How Beyoncé Helped the Houston Rodeo Celebrate Black Cowboy Culture

When Journei Wilburn first began to participate in her high school’s Future Farmers of America (FFA) organization in Houston, she noticed that there were few other Black students in the program. Despite having grown up around family members who raised and exhibited cows and other livestock throughout Texas, Wilburn could see that white faces dominated the state’s mainstream cowboy and livestock culture. But she knew that her people — Black people — were integral to that very culture.

“I grew up knowing that Black people could do anything, and the Houston Rodeo was the perfect place to demonstrate it,” she says.

Wilburn, one of the only Black participants to exhibit an animal during the Rodeo’s annual junior livestock show, joins generations of Black Houstonians and Texans who’ve boldly displayed their Black Texan heritage at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, which each year draws millions of visitors eager to indulge in mind-bending fried foods, wild livestock shows, and concerts touting some of the biggest names in the music industry. Since its founding in 1931, the Rodeo has become intricately tied to Houston’s identity — but Rodeo imagery historically depicts an event that’s largely white and rarely reflects the diversity of the city, where African Americans constitute nearly 25 percent of the population. In 2024, however, a bigger phenomenon could stand to change that for future Rodeo seasons: As Black Americans reclaim their contributions to core tenets of American life, two new chart topping anthems from native Houstonian Beyoncé — “Texas Hold ’Em” and “16 Carriages” — have been the soundtrack that’s fueled a Rodeo season full of flashy, glittering outfits, live music, plenty of barbecue, and resounding Black Texas pride.

Courtesy of Journei Wilburn

“I’m really glad to see a bit more ownership from other Black folks over Rodeo culture and cowboy culture in Texas,” said Tayhlor Coleman, who, like Beyoncé, grew up in the city’s historic Third Ward. “We’ve always been here, and that’s something that should be celebrated.”

Coleman and I grew up watching Beyoncé perform some of her earliest shows at the Rodeo, where we, along with millions of other Black women, first observed her supernatural ability to give Black women a language with which we could communicate our feelings, our values, our sexuality, and our deepest and most intimate desires. And while many Black women have a certain unique connection to Beyoncé’s artistry, her work transcends genre, identity, and location. The singer has had a long affiliation with the Rodeo, even releasing in 2021 a Rodeo collection through her clothing line, Ivy Park. Beyoncé, of course, can create a bop like none other, so when she released the singles “Texas Hold ’Em” and “16 Carriages” from her forthcoming album, Cowboy Carter, longtime Texans’ spirits were reignited.

“There’s almost this newfound cultural entry point for people, particularly here in Houston,” said rapper and Trill Burgers owner, Bun B, who is also a longtime friend of Beyoncé. “We’re Black people here at the Rodeo, and we proudly celebrate that Western culture. We’ve gotten no better soundtrack for it than from our hometown hero, Beyoncé.”

Ahead of the boastful “This ain’t Texas” lyric that’s been seemingly playing on loop on Instagram and TikTok, Beyoncé invokes the banjo, which was invented by enslaved Black people seeking joy and expression in the laborious plantations of the American South. In her most intentional dive into the country music space, Beyoncé demands that listeners revel in song and dance while honoring the legacy and significant contributions of Black Americans to a genre that has largely, and systemically, been dominated by white people.

Coleman, a campaign strategist and seventh-generation Texan, can’t remember a time when she didn’t go to the Rodeo. Like many Black Texans, her history in the state dates back generations. Post-emancipation, her family established roots in Central Texas, where daily activities ranged from raising cows and other livestock to going on trail rides — an enduring tradition of cowboy horse trekking across the state. Her uncles, relatives, and ancestors were part of generations of Black cowboys and barbecue enthusiasts who’d walked the dry, hot roads of Texas, many of whom likely didn’t realize they were making history. “I didn’t even know that I would ever really call it a culture, it was always just who my family was,” she says.

On a recent visit to a saloon decorated with silver cowboy hats — a nod to the singer’s historic Renaissance tour — Coleman heard “Texas Hold ’Em” at least five times before she lost count. “Everybody of every shade was up and dancing and knew all of the words,” Coleman says, laughing joyfully. “It was beautiful to see Black country music represented in such a beautiful way, and in an environment where Black people haven’t always been welcomed.”

The success of Beyoncé’s singles have helped give attention to other Black country artists, such as Julie Williams, Willie Jones, and Mickey Guyton, and sparked ruminating conversations about who gets to participate in America’s cowboy culture — which the singer has responded to with country hits that have impressed even the likes of Dolly Parton.

