Endless Thread - Encore: Giddyup! Riding Groups Tap Into Long History Of Black Cowboys

Episode Date: June 17, 2022

In the summer of 2020, images of Black men and women riding horses at protests went viral. But the history of Black cowboys goes all the way back to the creation of the American West. In this encore episode, the Endless Thread team digs into this history in honor of Juneteenth. We also hear from Black riders who are carrying on this legacy. This episode was originally published on July 10, 2020. 

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WBUR Podcasts, Boston. Hey, folks. Howdy. A very relevant salutation, Amory. And I can't say it with a straight face. Because I'm from Ohio. Yeah, so I'm, yours truly is still alive and recovering from COVID. And also, the

Endless Thread team is working on some tight mysteries, some loose histories, some other wild stories from the internet. What does that even mean? You know, I don't know. It just is. Yeah, of course we are. Well, I know of at least two you're working on. At least I hope

you're working on him. And in the meantime, we'd like to play you an episode from the back catalog that is still pretty relevant today. Yeah. In honor of Juneteenth, we wanted to bring you an episode that we made back in the summer of 2020 that is very near and dear to our hearts. So you're going to hear some old credits in there if you listen that far. I hope you do. And you'll hear some different ways of describing the show. But other than those things, still rings true today in many ways. And we hope you'll agree and we hope you enjoy it. So swing into the saddle with us and let's ride. Giddy up. Amory

When I say cowboy What do you picture and what do you hear? Ooh Dun da-da-lun-d-d-lund-dun-dun-dun-dun-danza Dun-d-d-d-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun I don't think I just realized I don't think that Bonanza is actually like a lyric in the song

I think that's just what my dad would sing When we'd watch Bonanza It feels good, yeah What about you? So I think about Shane, that like sad cowboy movie. Have you seen that movie? No. It's, okay, so like this mysterious gunfighter like helps a bunch of settlers fight back against a cattle baron trying to run them out of the valley. You know, your, your usual cattle baron storyline. Yeah. And Shane gets shot near the end of the

movie and rides into the sunset while his friend, this little boy yells, Shane, Shane, come back, Shane. But Shane, like, doesn't turn around maybe because he's actually dead from the gunshot wound, riding dead on his horse into the sunset. Hmm. Well, now I don't need to see it. Thank you. Sorry for the spoiler. But I think there is something interesting about that movie. This cowboy drifted dude, Shane, who gets hired as a cattle hand and then helps the settlers fight back, he shows up soon after the Civil War. Which is when a lot of people were showing up in the West to find new opportunities after the war ended.

But the depictions of this time period, almost all the shanes are blonde-haired, blue-eyed dudes, when in reality, a lot of these cowboys were black. And a lot of people have only fully understood this just recently, including the author and podcaster Walter Thompson Hernandez, who has been spending time with modern black cowboys around the country. And, you know, and spending time with these cowboys, like, I've learned myself, right, that one in four of every cowboys in the American West. was in fact black, right?

And like, these are men and women who, following the Civil War, you know, were left with very little sort of opportunities, economic opportunities. So a lot of folks headed, of course, you know, to places like New York and Chicago, but a lot of folks headed west. And so, you know, there was a sort of long line of black cowboys.

And, you know, I'm talking about, like, Nat Love and John Ware and Bill Pickett. Pause. Did you know any of those names, Ben? I feel like Bill Pickett sounds familiar, but my short answer is no. Okay, check this out. You know the phrase, grab the bull by its horns? Know it. I live it every day. Yeah, yeah. Well, Bill Pickett, he was a black cowboy from Texas. He invented what's called bulldogging, the act of wrestling a bull to the ground,

by jumping off your horse, grabbing it by the horns, and tipping it over. And, of course, we use this phrase all the time. but most people don't know anything about the guy who invented it. And Walter says the famous black cowboys are just the tip of the historical iceberg. These are all black men who are essentially known for being some of the most daring and adventurous riders. And, you know, the sad thing, right, is that we do know about a few of these names, but there's thousands of other black men and women whose names will never know. Walter has been trying to change that.

