The country’s longest-running Black Rodeo is one of several events that some events say have seen a boost for Beyoncé’s groundbreaking 2024 country album.
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This story has been updated.
Call it the Beyoncé effect: One of America’s biggest music superstars unleashed a stamp of excitement from Black Rodeos across the country with their 2024 album Cowboy Carter.
The most obvious location in Oklahoma is not home to the country’s oldest, continuous operational Black Rodeo.
“When Beyoncé released that country album, she told Black People it would be okay to wear cowboy boots and a cowboy hat,” Danel Tipton said.
“The Black Rodeo is now all the events we go to,” said former bull riding champion Tipton. “I’ve never seen so many black girls in cowboy hats and boots. There was a rodeo, but the smooth guys in town never matched it. Now it seems like the floodgates have opened.”
On the weekend of August 9th, Okmulgee Roy Leblanc Invitational Rodeo hit 70th In the year, the legacy of 20 black businessmen, farmers and ranchers became annoyed by the second-class treatment given to Black Rodeo competitors and their fans in the 1950s.
Tipton has been to Okumargie’s rodeo since he was a child, riding with the Paladers in Oklahoma City, the family’s roundup club. Equestrian-oriented community organizations held weekend parades before Black Rodeo competitions at rural front posts in the state at locations such as Tatums, Clearview and Drumright.
“Okmulgee has always been the last rodeo of the year,” he said. “It was like our Super Bowl.”
Located 40 miles south of Tulsa, the Okmulgee Roy Leblanc Invitational Rodeo is one of the largest black sporting events in the country, according to event producer Kenneth Leblanc. In 1956, LeBlanc’s father Roy and grandfather Charles were among the founders, then known as the Okunmargi County Roundup Club.
“Black people couldn’t enter the White Rodeo,” said Marcous Friday, an announcer at the Okmulgee event for 20 years. “That’s why they started rodeo. Who thought 70 years later would have been like that?”
Old-fashioned tradition
Okmulgee was one of the patchworks of Black Rodeo circuit events that flourished in the 1950s and 1960s in the Texas Gulf region and surrounding Tulsa, according to Keith Ryan Cart Wright, author of Rodeo Black Cowboys: Unsung Heroes from Harlem to Harleywood to the West of the United States.
“Many Black Rodeo Cowboys started in one of these two areas,” he said, now serving as assistant general manager of the Nashville Stampede, a pro bull riding team. “Maybe they didn’t come from there, but they’ll move there to compete regularly.”
Nearly an hour to the west, the Boley (Oklahoma) rodeo is the oldest of all black rodeos dating back to 1903, but with some interruptions along the way. Okmulgee clings to the annual tradition, as bull riders refuse to fall.
“This is 70th There’s no asterisk in the year,” Cartwright said.
The 2025 event features over 200 competitors, including dozens of calf ropers, team ropers, steer wrestlers and barrel racers. The atmosphere is hardly similar to the glasses sponsored by big money companies broadcast on television.
“It’s not millions of dollars production,” Cartwright said. “It’s old fashioned.”
“When they return to Black Rodeo, there’s a house for them.”
The Rodeo’s first run took place north of town on leased land owned by the local White Roundup Club, Tipton said. When the club saw the success of the event and raised fares a lot the following year, he said the budding Black Rodeo organizers decided it was time to find their venue and bought 40 acres south of town.
So the Rodeo of Okumargi’s invitation was held until 1991. He said the All Black event was when it moved to the Bob Arlington Rodeo Arena, owned by the Muscogee (Creek) country.
By then, Tipton had begun racing on the bull. In 1998 he was named Bull Riding and Rookie of the Year by the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association.
Tipton said that when he appeared in the pro ranks, his fellow black cowboys were a rare sight. Even now, he said when he went to an East Coast or West Coast event, “They said they were like ‘Oh, the Black Cowboys.’ They watch white cowboys competing on television every day. ”
Among the barriers, Tipton said there is finances and inexperienced in the logistics strategy required to qualify for a national final based on prize money won throughout the year. Competitors must navigate a network of seasonal events held nationwide and finish among the top 15 qualifiers in each category.
“There are a lot of black cowboys who should make a lot of money,” Tipton said. “A lot of things don’t know about the business side, so when they return to the Black Rodeo, there’s a home for them.”
When he was successful as a rookie and hit the Pro Circuit, Tipton said he didn’t return to the Black Rodeo Circuit for several years. However, he always made sure to come back for Okmulgee.
“Jackie Robinson of the Rodeo”
He wasn’t the only one. Many of the longtime black rodeo greats have frequently visited Ochmargie, among the Miletis Dietman, often referred to as “Jackie Robinson of the Rodeo.” Diteman was one of those featured at Beyoncé’s Christmas Day halftime show during a December match against the Houston Texans’ Baltimore Ravens.
“He was the first African-American to qualify for the National Final Rodeo,” said event announcer Friday. “He never won a world title, but he is the one who actually opened the door to the African American Cowboys on the rodeo today.”
Dietman grew up on a ranch in Crockett, Texas, two hours north of Houston. His father was at the farm and his mother helped out with the fields. When he was allowed to work on the ranch, he went to school.
As a young man, Dietman found work as a rodeo clown and bullfighter, but he knew he had the skills to become a skilled bull rider, Cartwright said. Like other black rodeo candidates, he was often not allowed to ride until the event was over.
“He quickly established himself as a great bull rider, not as a great black bull rider,” Cartwright said. Ultimately, the humble and well-received Dietman will reach the circuit along with other cowboys trying to compete with him.
In the 1960s, Cartwright said the standard required only two event judges, and all that was needed was to poison the potential for success of competitors.
“It wasn’t so bad that it ended up last,” he said. “All they had to do was to grab points here and there.”
But as it spreads over the season, Cartwright said these biased sprinklings had the effect, causing certain competitors to snatch the prize money and drop some places in the rankings. He believes it happened to Dietman and others.
Dightman realized that despite what he might face, if he competed in an event enough to earn enough prizes, he could still advance to the finals. He avoided the Southern Rodeo and instead held events in Texas, Oklahoma, the West Coast, and the Midwest and rusty belts.
“He thought there would always be a judge who couldn’t win an event, but if I went to more events than anyone else over the course of the season, then all of my two.nd Location and 4th “He’s going to take me there,” Cartwright said.
In 1967 and 1968, Diteman finished among three or four top-ranked bull riders in the world. He never won a gold buckle for the sport, but Dietman knew he had accomplished something special, Cartwright said.
“We can’t stress enough that he had to finish third when our country was facing the racial animus it had,” he said. “He told me, ‘I wanted to be a world champion, but I wasn’t a world champion, but I was a world champion as a man.’ He wasn’t bragging about himself.
The legend of sports
In February, Tipton and Friday worked together to produce their second National Black Cowboy Rodeo Award and Gala in Oklahoma City.
“We have honored all the old cowboys over the past two years,” Tipton said.
Dightman, now 90 years old, was among them. Charles Sampson, a former kid from Watts, California, also became the first Black Bull rider to win the Rodeo World title in 1982.
“Miltis and Charlie are legendary,” Cartwright said. “It’s not just Black Cowboys. They’re the legendary Rodeo Cowboys.”
Some people may tighten the ropes used to hold the bull rider backing chute while riding before it opens.
“When Charlie won the world title with 10th He said. He said. “He pulled his bull rope for him,” he said.
It’s the foundation that will be built when today’s young Black Cowboys compete in Okumargi this weekend.
“Okmulgee was born when it needed to,” Cartwright said. “There was no other place for them to go. It’s a historic event.”
