Ivan McClellan

He said, I'm from Kansas City, Kansas.

I said, I'm from Kansas City, Kansas.

Where about?

He said, oh, I live just off of 58th and Georgia.

I grew up off of 57th and Georgia.

It turns out that he lived on the other side of the five acre field from where I grew up.

I never saw a horse back there.

I never met Robert Criff.

But he knew my grandma.

He knew my pastor.

We went to the same high school.

In fact, he told me that half of the people at the rodeo come down from Kansas City every year for their family reunions.

I was embarrassed.

I felt silly because this entire culture was right under my nose my whole life and I knew nothing about it.

And I felt kind of ripped off because I was hanging out with these criminals chasing me with their dog and I could have been hanging out with cowboys a field away.

It immediately changed my perception of home away from a place of pain and poverty and violence to a place of independence and grit and cowboys.

I was proud to be from there.

The rodeo started and a rider rode around the arena carrying a flag, a Pan-African flag.

It's the American flag, but it's red, black, and green.

And a singer belted out, lift every voice and sing.