“Black people have contributed to cowboy culture since its initial inception,” says Bun B. The rapper and restaurateur, who vaulted into Houston’s food scene and has turned Trill Burgers into one of the most sought-after Rodeo collaborations, feels a deeper sense of pride in helping to rewrite the narrative of who gets to be part of Houston’s Rodeo culture. “With this surge in interest in Black cowboy culture, Black people will not only know that they should be welcomed at the Rodeo, they also understand that they are already a part of that culture,” he says.

Marco Torres

Houston’s Rodeo culture is interwoven with the historical, albeit heavily mythologized, American West. Rodeos, competitive equestrian sporting events that take roots from Spain and Mexico, have been part of the American West since the late 1800s. Westerns, a genre of film that made kings out of white stars like John Wayne, Sam Elliott, and Richard Boone, illustrated a tradition that was thrilling, dangerous, and, erroneously, entirely white. Actors like Clint Eastwood, and Randolph Scott donned cowboy hats and boots, portraying an extremely limited narrative of cowboy life that removed any evidence of the Mexican vaqueros and Black cowboys who are inextricable from its origins.

History, however, presents a clearer picture. Enslaved Black men were among the first cowboys in Texas, and when cattle farming took off in the late 1800s, one in four cowboys were African American. The term “cowboy,” a pejorative of the term “boy” that white slave owners used to demean enslaved Black men, described America’s first real cowboys. White men, in an attempt to separate themselves from Blackness, called themselves “cowhands” before appropriating the term “cowboy” by the early 20th century.

Amid days spent wrangling cattle, tending to horses at ranches, and leading some of the state’s most important trail rides, Black cowboys were creating a culture that became fodder for the film, music, and television series that erased those very contributions. In a sports-focused special issue of The Journal of African American History, researchers Tracy Owens Patton and Sally M. Schedlock detailed the stories of several individuals erased from American history. Bill Pickett, a cowboy from Jenks Branch, Texas, invented “bulldogging,” more commonly known as “steer wrestling,” which turned into a wildly popular event at rodeos across the South and West. African Americans who participated in expeditions from Texas to the Oregon frontiers played significant roles in the California Gold Rush in the 1840s, and Black cowboys like Henry Beckwith, Pete Staples, and Levi and William Perryman became reliable leaders for their work and expertise on Texas cattle ranches. Black women saddled up, too. A Black woman who went by “Mrs. Sherry” became a respected trick rider. After gaining her freedom from enslavement, Mary Fields, respectfully known as “Stagecoach Mary,” lived in Montana and worked as a hired hand.

Wyoming State Museum

And yet, many only became familiar with the legacy and history of Black cowboys in recent years. Netflix’s adaptation of Dr. Jessica B. Harris’ High on the Hog brings viewers into some of the Black cowboy lore. In one episode, Larry Callies explains his tireless, decades-long work at Rosenberg’s Black Cowboy Museum to surface the names and stories of Black cowboys who contributed to American life — whether military, or through working on ranches throughout the South. Patton and Schedlock describe how African Americans as well as Mexican Americans were exoticized and “othered,” leading to their erasure in the West. Around the early 20th century, white folks became obsessed with the mythology of Western life — life on the road, alone, braving danger, and collecting inconceivable stories. Around this time, the Jim Crow laws that subjugated African Americans across the United States seeped their way into Rodeo culture.

The number of Black and Latino cowboys, ranchers, and rodeo participants dwindled drastically after the turn of the 20th century as Jim Crow laws were institutionalized. Black Americans lived in abject poverty, faced the threat of violence daily, and were forced to navigate a deeply segregated and unequal society. These practices permeated the Houston Rodeo, where the largest attendance was and remains white. But for many Black folks, the Wild West wasn’t simply a folkloric romanticism of American life — it was their life. In 1964, Myrtis Dightman Sr. became the first Black person to compete at the World Series of Rodeo. Known as the “Jackie Robinson” of the rodeo scene, he previously founded the Prairie View Trail Ride in 1957, the first and oldest in the United States. His son, Myrtis Dightman Jr., maintains these rides, leading groups of Black attendees on horseback into the Houston Rodeo each and every year.

