In Black America; The Bill Pickett Invitational Black Rodeo

So From the Longhorn Radio Network, the University of Texas at Austin, this is In Black America. Well, that's that thing. You basically find your stock, you get the type of stock that you want, and you get the type of stock for the event that you want in the radio, and then you gather, if you will, the cowboys by sending out an invitation to those that you know, and hopefully they will pass the word on it, and then you will put them on your mailing list. And they send in an entry fee, and you put up prize money for them to compete for. It's about trailers, horse trailers, fattles, buckles, jackets, prize money ranging anywhere from $3,500 to $18,000.

You have the numerous of things that come and go during the course of the season. Mr. Louverson, President and Producer of the Bill Pickett Invitational Black Radio. There's always been black cowhands and horse wranglers. Historians calculated that 8,000 black cowboys wrote the great cattle drives of the late 1800s. It was an unusual trail outfit that did not have at least one black cowboy. Many outfits were all black. For Wyoming to Texas, black cowboys were renowned for their ability to ride horses, often breaking the ones that white cowhands wouldn't touch. In 1947, some well-to-do black businessmen and ranchers from East Texas met on a ranch at the edge of South Houston with a small group of black cowboys who were working with the National Rodeo Circuit. The ranchers put up several hundred dollars and formed the Negro Cowboy Rodeo Association, this nation first black cowboy organization. I'm John L. Hanson Jr., and welcome to another edition of In Black America. This week, the Bill Pickett Invitational Black Rodeo, a salute to black cowboys with Louverson in Black America.

You'll find that there are some of their professors. There are a lot of academia in the Philla Rodeo from people like Dexter, Archibald, which is at Prairie View. We have some engineers, Bob Harrison, as a science engineer. We have just an array of different people in all walks of life. We have a couple of doctors, and they more or less do this for fun and for the hobby and for the cultural of it. Being there's now a black rodeo trying to get the word out and eliminate the myth that there were no involvement of blacks in the West.

Yeah, some others that work on ranches, drive trucks and so forth, and they're more accessible to the rodeo. The Cowboy Mystique has had a strong influence in our lives, beginning in childhood and continuing throughout adulthood. Rodeo exemplify this influence and are an integral part of our Western culture. The Black Cowboy has been an integral part of history of the American West, from the earliest rodeos to the present. In fact, Texas was discovered and explored by Black Cowboy, and over 35% of the cattle trail drivers in Texas were black. Entire Black community existed on the frontier of the OS, over half million families in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas alone. The famous Lewis and Clark expedition was led by Black Scout, and a Black Cowboy named Bill Pickett originated Bulldoggick, which has become one of the major rodeo events today. Realizing the historical significance of the Black Cowboy, Lou Vassan developed the Bill Pickett Invitational Black rodeo series, which is the first of its kind.

The Bill Pickett Invitational Black rodeo brings an important element of Black Western heritage into our present day experience. In September of 1984, the first Bill Pickett Black rodeo drew thousands of spectators, and has grown into a series that is witnessed by over 120 million annually. I recently witnessed the Bill Pickett Invitational Black rodeo in Austin, Texas, and through the efforts of Lou Vassan, the story of the Black Cowboy is being towed. Bill Pickett was a Black Cowboy that invented the art of Bulldoggick. And when he invented it was a style, which was unknown to anyone, which is called biteum style. Now they call it still wrestling. Before you became fully involved in rodeo, you were in another profession, more similar, or just selling another product. Could you tell us about that adventure before you became interested in Black Cowboys and the Black Radio rodeo?

Excuse me. Well, basically, I was a manager. Went from a manager to, well, actually I was an agent. Went to a manager, entertainment manager, from entertainment manager to concert promoter, from concert to motor to rodeo and concert promoter then to rodeo promotion. Okay. What sparked that first interest in rodeo? In 1977 I went up to Cheyenne Frontier days, and my partner and I had been to Moore, and we saw a rodeo up there, which is the granddad of the mall. And during that particular time that I was there, there were no Black Cowboys. And I was intrigued just by the event itself. And I came back to Denver, and went to the Black American West Museum, and we laid down on the floor and started looking up history of Black Cowboys. And once I saw that and found out that we did have some Black Cowboys, I thought, you know, we ought to do one of these rodeos.

