{"id":300440,"date":"2025-10-13T17:17:39","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T17:17:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/300440\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T17:17:39","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T17:17:39","slug":"philadelphia-hold-em-the-philadelphia-sunday-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/300440\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia Hold \u2018Em – The Philadelphia Sunday Sun"},"content":{"rendered":"

8 Seconds Rodeo founder\u2013Ivan McClellan<\/strong>. Photo: 8 Seconds Rodeo<\/p>\n

Black cowboy culture took center stage at the Liacouras Center when the 8 Seconds Rodeo came to town.<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Denise Clay-Murray<\/strong><\/p>\n

When Au\u2018Vion (A.V.) Horton was a child in his hometown of Hope, Arkansas, his mother took him to his first rodeo.<\/p>\n

As someone who was already fascinated with parts of the cowboy culture \u2014 he was already fascinated with all things horses \u2014 the rodeo was a highlight for him.<\/p>\n

Especially when the bull riders came out.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I went to my first rodeo, the bulls came up, and I was like, yeah, that\u2019s something I want to do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

When his high school\u2019s Future Farmers of America chapter held its annual rodeo, he wanted to participate in the bull riding competition. But in order to do that, he had to get permission from his grandmother, who was acting as his guardian while his mother worked out of town.<\/p>\n

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Fans watching the 8 Seconds Rodeo exhibit.\u2013Photo: 8 Seconds Rodeo<\/strong><\/p>\n

The thought of her grandson on a bull\u2019s back was a non-starter for her, Horton said.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe told me no,\u201d he said. \u201cNo, you\u2019re not doing that. That\u2019s dangerous. So, I came back around and told her, this is for my grades. So, I lied to her so I can ride bulls, and I hid it for like, two years. Last year I had won, like, my first competition. And then that\u2019s when I came out and told them. I thought they were gonna be mad, but they were just surprised.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the 8 Seconds Rodeo put the culture of Black Cowboys in the spotlight at the Liacouras Center last Saturday, audiences saw Horton, and Tank Adams ride bulls, and The Bluebird Riders and Kandra Demery compete as barrel racers for $60,000 in prize money.<\/p>\n

But most importantly, you\u2019ll see that despite what you may have been taught, there is a culture of Black rodeo\u2026and it\u2019s thriving.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Mutton Busting event<\/strong>\u2014Photo: 8 Seconds Rodeo<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t reclaim what you\u2019ve owned all along,\u201d said Ivan McClellan, founder of 8 Seconds Rodeo. \u201cWe\u2019re not reclaiming the culture. We\u2019re spotlighting it, and we\u2019re and we\u2019re illuminating it to the world and saying, this is 100% as much a part of Black culture as our innovations in music, and our excellence in sports.\u201d<\/p>\n

McClellan, a photographer, artist and designer by trade, got connected to Black rodeo in 2015 when he was invited to a rodeo in Oklahoma. He didn\u2019t know that something like it existed, and once he saw it, he was hooked, McClellan said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw people doing the cupid shuffle in their boots,\u201d he said. \u201cI saw thousands of Black cowboys, women riding around barrels at 50 miles an hour with acrylic nails, clutching the reins and braids blowing behind them, young men riding horses in Jordans and basketball shorts\u2026and I just fell in love with the culture. I was trying to take pictures and eat a smoked turkey leg and drink a Strawberry Pop all at the same time. I was just over overwhelmed and in love with it immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n

After publishing a book on Black rodeo and working with brands to get these athletes noticed and paid, he also noticed that these rodeo stars were getting paid less than their white peers. So, in 2023, he decided to create something that would introduce the culture to those who may not know about it and reinforce it for those who do, McClellan said. And 8 Seconds Rodeo was born.<\/p>\n

The 8 Seconds Rodeo has done shows on the West Coast and Pacific Northwest, but the show at the Liacouras Center will be its first on the East Coast. While McClellan\u2019s move to Chester County last October played a part in making Philadelphia the rodeo\u2019s first East Coast show, the culture of Black cowboys in the region overall and in the city, also helped, he said.<\/p>\n

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Photo: 8 Seconds Rodeo<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, I say we\u2019re not bringing the rodeo to Philadelphia. We\u2019re building the rodeo in Philadelphia,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a very specific event to this region. In this area, we\u2019re not just pulling up the tour buses, doing our show and leaving. I\u2019ve been embedded with the cowboys here for months and have great relationships with cowboys and cowgirls that grew up in Philadelphia, like Aaron Brown, who grew up in the Fletcher Street Stables and now runs the Philadelphia Urban Riding Academy. I\u2019ve been to the Fletcher Street Stables and hung out with the Cowboys down there. They\u2019re all going to be in attendance at the rodeo, and they\u2019re super excited, you know, to have their culture celebrated in this way.<\/p>\n

Horses have been riding up and down the streets of Philadelphia for hundreds of years with Black men on their backs. It\u2019s, it\u2019s just amazing to see how far it\u2019s come.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to the barrel riding, bull riding and bronco busting competitions being held as part of the rodeo, there will also be chances for the audience to get some hands-on connection to the rodeo, McClellan said. When the doors opened at 3pm., attendees were able to learn line dances, with DJ Diamond Kuts providing the soundtrack, ride a mechanical bull, learn how to rope a steer, and watch the athletes warm up before the competition. There was a chance for children to win $500 by riding a sheep in a Mutton Busting competition; and a chance to get that new cowboy hat or cowboy boots from one of the Black-owned businesses vending at the event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"8 Seconds Rodeo founder\u2013Ivan McClellan. Photo: 8 Seconds Rodeo Black cowboy culture took center stage at the Liacouras…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":300441,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,1448,2830,1311,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-300440","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-pa","10":"tag-pennsylvania","11":"tag-philadelphia","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-united-states-of-america","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115367998286884386","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300440\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}