Return of the Black Cowboy – A Photographer’s Journey to Rodeo Boss

_{Blaine Dever prepares for the bareback competition at the 8 Seconds Rodeo | : 8 Seconds Rodeo}

With Beyoncé hitting the trail this spring, Western culture is booming and photographer turned rodeo boss Ivan McClellan is making sure Black cowboys don’t get left behind with the 8 Seconds Rodeo. Founded in 2023, the 8 Seconds Rodeo is expanding for its third and most electrifying year on June 15 in Portland, OR (Veterans Memorial Coliseum) and on October 11th in Philadelphia, PA (Liacouras Center) for its East Coast premiere.

As the quiet disruptor of a quintessentially American sport, McClellan is building a cultural movement that fuses Western heritage and tradition with Black creativity, style, and showmanship. This year’s 8 Seconds Rodeo signals the return of the Black cowboy with a Hip Hop twist. With $70,000 in prize money up for grabs, top Black athletes from around the nation will compete in high-intensity events like Bull Riding, Bareback Bronco Riding, Barrel Racing, and Mutton Bustin’ that embodies the grit, resilience, and athleticism of the West like nothing else.

Outside of the arena, McClellan provides material support to athletes in a high stakes sport while nurturing new talents with a series of bull riding and bronco riding camp training programs in Wasco, OR, taught by seasoned pros. As a Black entrepreneur, McClellan is meeting the challenges with the same spirit and determination that has helped Black cowboys and cowgirls have reclaimed their rightful place in American sport, music, fashion, art, and pop culture.

In 2024, McClellan’s first monograph, Eight Seconds: Black Rodeo Culture (Damiani) was heralded as a critical and commercial success. The book is imagined as a panoramic “day at the rodeo,” weaving together photographs McClellan made beginning in August 2015, when he arrived at the Roy LeBlanc Okmulgee Invitational Rodeo, the oldest Black rodeo in America. A photograph of a handoff between riders graces the cover of the book, the scene a whirling blur of man and horse set against the fabled red clay dirt of Oklahoma. There, as fate would have it, McClellan bumped into an old neighbor from his hometown of Kansas City, KS, and in that moment, everything fell into place. Black cowboys were as quintessentially American as Hip Hop, line dancing, and BBQ.

Over the next decade, McClellan chronicled cowboy life, while building his career as a photographer based in Portland. Dubbed “the whitest city in America,” one might not readily think of Portland as the natural home for a Black rodeo. But McClellan knew better, and has become a fixture in the city where he has spent the past 13 years. Today his photographs wallpaper the main terminal of PDX (Portland International Airport), and earlier in April he spoke at TEDxPortland. “It’s been such a joy and a blessing to be embraced by Portland in the way that we have,” McClellan says. “We haven’t spent a dime on marketing this year. We sent out an email and announced it on Instagram, and it sold out a month ahead of the event.

As rodeo boss, McClellan understands the business at hand. The work provides real material support for athletes in a sport where the financial barriers to enter are extraordinary. “The first year we gave away $60,000, which is an incredible amount of prize money for a Black rodeo,” McClellan says. “Nobody’s put up that money for the number of events that we’ve done and to see it immediately transform that athletes’ lives was so rewarding. We saw athletes go out and get their pro card, which costs like $600, and then they were able to compete in the PRCA (Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association). I saw people upgrade their trailers and get new horses. Just infusing the culture with capital made a big and immediate difference.”

McClellan always had the vision to expand the rodeo. After moving to Philadelphia, he decided to host it in his backyard. The city has come out in force, embracing 8 Seconds Rodeo with open arms. “This is something new and something exciting for the youth. A lot of the people in the city have compared it to the UniverSoul Circus, and are welcoming us in the same way,” McClellan says. “We’re really going to, you know, plant our roots firmly here and spread the message.”

Philly’s local Black cowboy scene dates back to the start of the Great Migration, as Southerners moved north during the early 20th century, bringing their farming and ranching skills to the community. Cowboys kept their stables on Fletcher Street in the Strawberry Mansion neighborhood of North Philadelphia, forming the cornerstone of the city’s fabled Black cowboy community. Over the past century it has expanded to include trail riders, rodeo cowboys, equestrian riders, ranchers, and farmers.

“I met Erin Brown, a cowgirl who goes by the Concrete Cowgirl, who runs a program called the Philadelphia Urban Riding Academy. We just hit it off and she’s done a really wonderful job at plugging me into the city’s riders,” McClellan says. “There are stables everywhere and there are Black riders everywhere, and it’s a part of Philadelphia’s culture, organically. You’ll see people that trail ride in Timberlands and a hoodie and they’re just as cowboy as anybody else, respected and known in the community.”

While 8 Seconds Rodeo expands, McClellan says, “We’re always going to do the event in Portland. I knew it was no longer my rodeo, that it was officially Portland’s rodeo when I was driving down the street and saw bootleg 8 Seconds t-shirts at a hair salon. I went in and bought myself a shirt and one for my kids. Because, I was like, this is a moment. This is huge.”

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