When Beyoncé announced her latest album, “Cowboy Carter,” she revealed its cover to her more than 320 million Instagram followers: the superstar singer dressed as a rodeo queen perched atop a white horse, draped in a red, white and blue sash while holding a gold-fringed American flag.
Taylor Crumpton, a Dallas-based journalist, notes that for many, the flag represents “imperialism, racism, and violence.” But for Black Texans like Crumpton and Beyoncé, the image is easy to decipher. “Critics are misunderstanding ‘Cowboy Carter’s’ lush symbolism,” Crumpton writes. She’s “reminding all of us that Black cowboys and rodeo performers have been part of the social fabric of Texas, the South and the U.S. for a very long time.”
On the eve of “Cowboy Carter’s” release, we spoke with Valeria Howard-Cunningham, president of Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo, which has celebrated Black cowboy and cowgirl culture for decades, about how the rodeo embraces the full history of the wild Wild West.
Alex LaSalvia: What does the rodeo mean to you?
Valeria Howard-Cunningham: The Bill Pickett rodeo was founded 40 years ago by my late husband, Lu Vason. I didn’t know what a rodeo was when I met him. But, over time, I’ve learned a lot about rodeo and have gotten connected with the cowboys and cowgirls and their families.
We’re celebrating four, five generations of cowboys and cowgirls who have grown up with the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo. When my husband passed away in 2015, that was a very substantial moment in my life because I had to make a decision: Do we keep the legacy going? Or do we just let it end?
I had so many requests from people all over the world, saying, “Please do not let this legacy die. We need it. We raised our families up on the Bill Pickett rodeos.” I pondered it.
I thought about all the families and the kids that had grown up with the Bill Pickett Rodeo. So I said, “I have to do this. I have to move this organization to the next level and keep it going.” I am so glad that I did because there have been so many incredible things have happened over the last nine years.
How has learning about rodeo culture made you see the world differently?
I was in corporate America. It was just a different life, so I was introduced to a new world. When I started traveling and seeing and meeting the people, I recognized that rodeo has its own culture. I saw how passionate people were about their animals, about the rodeo events that they participated in, about their kids and their families.
I also learned about the whole Western world. A lot of cowboys live on ranches; they have horses, and this is their life. As I met the people, I got to know how sincere they were about what they do. It was like I had another family now. I have a rodeo family.
A lot of people think about cowboy and cowgirl culture because of the way it’s presented to us in media and stories, and they might not think of Black cowboys and girls. What would you tell those people?
Our history doesn’t necessarily always reflect the truth. I watched “Bonanza” on TV as a kid, and that’s all I knew — everything was White cowboys. You heard nothing about Black cowboys. So when my husband decided to create this association, he did it because he went to a rodeo in Cheyenne, Wyoming, called Cheyenne Frontier Days. He was sitting there and realized he didn’t see anybody that looked like him in the rodeo, and he wanted to know why. At that time, like everything else in this country, Blacks were not given the opportunity.
He decided he was going to create a platform that could educate society about the role of Blacks in the development of the West, and create a platform where Black cowboys and cowgirls could display their skills.
At one of the rodeos a couple years ago, a 7-year-old boy was walking in the arena with his class. He got out of the line and started walking up to the fence where the cowboys were in the arena. He stopped in his tracks and put his hands on his hips, and this big smile came on his face. “I don’t believe this,” he said. “There really are Black cowboys.” Tears just started running down my face. We have an obligation to expose our history to everybody, especially to kids.
What is Black cowboy culture’s relationship with American identity?
First and foremost, we are Americans. Some people may not think that, but we are Americans. We are part of this country, so we are not going to disrespect any aspect of our identity. And the American flag is an important part of that. At our rodeos, we also recognize what we call the “African American flag.” Some people refer to it as the Pan-African flag.
We come from African culture. We were taken away from our culture and brought over here, so now we are Americans. We celebrate both, and we do it proudly. And for me, there shouldn’t be any controversy about that. There shouldn’t be any questions about why we use the American flag or why we use the African American flag as a symbol that represents us as a people.
The American flag has also represented so much violence and oppression against Black people throughout the history of this country. Do you view this as reclaiming that symbol?
I don’t think we ever lost the symbol. We are not from a different country; we are Americans. That flag represents all Americans, which happens to include us, so we don’t have to reclaim anything. It is part of us. The older generations grew up like everybody else in school, saying, “I pledge allegiance to the flag.”
Do we get upset about some of the things that happen in this country, and does it make us angry? Yes. I’m not going to deny that. But that doesn’t mean we throw our flag away. Because it is part of us.
I feel like Black rodeos and Black country music face a similar uphill battle. Both of these quintessentially American traditions wouldn’t exist without Black people’s contributions. It shouldn’t be controversial.
There is an event in rodeo called bulldogging, or steer wrestling. Do you know who created that event? Bill Pickett — a Black man. The reason we named the rodeo after Bill Pickett is because, at the time, nobody knew who he was. He was one of the most notable Black cowboys back in the day. It goes back to how we started this conversation. A lot of this stuff is not in the history books.
So Beyoncé is making a country album — that’s great. She’s going to open doors for other African American country music singers that have been ignored in the past. By doing this, she will also open some new doors for [Black] singers that want to sing country music.
With everything happening in this country, somebody has to take a step forward to open the door. We took a step forward, creating an African American rodeo association. Everybody told us it wouldn’t be successful. It wouldn’t last. OK, that’s your opinion. But 40 years later, we’re standing strong.
This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.
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