Photojournalist Celebrates Black Rodeo Culture in New Book

8 Seconds: Black Rodeo Culture by Ivan McClellan

Keary Hines, Prairie View, Texas. (Photo: © Ivan McClellan)
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When photojournalist Ivan McClellan was invited to America's longest-running Black rodeo in 2015, he wasn't sure what to expect. Having grown up in an urban setting, McClellan was unfamiliar with the culture. But he was soon entranced by the atmosphere, and that singular experience kicked off a long-term look at Black rodeo culture.

Eight Seconds: Black Rodeo Culture, published by Damiani Books, is the culmination of that experience. Featuring images from his 10 years photographing Black rodeo culture across the United States, the book chronicles the cowboys and cowgirls who keep the magic of the Old West alive.

From portraits of rodeo queens to men bravely riding bulls, McClellan's photographs capture the electric atmosphere he encountered the instant he was introduced to the Black rodeo. “It was like going to Oz—here was all this color and energy,” McClellan recalls. “There was a backyard barbecue atmosphere…It felt like home.”

With an introduction by Charles Sampson—the first African-American cowboy to win a professional rodeo world championship and the man who invited McClellan to his first rodeo—the book shines a spotlight on a largely unknown piece of American culture.

“You see the cowboy, and it’s a shorthand for independence and grit and all of these things about America,” McClellan told The New York Times. “But then you combine it with Black culture, and it just wiggles your brain and disrupts things that you thought were true.”

Eight Seconds: Black Rodeo Culture will be released on April 30, 2024, and is now available for pre-order.