Presenting a special, in-person screening of BLACK RODEO as part of the iconic Schomburg Center’s Open House.
Come early to learn more about the collections while exploring the theme of memory, then watch the film! Discover how we may give new life to memory through storytelling, genealogy, art, and archiving.
3:30 PM | Film: Black Rodeo (part of On Memory and Documentation)
BLACK RODEO documents the first-ever performance of an all African-American starring rodeo that took place at Randall's Island, NY near Harlem, in 1971.
With bronc riding, calf roping, brahma bull riding - these 50 Black rodeo riders from Texas, Oklahoma, California, Illinois and Michigan, along with Connecticut, New Jersey and even New York, shine an impressive light using skills audience members didn’t know existed through Black faces.
Featuring a can’t miss appearance by “The Greatest” Muhammad Ali riding a horse on 125th Street and building with the Black cowboys, the film is cemented by acting legend and cowboy Woody Strode (“Once Upon a Time in the West”, “Sergeant Rutledge”), who serves as this documentary’s narrator, leading a discussion of the history of the African-American cowboy, and commentary on the event and its meaning by spectators.
Following the screening, stay for a talkback featuring Shola Lynch, award-winning filmmaker and curator of the Moving Image and Recorded Sound division with Curtis Caesar John, executive director of Luminal Theater. They will discuss activating memory through moving images, the importance of film documentation and preserving home videos. Presented in partnership with Luminal Theater, a nomadic microcinema that centers its screenings of Black independent films in Black communities.
see additional Schomburg Center Open House activities HERE
This event will have limited capacity.
PUBLIC NOTICE AND DISCLAIMER By registering for this event, you are acknowledging that an inherent risk of exposure to COVID-19 exists in any public place where people are present. By attending an in-person program at The New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, you voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19 and agree not to hold The New York Public Library, its Trustees, officers, agent and employees liable for any illness or injury.