And that started, and I started trying to put it together. I didn't know any cowboys, anything at that particular time. And in 1984, did the first bill pick an invitation to rodeo? Were there anyone behind the scenes in helping you locate these Black Cowboys? Not really. The information that obtained was from the Black American West Museum. Then eventually I found a Black Stock contractor by the name of Elmer Anderson. Okay. What does it take to put on a Black rodeo? You know you have the livestock, but finding the cowboys and cowgirls who participate in a rodeo itself. Well, that's it, mainly. You basically find your stock. You get the type of stock that you want, and you get the type of stock for the event that you want in the rodeo. And then you gather, if you will, the cowboys by sending out an invitation to those that you know, and hopefully they will pass the word on, and then you will put them on your mailing list.

And they send in an entry fee, and you put up prize money for them to compete for. Okay. What type of prizes and prize money are we talking about? Well, we're talking about trailers, horse trailers, fattles, buckles, jackets, prize money ranging anywhere from $3,500 to $18,000. Just the numerous of things that come and go during the course of a season. Are there any particular cowboys and cowgirls who are always a part of the bill picket, invitation or rodeo? That's about a core group, I would say, that's always there. You have people out of Texas like Cedric Haynes and Lucille Haynes, Reginald Richards, Joe Martin, and Bobby Harrison. Okay. If...

Oklahoma, then you have some others that always with the slugger gillery and Donick Stevens. Those people are always with us from East Coast to West Coast from North South. Okay. When I attended the Black rodeo here in Austin, one would assume that most of the participants in the rodeo are just cowboys and cowgirls. I found that not to be the case. Right. You'll find that there are some of their professors. There are a lot of academia in the filler rodeo from people like Dexter, Archibald, to the Prairie View. We have some engineers, Bobby Harrison, as a science engineer. We have just an array of different people in our walks of life. We have a couple of doctors. And they more or less do this for fun and for the hobby and for the culture of it.

Being that it's now a Black rodeo trying to get the word out and eliminate the myth that there were no involvement of blacks in the West. Yeah, some others that work on ranches, draft trucks, and so forth, and they're more accessible to the rodeo. Okay. If someone listening to this program have never witnessed a rodeo, what should they look for? What are the different events that are a part of the Bill Pickett invitation rodeo? Well, I want two of the things they would look for are two of the events. They would look forward to the bull riding, which is the most exciting of the event and the bearback riding, which is second. One of the ones that I would be most enthused to see is the girls doing their bear racing, which they ride around three barrels in a totally pattern. We also have something for the kids, which they like. The kids' scram will contest what they go out and pull the ribbon off the back of the calf. The ribbon is tied to its tail. Then you have a very skill.

If you will, the event, which is called calf roping, where it's still like the old West where you have to ride your horse up to a calf and rope it. What they used to do is they rope the calf and tie them down, and then they brand them. Well, naturally we don't brand them, we just rope them and tie them down. The manly event over the mall is the Bulldog event, which is named after Bill Pickett, and that's when you ride on your horse to the back of the steer, lead from the back of the horse onto the neck of the steer and throw the steer to the ground. In a moment on the prayer. This is the Cowboys prayer ladies and gentlemen, and we offer this to Cowboys throughout the world. We have died in the rodeo arena. We have been injured, and this is our personal prayer on the Sunday and every day of our lives. In our most graces and heavenly Father, we call from the midst of this festive occasion, mind one of the many blessings that you have bestowed upon us. We would ask today Lord that you be with us in this rodeo arena as you will be with us in the arena of life. As Cowboys Lord, we don't ask for any special favors. We don't ask them to never break our barrier or to draw a steer that won't lay.

We don't ask you fighting horse or a bull that is impossible to ride. Heavenly Father, help us to compete in life's arena as honest as the horse we ride and in the manner as clean and pure as a wind blows across the western plains. To make that last in every ride, to the country up there with a grandson, broke from lush, green, and stir a pie, and the water's run cool, clear, and deep. That you, as our final judge, will tell us that our entry fees are paid. We ask these things in Christ's statement, amen. Are you ready to rodeo? Austin, I can't hear you. I said, are you ready to rodeo? All right, if you're ready to rodeo, we are ready to rodeo with the first event in rodeo.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Jesse Stahl Fairback riding event presented by Franklin or G. Colorado, the first cowboy on ladies and gentlemen, Colorado comes out from him. Come out of this train, I'm out. Now ladies and gentlemen, a cowboy is a professional athlete, safely down on the ground, with you like what you can see to pay the cowboy off, because he has stated that he's been to come here to perform for you. Steve White called the cowboy, 70 components on that last ride, 72 points. Steve White called the cowboy with a city cowboy, that his cowboy sits down or ringin' at the hand roll with him, he sticks his hand inside the ring.

