Not their first rodeo: How Black riders are reclaiming their place in cowboy culture

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BLACK HISTORY MONTH 2022

Not their first rodeo: How Black riders are reclaiming their place in cowboy culture

February 19, 20227:00 AM ET
GRACE WIDYATMADJA | PHOTOS BY JUSTIN HARDIMAN

Growing up in Mississippi, Justin Hardiman remembers going to his grandmother's house and watching his family members ride horses. But it wasn't until he was 15 that his father took him to his first Black rodeo.

It was eye-opening to see cowboys who looked more like him and less like the white cowboys he was used to seeing on TV. Hardiman knew he was witnessing something special. ... It was at the event that Hardiman first saw a future of becoming a rider himself. Today, at age 32, he not only rides at rodeos put on by his uncle but documents them as part of his work as a Mississippi-based photographer.

"I just decided to document [my uncle's rodeo] because it's a big part of Mississippi culture and a big part of my childhood and my adulthood now. My uncle has brought [that culture] back," Hardiman says.

His uncle experienced a far different reality as a child growing up in the segregated South in the 1960s. Back then, local rodeos did not allow Black cowboys to compete.

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1. A little mood music from south of the border