Exhibition Credits

Huntsville, Texas or “Prison City,” is home to one of the country’s most infamous penitentiaries: “the Walls.” Opened in 1849, the Huntsville Unit functioned as the state’s official site for death row and remains the most active execution chamber in the United States. It is also known for hosting the country’s first Prison Rodeo.

The Huntsville Prison Rodeo exploded in popularity after its start in 1931, transforming from an informal event into a spectacle that garnered crowds in excess of 100,000 attendees. Within the context of the Jim Crow South, the Rodeo was seen as progressive for integrating black and white incarcerated people.

Despite this, it was a segregated event that provided a disturbingly clear diagram of society– incarcerated men, incarcerated women, white spectators, and “colored” spectators were all separated by surveillance and physical barriers.

The Wildest Show Behind Bars proposes a confrontation with the realities of the Prison Rodeo, which continues today in Louisiana. Hidden behind a facade of amusement and spectacle, the Prison Rodeo contends romanticized Cowboy iconography with the lingering violence of slavery that lives on in the US prison system. This exhibit asks visitors to look plainly at the nuances of this violent spectacle.