Overview

Honorable Mention — The International Photography Awards 2024 Book Category Jury Top 5 Selection — The International Photography Awards 2024 Book Category Silver Winner in Zines And Photo Book/Culture— 2024 International Film Photography Award, Analog Sparks Timeless photos offer a rare portrait of the jubilant, vibrant, vital, nearly hidden, and now all-but-vanished world of small-town Black rodeos. Long before Americans began to officially commemorate Juneteenth, in the heat of East Texas, saddles were being cinched, buckles shined, and lassoes adjusted for a day on the Black rodeo circuit in honor of the holiday. In the late 1970s, as they had been doing for generations, Black communities across the region held local rodeos for the talented cowboys and cowgirls who were segregated from the mainstream circuit. It was to these vibrant community events that bestselling Texas writer Sarah Bird, then a young photojournalist, found herself drawn. In Juneteenth Rodeo, Bird’s lens celebrates a world that was undervalued at the time, capturing everything, from the moment the pit master fired up his smoker, through the death-defying rides, to the last celebratory dance at a nearby honky-tonk. Essays by Bird and sports historian Demetrius Pearson reclaim the crucial role of Black Americans in the Western US and show modern rodeo riders—who still compete on today’s circuit—as “descendants” in a more than two-hundred-year lineage of Black cowboys. A gorgeous tribute to the ropers and riders—legends like Willie Thomas, Myrtis Dightman, Rufus Green, Bailey’s Prairie Kid, Archie Wycoff, and Calvin Greeley—as well as the secretaries, judges, and pick-up men and even the audience members who were as much family as fans, Juneteenth Rodeo ultimately seeks to put Black cowboys and cowgirls where they have always belonged: in the center of the frame.

Full Product Details

9781477329542

Table of Contents

Reviews

This kinetic collection of photos [Bird] took in 1970s Texas...documents the 'multisensory experience' of rodeos during Juneteenth celebrations...A jubilant celebration of a fascinating corner of American history. * Publishers Weekly * [Bird's] photos...offer a rare portrait of the jubilant and now all-but-vanished world of small-town Black rodeos. * Austin CultureMap * Gorgeous composition and loving frankness. * Axios Austin * She was looking for stories. She captured history. Bird would grow up to be a successful writer, not a photographer, but her early portraits are first-rate. * The Dallas Morning News * A handsome volume of photos and text...[Bird] puts the reader in the middle of the action, and provides rich, atmospheric descriptions of what she witnessed. * Chron *

This kinetic collection of photos [Bird] took in 1970s Texas...documents the 'multisensory experience' of rodeos during Juneteenth celebrations...A jubilant celebration of a fascinating corner of American history. * Publishers Weekly * [Bird's] photos...offer a rare portrait of the jubilant and now all-but-vanished world of small-town Black rodeos. * Austin CultureMap *

Author Information

Sarah Bird is the bestselling author of more than a dozen novels and essay collections. She is an NPR Moth storyteller, a winner of the Meryl Streep screenwriting competition, a Texas Institute of Letters Lifetime Achievement winner, an ALEX award winner, a member of the Texas Literary Hall of Fame, a finalist for the Dublin International Literary Award, and the hologram greeter for the Austin Central Library. Demetrius Pearson is an associate professor of health and human performance at the University of Houston. His research focuses on sports history, and he is the author of Black Rodeo in the Texas Gulf Coast Region.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available