BOLEY RIDES AGAIN

America’s oldest Black rodeo is back.

- CALEB GAYLE

Boley is easy to miss. The flat vista of eastern Oklahoma is briefly interrupted by a handful of homes and some boardedup buildings, the extent of the tiny town. In its heyday, Boley was a marvel of the Plains, a town built by and for Black people that attracted visitors and media attention from across the country. But now its businesses are defunct, and the steady outflow of young people has left behind an aging population of only about 1,000 people. The main reminder of the town's glory days is the historical marker I passed on Route 62.

The road took me to the wide-open fields where the Boley Rodeo, hailed as the oldest Black rodeo in America, is held every year. I arrived at the grounds early on a May morning, before the sun pierced the clouds. Karen Ekuban, the rodeo's promoter, had already been there for hours.

The rodeo was in two days, and Ekuban and a small crew of volunteers, including her children, had been busy. She was obsessing over every detail. When new bleachers had been installed a few days earlier, she'd spent so much time directing workers to ensure that the earth underneath them was level, with no holes where people might trip, that she'd dozed off as she drove home that night. Instead of veering into traffic, her vehicle had eased onto the shoulder, jolting her alert. Ekuban told me the story with a giggle, as if nothing had happened. She was "awake now," she said.`

The annual rodeo had been a Boley tradition for more than 120 years, once regularly drawing crowds of thousands, but as of late, it had become something of a glorified family reunion for people with ties to Boley. Ekuban had a plan to try to turn that around. She'd sunk thousands of dollars of her own money and months of her time into throwing what she hoped would be the best rodeo the town had ever seen. Her goal was to raise at least $200,000 to help revitalize Boley, and bring back national attention to the town.