He's been writing about not just the history of black cowboys, but the Black Cowboys of today. Which, it turns out, has been timely because a lot of people are seeing black Cowboys for the first time, even saddling up themselves. Once we seen everything that was going on and we actually started enjoying it,

like it was Black Cowboys every weekend, like thousands of them. So we started our own group, and it just took off from now. I'm Ben Brock Johnson. I'm Amory Sewardson. And you're listening to Endless Threat. The show featuring

stories found in the vast ecosystem of online communities called Reddit. We're coming to you from WBUR, Boston's NPR station. Today's episode, Giddy Up. After police killed George Floyd on camera, when protests against police brutality broke out in cities around the country, some of the protest videos that went viral showed black men and women mounting up to ride in solidarity. Some of those men and women mounting up were from Houston. part of a trail riding group that started a few years ago.

Okay, my name is Cassandra Johnson. I am the first lady of non-style riders, and my husband is the president. Nonside Riders is a non-profit trail riding group that we started in 2016, just to do something different for the community, you know, show them something different. We are a group of 115 people,

and we have people who horseback ride. We have a party wagon that the people who don't have horses, they are allowed to get on the wagon. I ride on the party wagon on the back of the truck. We have a truck that pulls the wagon so I can watch everything that's going on on the party wagon. We have a driver that drives us and my husband DJs on the party wagon when he's not riding sunshine. Tell me about sunshine. Sunshine is a palomino that we have and she's the baby to our family. We have had like seven horses, but I'm just not the horse girl.

I'm sorry. I'd rather be on a party way. Where do the horses stay? We have a born. That's actually down the street from my house. There's plenty of borns in Houston, Texas. But our born is probably like five minutes away from my home. We go to it every day, make sure sunshine's fed, make sure she's tucking care of.

For Cassandra and other members of her group, riding horses is part of everyday life. So she was surprised when a video of nonstop riders trotting through the streets of Houston went viral. I mean, it's kind of normal to me because I go to trail rides every weekend. I see thousands of black men on horses. Thousands. But we stay out of the radar, like I said. So nobody believes that, you know, it's black men that they ride horses. But there's plenty.

Do you think part of the problem is that people have forgotten some of this history? I do. I believe we've forgotten our own history until now. Walter Thompson Hernandez grew up 1,500 miles away from Houston in Los Angeles, where when he was a kid, the sight of a black person on horseback was surprising. When I saw Black Cowboys for the first time, you know, I was about six years old, and my mom and I, you know, I grew up about five minutes away from Compton, so we were like kind of always in the area.

And I see these like two black men and horses one day, And it kind of just like really startled me, you know, and it really sort of just surprised me that I had to learn about black cowboys in schools, you know, like in the history books and in these sort of like John Wayne films and Clint Eastwood films. Like it's all just like white cowboys, right? Kill just about everything your walks or crawl at one time or another. And I'm here to kill you, Bill. And I was like, mom, like, look. And, you know, my mom looks at me and she's completely unfaced. You know, she's just like, yeah, like black cowboys, you know.

This was the beginning of a journey that would eventually lead Walter to focus his writing on black people getting into the saddle. Why do you think the story of black cowboys is not really usually included in a mainstream understanding of American history?

Part of it has to do with this historical amnesia. I think like our attention spans are often really short. And as a society, we kind of forget things every five to ten years and like things get sort of repurpose. or rediscovered. So I think that's part of it. But I also think it's like in line with this sort of like, you know, historical erasure too, right, where like the gatekeepers, you know, those folks who

eventually sign off on these stories and like don't want it to be too normalized, right? They're like, okay, we can give you the image of a black cowboy every 10 years. But like, that's enough, okay? That's it. Some of this kind of gatekeeping happened back in 2018. That year, Walter, felt like he really had his finger on the pulse. He'd just written a piece for the New York Times with the headline, Compton Cowboys. Walter's piece was about a new generation of people in Compton, who, as the article described it, were trying to create a safer community and challenge assumptions at the same time,

