Bill Pickett Rodeo celebrates 40 years honoring Black cowboys

CASTRO VALLEY, Calif. - Rowell Ranch is host to many rodeos in the Bay Area including one long-standing event that is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo.

The rodeo arena and picnic grounds are tucked away in Castro Valley under the care of the Hawyard Recreation and Parks Department.

For Jeff Douvel, the Oakland manager for the Bill Pickett Rodeo, walking onto the grounds is like stepping into history.

"The Rodeo came here in 1984 at Rowell Ranch, and we've been here ever since," Douvel said. "The theme of the Bill PIckett Invitational Rodeo is the Greatest Show on Dirt, because we are literally doing everything on dirt."

The Bill Pickett International Rodeo tours the nation as a showcase for black cowboys and cowgirls.

"This rodeo is not just entertainment but education," Douvel said. "Even though one out of every four cowboys back in the West was an African American, we were left out of the history books."

Douvel says the Rodeo's founder, Lu Vasan, was a onetime resident of Berkeley.

Vasan loved rodeos, but was disturbed by what he saw.

"He noticed he didn't see any Black cowboys, any Black cowgirls, any Black participants in the rodeo at all," Douvel said.  

So Vasan's curiosity spurred him on to do research, and eventually learn about Bill Pickett, a Black cowboy born in Texas in 1870.

"Pound for pound he was one of the greatest cowboys the world has ever known," Douvel said, adding that Pickett was the inventor of what's now known as steer wrestling.

For generations, though, in American society, Blacks couldn't ride in all-white rodeos, and were all but invisible in American movies and history.

"The only western people that we saw were, of course, non-African Americans, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry," Douvel said.

It was an America that denied an equal place for black cowboys in history and for Black Americans who grew up watching those film depictions of the West.

"I grew up during Jim Crow. I remember going to the movies where you had to be upstairs. We could never be in the main part of the movie theater, and we could only stay for one show. We could never stay for two shows," Douvel said.

So when Lu Vasan decided to change that narrative, he settled on a rodeo named after Bill Pickett .

As the rodeo has grown, so has interest in the history of black cowboys.

At the African American Museum and Library at Oakland, there is an entire archive of photos and documents being preserved showing black cowboys, going back to the 19th century.

Bamidele Agbasegbe-Demerson is chief curator at the museum and showed some of the boxes that document the Oakland Black Cowboys and Bill Pickett.

"Their stories are so often neglected, not collected and become lost," Agbasegbe-Demerson said, wearing white gloves as he carefully flipped through folders filled with archival photos and documents.

Now, the dream of Vasan, who died in 2015, is still riding strong thanks to the efforts of his surviving wife, Valeria Howard Cunningham, and a dedicated staff.

Margo Wade LaDrew, the rodeo's national marketing director, says she's been with the team for nearly 30 years as it has grown.

"We've been to 33 cities across the country. We right now do 10 shows across the states," Wade LaDrew said.

The Bill Pickett Rodeo has also appeared on national TV broadcasts, assisted with documentaries and films, and say they're determined to keep the show on the road.

"We want to continue this legacy for 50, 60, 70 years," Wade LaDrew said. "It's important for Black people and not just Black people but everyone to be able to see the culture, learn about the history."

For participants and spectators, it is a living link to Black history and to American history.

"Lu Vasan, as a visionary, even for Lu to see what the rodeo is today, I think he'd well up with tears."

Now, new generations of Black cowboys and cowgirls are picking up the reins, and discovering the importance of celebrating a rodeo tradition that more fully represents and embraces America's cowboy history.

Jana Katsuyama is a reporter for KTVU.  Email Jana at jana.katsuyama@fox.com and follow her on Twitter @JanaKTVU or Facebook @NewsJana or ktvu.com.