DownloadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2024

Juneteenth Rodeo

Sarah Bird author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:University of Texas Press

Published:4th Jun '24

£35.00

Supplier delay - available to order, but may take longer than usual.

Juneteenth Rodeo cover

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.

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 *

ISBN: 9781477329542

Dimensions: 254mm x 254mm x 18mm

Weight: 993g

128 pages