assumptions about who could and who could not be Cowboys. Old Town Road, a song first released in the fall of 2018 by the then-relatively unknown independent rapper Lil Nas X would also challenge these kinds of assumptions. This is my hot take. Okay, so I wrote that New York Times story early 2018

and I think Old Town Road comes out late 2018, October, November, something like that. And so I'm like, man, like, I think... You wrote, did you write Old Town Road? Did you write it? I'm the ghost writer. Okay, guys, listen.

Hot take, I wrote Old Town. No, I did not write Old Town Road. I had nothing to do with Old Town Road. But I will say that I think the Compton Cowboys in some way maybe help spur that, you know. And, you know, pun intended, right, spur that. Yes. The song first gained a following when the Atlanta rapper started posting it anonymously on Reddit. That fed into posts on the video and music social media app TikTok where kids use the song as a soundtrack to videos.

And right around the same time, one of the biggest video games of the year, an Outlaw Action Adventure game set in the Wild West called Red Dead Redemption 2, launched. It would go on to sell 35 million copies and become one of the most popular video games of all time. Lil Nas X took Rootin' Tutin footage of the game and set it to his song. And that video quickly got millions of views on YouTube. As the song became inescapable, it launched a new wave of the cowboy aesthetic in Black popular culture, the so-called black y-ha agenda.

And a lot of people questioned the validity of history and the trend. Billboard even took it off the hot country chart, saying it supposedly didn't meet the standards of today's country music. A move that all by itself caused a huge controversy. And then came the release of an Old Town Road remix featuring white country singer Billy Ray Cyrus, which, along with launching the song into the stratosphere, was basically an attempt for the song to be recognized as a country song. The fact that Little Don's X wasn't sort of initially allowed to partake in, you know, this sort of like country music genre because of, frankly, you know, of how he looked.

You know, this was a black man from Atlanta who had like a hip-hop beat, but who was obviously like doing it in a very country way. Like, that's a country song, a really sort of catchy country song, right? So I think there is a connection there, you know, and I think this sort of like larger Yeha agenda, like quote unquote, right, is something that like has always sort of like tiptoed between like, you know, like hip hop culture and country culture. But I think it's like a conversation that that was bound to happen. And I'm so happy that that song really blew up and took off in a way that I think nobody imagined.

It took off right as Walter Thompson Hernandez was expanding his 2018 article for the New York times into a book about black cowboys. I'd be lying if I told you that I didn't email my editors and publishers. I was like, hey, guys, like, we have to publish this earlier. You know, like, this is really taken off, you know? So I did that, and they're like, no, Walter, that can happen. Walter's book is out now, the Compton Cowboys, the new generation of Cowboys in America's urban heartland.

And it explores the idea of who gets to decide just who and who isn't a cowboys. The definition itself is tricky. Do you have to be roping cattle on a ranch to be a cowboy? Is it about the outfit, the way of life? Or in 2020, America, is it something a little simpler? A relationship with a horse? Who gets to take ownership of the definition? We do rope cows. We do rope cattle. You know, we have living quarters with trailers. We have horses. We have horses trailers. We have bones. There are black. cowboys. And there are black cowboys that choose to stand up for what's right. Well, you know, in writing and researches from this book, I spent a lot of time with different black cowboy and

cowgirl communities throughout the U.S. I spent time in Oakland. I spent time in L.A. I was in Houston. I was in Atlanta. And I was in Philadelphia for a bit as well. And, you know, one thing that I saw was like there was such a huge sort of difference between like urban writers and rural cowboys, right? The Compton Cowboys, you know, they are cowboys, but they're also folks who, you know, live in Compton. So you really won't see them, you know, dressing up with, like, you know, cowboy hats

or cowboy boots or, like, wrangler jeans. Like, these guys and women are wearing, you know, Nike Air Jordans, you know, and sort of doing that. And their biggest thing is at least finding a few times a week to ride together. So the Compton Cowboys kind of, Their story kind of begins in 1988 when Maisha Akbar starts this Compton Jr. Posse organization in the Richland Farms, which is where the Cowboys Ranch is located at. And they sort of take up horse riding and really sort of like, you know, tap into this cowboy culture in Compton.

