National

South Dakota high school rodeo club cancels annual ‘slave auction’ fundraiser

By Emily Wax-Thibodeaux
April 22, 2021 at 6:54 p.m. EDT



An advertisement for a slave/branding auction for Faith High School's Rodeo Club has been circulating on social media this week. Rapid City Journal

In the tiny South Dakotan town called Faith, the high school Rodeo Club planned to hold its annual fundraising event next Monday night at the Legion Hall, complete with a pancake supper, bidding on pies and a “Slave/Branding Auction.”

For decades, Rodeo Club members offered a few days of their labor to a rancher in exchange for a donation — and although there have long been calls for clubs across the state to stop labeling this slavery, the name in Faith has stuck. But this year, as a poster circulated on Facebook, Legion Hall host Glenda McGinnis said she received dozens of calls from people around the country wanting to know “how such a racist and hurtful name could be used in 2021.”

“I thought it was a joke. We have the event every year, for about 40 years now,” said McGinnis, vice president of the Community Action Club that owns the Legion Hall in Faith, a town with fewer than 500 residents. “I even got a call from a local cowboy who said: ‘How’s this going down? It’s not right.’ I told him we weren’t doing anything wrong. And he explained, ‘Well, it’s how it was advertised that’s wrong.’ ”

McGinnis further explained: “I didn’t even think of ‘slavery’ in racist terms. It’s just kids work for free to raise money for their club. Now I see; this is a very bad choice of words. But I’m naive enough, I guess.”

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Emily Wax-Thibodeaux
Emily Wax-Thibodeaux is a National staff writer who covers national news, with a focus on gender issues and social movements for the America desk. She is an award-winning former foreign correspondent who covered Africa and India for nearly a decade. Follow https://twitter.com/emily_wax

News

Faith High School Rodeo Club's 'slave auction' canceled due to controversy

Abby Wargo Rapid City Journal
Published 10:05 a.m. CT Apr. 22, 2021

An advertisement for a slave/branding auction for Faith High School's Rodeo Club has been circulating on social media this week. ... A recent advertisement for Faith High School Rodeo Club’s “Slave/Branding Auction,” a fundraising event that includes a pancake supper and a pie auction, has caused backlash on social media, forcing it to be canceled. ... The auction was scheduled for April 26 at the Legion Hall in Faith, which is near the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Reservation. ... The concept of a “slave auction” for fundraising purposes has existed in South Dakota since at least 2008, when the Belle Fourche School District held a slave auction fundraiser.

“A 'slave auction' offers a day's work from each of the active competitors. Club members are proud that most of them could handle about any chores from waiting tables to hauling hay or moving cattle. Club members also brought craft items they'd made for the auction,” the Butte County Post reported in a March 30, 2011 article about a BFHS Rodeo fundraiser.

Slave auction fundraisers have also been held for the Pierre/Fort Pierre High School Rodeo Club for over a decade. In 2018, a Capital Journal article noted that several years earlier an African American resident asked the club to change the name of the event, but the club decided to leave it as is because they could not decide on an alternative. The name was not meant to be derogatory, according to the club’s adviser.

The Rapid City Journal reached out Wednesday to the Faith School District. A receptionist said the fundraiser is not run by the school, rather the Rodeo Club. She added the event was not listed on the school calendar as a slave auction but as a “branding crew auction,” and she wasn’t sure on the event’s status. ... The Journal attempted to reach the superintendent but received no response.

The South Dakota High School Rodeo Association said they don’t have any knowledge about the high school’s fundraising efforts and that rodeo clubs and schools are responsible for their own fundraising efforts. ... Slave auctions are not unique to South Dakota, and are not limited to rodeo fundraising. In 2015 in Alaska, the NAACP complained about a slave auction fundraiser in Sitka for its volunteer fire department. The complaint caused organizers to change the name of the auction to “Alaska Day Auction.”

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