The rules state the cowboy must mark the horse out on the point of the stone as the first jump out, but they don't, he has to, he took his legs up and the spurring motion. Judges barking one to 50 on both sides, raise the ability to ride, and the horse's ability to buck 100 points. Remember the cowboy with the most accumulated points, which is the cowboy. These cowboys are fighting for over $15,000 in prize money. Yes, yes, look at him! Well, let's see if we're on the ground, let's get it back in, and let's Steve White call. For those who are concerned about animal life and well-being in this country, are any of the animals or any of the stockhurt and any of the events? No, we get hurt more than anybody. The one event where it looks like the animal might get hurt is the calf rope.

But that has been a way of a range of life, because it's the only way you can catch the calf in order to brand it. But he's still not hurt. We take very careful efforts not to hurt our drag and animal fins in the calf rope, and you can rope a calf. And if your horse is not a manable, you can drag the calf about 10 feet or so. Well, we don't allow the horse to drag any more than maybe two and a half feet. Is there a black rodeo circuit or rodeo circuit in which you're a part of? This is the rodeo circuit, the only traveling rodeo in the country, black or white. Okay, six states and 15 different cities. Okay, and what are some of those cities? Detroit, Los Angeles, Oakland, Austin, Kansas City, Atlanta, Denver, Sacramento, Indianapolis, Charlotte, no, not Charlotte, I'm sorry. Raleigh, North Carolina. And we're adding more. We'll be doing San Bernardino and Philadelphia.

And hopefully Baltimore, we have done Washington DC. Is there a certain time during the year in which the rodeo aren't held or depends on the location and the weather line? We go through to October. Actually, we have our finals in September here in Denver. And we start the season again in October in Detroit. Okay, when you decided to put together a black rodeo, was it difficult in finding sponsors or backers to help you finance the idea? You haven't found yet and sponsors is very difficult. One, you'll find that whether the marketing person is black or white, they have little knowledge of what a rodeo is and the visibility that they can get from the rodeo. Normally, you have to find a sponsor that have an interest in imagery, association. And thirdly, I would say would be visibility. That you can come about sponsors such as Coors and RJ Reynolds and Abisco and a number of other sponsors.

How long is the average rodeo or how long is the bill picket rodeo? Our rodeo is about two and a half to three hours. We incorporate some other things that I think this has historical value such as a young leader, Donna Cheek, which was the first black Olympian horse jumper. She's the question jumper that we try to introduce to the black community by having her perform to an intermission. We also have a gentleman that's a black country and what's the thing other than Charlie Pride. We feature him before, after, and doing the rodeo. And we have a trick rope. Not only is he a trick rope, he's a sharp shooter and he has a whip back and also has a train horses that roll over like dogs and so forth. And that's Rex Peer for Kansas City. I was particularly impressed with you touched on Mr. Mason's activities during the rodeo.

But it seems that he adds another dimension where it's really because you do have black time when the animals won't act right or things just don't go on schedule to kind of feel that void where it isn't a void. Or as though something has stopped and something will begin up again is almost a continuing continuation of the rodeo itself and the music music is there more or less to bridge together. How did you come up with that concept? Well, the rodeos that I had attended, most of them had tape recorded music. I feel the larger ones had orchestras. My thing was to find a black country with a finger to fit the motif of the rodeo. And in finding J, it worked out in over the years. We've worked with him very well.

Okay. How was the reaction from the young kids? Once you all come to town and they come to the rodeo and actually leave there with a little bit of history and also a little bit of joy in their heart of actually knowing that there were black cowboys in this country? Well, not only that, they also leave one to note where can they find a horse? If I had a trainer in some horses with me out there, a rodeo, we could make this fortune. Not only the kids, but the adults. They all of a sudden get interested in riding a horse, especially if you see those girls riding. It's just a cultural and rewarding event for the black community. I think we all should be very proud of it. Does the rodeo involve itself with any national causes of organization? We involve ourselves with a number of scholarships. For a couple of years, we donated most of the proceeds to the National Association of Sickle Cell Disease. At that time, we developed our own nonprofit group to build ticket memorial scholarship, which we send young ladies to, not say young ladies, because the first recipient was a young lady out of Texas.