And so they kind of, you know, each one of them in some way, like majority of them kind of stop writing around, you know, 13, 14, 15 when when a Apparently, you know, riding horses kind of didn't become cool anymore. You know, I think, like, a lot of them, like, started to play sports or, like, you know, started to do other things with their lives. But in their 20s, like in their mid to late 20s, they sort of all have a moment, you know, at around 2017 or so when they sort of all start slowly migrating back to the ranch. And they sort of, like, come together and officially form as the Compton Cowboys and sort of, like, become a staple in their community.

These riders also have a distinct impact on the dynamics of their community. You know, in urban communities throughout the U.S. in places like Compton, the horses are so much more than a vehicle, right? Like, they often become a shield and even like a sense of armor that protect the cowboys against numerous things, like police violence and rival gangs. And, you know, there is like such a difference between a black man and woman walking through Compton or driving through Compton and running through Compton and running. and riding through Compton. Police and rival gangs really sort of like give these guys a pass when they're on their horses, but when they're walking or when they're in their cars,

it becomes like open season free game. Back to Houston in a minute. At Radio Lab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science, neuroscience, chemistry. But we do also like to get into other kinds of stories, stories about policing. or politics, country music, hockey, sex, of bugs. Regardless of whether we're looking at science or not science, we bring a rigorous curiosity to get you the answers.

And hopefully make you see the world anew. Radio Lab, adventures on the edge of what we think we know. Wherever you get your podcast. There is something powerful about the sound of the human voice. Beautifully produced audio has the unique power to connect and inspire. Tell your organization's story with a kind of. custom podcast from City Space Productions, the creative studio from WBUR's business partnerships team.

Become a thought leader. Recruit new talent, reach new audiences, whatever your goal, we can help. Discover how the magic is made at WBUR.org.org slash creative studio. When Walter was researching his book Compton Cowboys, he went to Houston and witnessed some of the local traditions of the trail riding groups there. You know, a place like Houston is really sprawled out.

There's more opportunities for these huge massive rides, right? And these beautiful, like, Zidico dances on Fridays and Saturdays, which I actually attended. Cassandra, the woman who founded nonstop riders with her husband, participates in these events every weekend. On Friday nights, we have dances. On Saturdays we have trail rides where all of the horses come out and everybody ride. And, you know, music is being played.

We play country. We play rap. We play gospel. We play Zadico. you all will be amazed to see how many black cowboys they are. On Friday, it may be this trail ride group dance. On Saturday, it may be this trail riding group camp out and ride. So every weekend, we have something to do.

Tell me about what happened last Friday night before the first protest you went to. One of our members, which she's in our trail riding group, she was having her sister a party. But when we got there, the DJ was nowhere to be found, so they asked my husband, can you change, put the music on something different? So when he did put the music on something different, a cop passed by. You know, the first one passed by, he waved, and then we seen the second cop pass by. So when he passed by, we noticed he did a U-turn and came back.

When he came back, he parked the car, he got out, he said, turn it off. So we were like, okay. So my husband, you know, it's not his equipment, so he fumbled with it for a minute, and then he turned it off. He closed the computer and turned it off. And he asked him for his driver's license. And my husband was like, okay, I'll give you my driver's license, but what's the reason behind me giving you my driver's license? I'm going to give you a loud music ticket. I'm like, are you serious?

