Ivan McClellan

I felt like I didn't belong in the rooms that I was in, that I was going to be found out, thrown out in the street, forced to move back to Kansas.

One day I was at a party.

I didn't know anybody there except for the person whose birthday it was.

And so I was just drinking by myself and sulking in the corner.

Somebody tapped me on the shoulder and I turned around and there's a tall black man with a salt and pepper afro.

And he introduces himself.

He says his name is Charles Perry.

Says he's a filmmaker.

I say, oh, I'm a photographer.

What are you working on?

He said, I'm working on a movie about black cowboys.

I said, what, like a Western?

He said, no, like a documentary.

I kind of laughed.

I was like, oh, there's not enough black cowboys to make a whole documentary.

Like, I knew a thing or two about cowboys.

Like, I grew up watching Bonanza and Gunsmoke and Lonesome Dove reruns.

Like, my school choir used to sing the national anthem at the American Royal Rodeo in Kansas.

I viewed the cowboy to be the archetype of American independence and grit.

But black cowboys, the only black cowboys I knew were Sheriff Bart in Blazing Saddles and Cowboy Curtis on Pee Wee's Playhouse.