She received a scholarship for the last two years, both for academics and also for the rodeo itself, which she doesn't have to pay to be involved with the rodeo. How long does the rodeo last? Two or three days? And most of it is we go just for two days. And basically, that's over the weekend? Right. We do normally Saturday and Sunday. When you're out there on the road and more or less you're amongst yourselves, do you think it's worth the sacrifice? I'm quite sure there's a lot of sacrifice for you financially and also personally of being out there trying to provide an outlet and a piece of history not letting it die. Well, we get a fulfillment just from the enthusiasm of the crowd, like you say, when they leave.

If they're excited and they feel that they've learned something that we really have accomplished our mission, the financial goals are something that we need to sustain ourselves, not to, I would say, if I want to get rich, I wouldn't do rodeos. This is just another way for me personally to try to leave my footprints in the sand. Are there any nationally known or up-and-coming Black rodeo performers America should be aware of? I would say, when you say performative, are you talking about cowboys that's competing or are you talking about entertainers? Well, cowboys that are competing. Well, we have some young cowboys that's coming up that's in the PRC, which is a professional rodeo cowboys association. And they came out of our group, such as Irvin Williams and Brian Raleigh, Ben Steven, and a number of other cowboys that have come through the Bill Pickett rodeo association first and going on to be involved with the PRC.

We have two right now that's riding for their permit, which is down Goodman and Jessica Sleggert-Gillery. We have a young lady in another organization, which is fighting to be the root of the year, which is Du Bois-Rakens out of Los Angeles. She's competing in the PRA, which is another rodeo organization or association, if you will, out of Oklahoma. Okay. Lou, what can we look forward to in the future for Bill Pickett's invitational rodeo? Would you expand some of the events that are currently a part of the rodeo now? Oh, yeah. We constantly add new events and new excitement to the rodeo to try to keep the motivations going. We don't want the people to come two or three times and see the same thing. So we are constantly trying to create something that's different, something that's exciting. We're also right now trying to get ourselves to a posture of getting our own ranch, where we'll be able to teach young people how to ride.

We can take some of the kids that are not quite bad enough to go to a reform school, but a little too bad to be in school. You like to take some of them and give them some more responsibility by introducing them to animals and so forth. Okay. Being a rodeo participant seems to be stringent's work, it's very physically intense. What does it take for a cowboy or a cowgirl to keep him or herself in shape, someone injury-free, and the process it takes to do that particular event in the rodeo? As much like any other sport, you have to train, stretch, lift, exercise, keep your body tone, keep your muscles flexible, unlike a football or a baseball with strictly brute force. It's kind of a finesse sport. You have to be able to flow with the animal depending on what event you're in, or be able to have the skill of quick hands if you're dealing with calf roping.

Okay. Before we run off time, Lou, the significance of black rodeo to this country in the upcoming century and the need to preserve that history or be it by your organization or by basic historians in general of the contribution black cowboys have made to this society. Was that a question of that state? That was a question. The question that... Well, two party questions. It was a two party question. Two party questions. I think the significance of the rodeo is to, as I mentioned before, to eliminate the myth of the involvement of blacks in development of West, both for blacks and for other races and cultures alike. Our party is to perform to the best of our ability and show the attributes of which the cowboys doing those times had and how they contributed.

Not only do we try to perform well, we try to keep a very nice posture. We have a very good program that also covers the history of various cowboys and some of their contributions to the field or the art, if you will, of rodeo. People that will enjoy it, that if you ask them about a rodeo, they say, what are you talking about? They're not interested. And it's amazing that the amount of people in the Texas area alone that do not know that they're black cowboys. I mean, they see people walking around with cowboys hats and boots. I think that's an entire that you suppose to wear. And it's amazing that sometimes we can walk down the streets of Austin, Houston. And people look and think, oh, you're a real cowboy. Mr. Louverson, president and producer of the Bill Pickett Invitational Black rodeo. If you have a comment or question, write us. Remember views and opinions expressed on this program are not necessarily those of this station or the University of Texas at Austin.

Until we meet again for in black America's technical producer Cliff Hargrove and production assistant Betty Rodriguez. I'm John L. Hanson, Jr. Please join us again next week. Cassette copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing in black America cassettes. Longhorn Radio Network, communication building B, UT Austin, Austin, Texas, 78712. From the Center for Telecommunication Services, the University of Texas at Austin, this is the Longhorn Radio Network. I'm John L. Hanson, Jr. Join me this week on in black America.

And then the manly venom of the mall is the bulldog, which is named after Bill Pickett. And that's when you ride on your horse to the back of the steer, from the back of the horse on to the neck of the steer and throw the steer to the ground. The Bill Pickett Invitational Black Radio this week on in black America.