marie Kondo, I joined the rest of the country in attempting to declutter.The instant I pulled that Target tub out from under the bed, I felt a tremendous sense of obligation to everyone I’d photographed, an obligation to shine a light on the glorious world they had once created.In 2020, I donated all my prints and negatives to the Southwestern Writers Collection, where the peerless archivist Carla Ellard and her team of wizards digitized the images.Now, instead of needing a darkroom, chemicals, film, an enlarger, a dryer, and all the other requirements for making analog prints, the digitized images came to instant life on the screen of my laptop. That moment was very emotional for me. Those photos were like kidnapped children who had finally been ransomed.
The exhibit that hung at the Neill-Cochran House in 2024 will be revived soon in Galveston. How can people see it there? Will you be speaking on the subject soon in the Austin area?Yes, thanks and all hail Humanities Texas, the stellar organization that awarded a grant to fund a traveling exhibit of the photos. As you mentioned, it opened here in Austin. Beginning January 11, the show will be on display at the Nia Cultural Center in Galveston, the home of Juneteenth. From there the exhibit will travel to the Southwestern Writers Collection, in San Marcos. I am scheduled to speak during that run a couple of times.
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The black-and-white images from the 1970s feel very present and alive. Yet there’s also an elegiac undertone to the book. Is this a way of life that, like so much else in rural Texas, is fading or perhaps evolving into something else? Fading? Absolutely. Though Black rodeos still exist, they are generally professional affairs, such as the Bill Pickett Invitational, held in coliseums in large cities or the famous Oakland rodeos. My photos capture the final days of a time when these small-town rodeos were still rooted in the business of ranching. When many, if not most, of the competitors had grown up riding and roping. These were men and women who knew how to rope, dope, brand, and dehorn a steer.Not only have the majority those Black farmers and ranchers been displaced, but the rodeo venues themselves have disappeared. The Diamond L was shuttered decades ago, and all the tiny rural outposts closest to Houston have been gobbled up by that hungry city.
We were both surprised to find out we had a classic Black rodeo cowboy acquaintance in common from that period: Buster Thorne, who rode at the Diamond L Ranch and Arena outside Houston, a short pickup ride from my family’s grocery store. Great to see him at the height of his powers in your photos. How perfect is that? Pretty damn perfect. Especially considering that Buster and his brother Ed — as authentic a pair of cowboys as ever threw a leg over a horse — were the ones who, after recounting their adventures while working on ranches like the Four Sixes and Shanghai Pierce, told me about a woman who had served with the Buffalo Soldiers. Though it took me decades, I finally recounted that riveting tale in my novel “Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen.”But the absolute best moment of this entire journey was when one of the four legends of Black rodeo that I had photographed appeared at the opening of the exhibit in Austin.While writing the captions for the book, I had attempted to contact as many of my subjects as I could in order to credit them. I was delighted to find and speak with Myrtis Dightman, the first Black cowboy to gain admission to the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. Two of the other legends, Rufus Green and Archie Wycoff, had already passed on.
I had no luck tracking down the fourth legend, Taylor Hall, who went by Bailey’s Prairie Kid. The Kid was known for always wearing a tie over an immaculate white shirt, and for always smoking a cigar when he rode broncs. Given that he was in his forties when I photographed him, I assumed that the Kid, too, was no longer with us. So it was a huge thrill when the 93-year-old, still working, still a dapper cowboy, made a surprise appearance. In so many ways this experience has been, as my people were wont to say in the 1960s, trippy. Though extremely gratifying, it’s been odd to be recognized for work I started 50 years ago in a field other than the one I spent my career laboring in. Equally odd is the realization that I created work that is now history and that the major key to this book’s success is that I managed to stay alive long enough to see it published.The unambiguously happy part of this adventure is seeing how the world has changed enough to not just acknowledge the existence of Black cowboys and cowgirls, but also to celebrate them and the enormous role they played in the history of the West.
Michael Barnes writes about the people, places, culture and history of Austin and Texas. He can be reached at mbarnes@gannett.com. Sign up for the free weekly digital newsletter, Think, Texas, at statesman.com/newsletters, or at the newsletter page of your local USA Today Network paper.
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