PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — More than 7000 people filled Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Portland Sunday for the Eight Seconds Juneteenth Rodeo, a chance for the riders to showcase their talents in a sport that historically hasn’t had many Black rodeo cowboys and cowgirls.
The Eight Seconds rodeo — named for how long a bull rider has to last to get a score — features the top Black rodeo athletes from around the country competing in bull riding, barrel racing, bulldogging, bareback riding and ladies steer undecorating with $60,000 in prizes across the five events.
The history of Black cowboys began during slavery and historians estimate 1-in-4 cowboys were Black. But when rodeo’s popularity soared in the late 19th Century, Black cowboys were excluded.
Garfield Wilson III, a cowboy from Kansas, said he’s “the last of a dying breed, try to teach the young ones, give them something to look up to.”
Wilson said being a cowboy is all he knows.
“My dad and uncles were horse jockeys. I always rode horses, bucking horses all my life,” he told KOIN 6 News. “I’m Black. I come from a place that (doesn’t have) many people that look like me that want to be a cowboy. They try to give you a hard time sometimes.”
Cowboys like Malachi Anderson from Central Texas said they still face challenges.
“Definitely when I go to places where they don’t really see us a lot, I get a lot of weird looks. I don’t get the same treatment. They might mark him a score higher even if I rode better,” Anderson told KOIN 6 News. “Just little things you notice but you can’t really speak on those challenges. You have to learn to overcome.”
The Eight Seconds Juneteenth Rodeo played to a sold-out crowd at Veterans Memorial Coliseum.