Coleman’s family was one of many who resisted the limited depictions of what it means to be a Black Texan. Her love and adoration for her home state has charmed thousands of viewers on TikTok and Instagram, where she shared a viral video highlighting the Black Texas culture that she knows has existed for generations. As a child, Coleman watched many family friends and relatives indulge in the Rodeo’s barbecue cook-offs, which were especially elite during the 1990s and early 2000s. Coleman recalls exclusive, ticketed events in tents where “you had to know someone” to get in, and, luckily, her family did. Live Zydeco music, a cultural import from southern Louisiana, would blare through the tents as she nibbled on smoky ribs glazed with sweet and sour sauces, tender cuts of brisket with their distinctive smoky rings, and, as the years went on, more and more fried sides, ranging from vegetables to desserts.

The majority of those competing in the barbecue cook-offs that took place throughout Rodeo season were white, but Coleman recalls also observing skilled, home-trained Black pitmasters at the events. She can’t remember the names of these figures, but vividly recounts their skill, technique, and ability to satisfy even the most particular meat eaters. Today, pitmasters and businesses like Harlon’s BBQ, one of the first Black barbecue joints to have an official post at the Rodeo, and an Anthony Bourdain favorite, Burns Original BBQ, have become recognized names, allowing new generations of Black pitmasters and makers to find their place, too. For the second year in a row, San Antonio resident Freddie Waters of Waters House Foods drove east to sell his variations of barbecue sauce at the Rodeo, including blackberry rum, honey barbecue, and peach bourbon. Waters says he uses tricks of the trade he learned from other talented Black pitmasters throughout the state.

“We have a different perspective on how and why we make what we make, and how we enjoy it, especially when it comes to the food,” he says. “Food has always been a saving grace for us — a light at the end of the tunnel, if you will. So when it’s made right, we have that comfort in knowing that one of us made it. You can taste our passion and our skill.”

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Texas’s failure to effectively contend with racial inequality stemming from generations of brutal enslavement and marginalization against its Black and Latino residents has impacted the cultural events that are tentpoles of the state’s identity. Publicly available demographic data for attendance at the Rodeo is murky. In 2008, the Chron found that most attendees were white, while Black and Latino attendance was slowly, albeit steadily increasing. That same year, the U.S. Justice Department offered to mediate ongoing disputes between white Rodeo leadership and minority groups who advocated for more minorities in Rodeo leadership positions and raised concerns about its lack of scholarship opportunities for young people of color and a drastic decrease in Tejano music representation. Among the Rodeo’s all-white executive committee at the time, former chief operating officer Leroy Shafer described the complaints to the paper as “pointless.”

There is slightly more diversity in the Rodeo’s leadership today, but while Black pitmasters continue to seek prominent roles in some of the most prestigious cook-offs, they remain visibly outnumbered by white pitmasters. Waters was one of the few Black vendors at the Rodeo this year, and Wilburn remains the sole Black student in her high school FFA program.

As the Houston Rodeo comes to a close this weekend, Wilburn is finishing a remarkably successful season. When she first started participating in this year’s Rodeo, she assumed she wouldn’t win anything, yet placed among the top scorers. The negative looks she received from a few white onlookers didn’t deter her, she says, because she’s got bigger things to achieve.

“Saying, ‘Hey, you can do anything,’ is what it means to be part of the Black community,” Wilburn says. “I want to show people my age in my community that they can do anything — even show off cows, and make some money while doing it.”

Loving Texas as a Black American is an exercise in empowerment, selective restraint, and unfathomable patience. While Coleman takes immense pride in her roots, she works tirelessly as a campaign strategist to support voter registration efforts in underrepresented and disenfranchised communities, and is not naive to the racism and fraught politics that remain part of the state’s very tapestry. “I love Texas, but some of the darkest parts of our history have to do with how Black folks in Texas were treated,” Coleman said. “I’ve always been thankful for my parents, who made sure I knew that this is not a culture of [us] appropriating — this is where you come from.”

Black history and Black expression in Texas, though mired in a legacy of forced migration, brutality, and discrimination, is also one of resilience, of spirit, of joy, and most certainly, of unapologetic countryness. The cowboy hat Beyoncé, Bun B, Waters, Coleman, and Wilburn don is not a costume — it is a tangible demonstration of our contributions to this state’s culture, and our intangible relationship to what makes Texas so funky, so unusual, and so remarkably special. Another season has passed of seeing Black folks dressed to the nines, enjoying smoked and fried plates of local fare, and watching emerging talent, like Wilburn, make their own stake in the culture. No matter what, Black Texas endures.

“As another Black girl who grew up on barbecue, who grew up on country, and never really saw herself represented, to then see that experience turned into what we now know as ‘16 Carriages’ is something I’m undoubtedly grateful for,” Coleman says.