I'm angry. He's giving my husband a loud music ticket. So at this time, the other two officers are pulling back up who had just passed by. So one of the guys who was kind of decent, he got out the vehicle and me and him started talking. And so he was like, well, the officer, well, I was speaking, where he said, well, ma'am, he could just go to court and get it dismissed. I said, my husband is a working man. We are taxpayers. Why is it that he has to take off of work and sit in the courthouse for a loud music ticket when you ask them what to do and he complied with what you ask?

I'm like, sir, they're riding downtown. You know, we're here not doing anything. And I'm like, with everything going on in the world today, how can this be happening right now? I mean, you know, I slept on it. I just woke up with, like, anger in my heart. And I know that's not the right thing to do. But I woke up with anger in my heart

because I'm just like, how many times do we have to go through this? So Saturday, we got our members together. We rode in on our wagon. We didn't take the horses this one particular day. We rode in on our wagon with our red shirts up, with our fist in the air, and the police were actually lined up with the tactical gear on, the face mask, and we were able to say what we felt. And I never wanted to be in the police face.

I never want to be disrespectful, but I did. That day, I had my sign, and my son said, how do I explain to my 17-year-old son that he's a black king, but every time he gets stopped by police, he has to bow his head and fear. How do we teach them to be proud of who they are? You know, y'all wouldn't understand how I feel

to give your child a pep talk every time they walk out the door. I tell my son, I ask my son, what's the protocol? What do you do when they pull you over? Where are your hands supposed to go? When they ask for your driver, they're registration, sir, can I reach forward or do you need to?

And it's so sad that that's what we have to do. But not only my son, it happened to my husband that Friday. And it's just so sad to keep on watching it happen time after time, after time. And when this happened to George Floyd, it just hit so close to home to me. George Floyd dated my cousin.

And then he lived in the Kearney Homes, And my cousin, you know, they're all from the CUNY homes, third ward. So it's just like, you know, you become family. If you grow up from a child, look. When they called me and told us what happened, and I looked at the news, that was the most heartbreaking thing I could have ever seen. Like, I would never understand losing my child in that manner.

That took the soul out of me, and especially to hear a grown man. called for his mother. You know, with our moms, we try to protect our kids. Like, I always tell my son, I'm your superwoman. I will always be there to protect you. But when they come down to certain people, I mean, you know, it's like we lose. So we wanted to walk.

We wanted to protest. So the next victim won't be our son. A few days after Cassandra rode on the party wagon to a protest, the nonstop riders took to the street. again, this time on horseback. Cassandra's husband Marcus and Sunshine, of course, were there. And so Tuesday, he was called, you know, an extra attend the trail ride with a couple of more riders. And it was about maybe 30 of them. They were from Fifth Ward to downtown to Discovery Green. and it was just amazing for me to see my husband out there fighting for what he believed in

and even, I mean, on his horse. Does your husband want to say anything? Would he be willing to say anything if you put him on? Yes, he just made it. I mean, do you want to speak with him? Yeah, I would love to just for a minute if that's okay. Yes, sir. That would be lovely.

This is Mr. Ben. He's right, he's got a ball case. Say alone. Hello. Hi, Mr. Ben. Hey, is that Marcus? Yes, sir. How you doing, Mr. Ben? I'm doing well. How are you?

I'm great, man. I'm great. Is there anything you want to say about your experience on Tuesday? It was overwhelming. I was excited, you know, because normally you see the Houston Police Department horses down there just to see all the, you know, black cowboys or whatever, you know, go down the street. And, man, it was a wonderful feeling, you know. I really enjoyed it.

What do you hope comes of all of this? I just hope that everybody can come together as one, because I love everybody. I don't care what color you are. Over the last month or so, black cowboy groups seem to have gained a lot of visibility, at least online, because of their presence at protests against racism and police brutality. What do you think it is about black men and women riding horses that has sent such a strong message? I think historically, especially at demonstrations, right, like the police have often used mounted units with horses, right, to really sort of, I think, invoke fear and demonstrators. Going back even further, right, to like sharecropping days or like plantations, right, with enslaved Africans, I think the sight of white men on horses represented power and control.

And so I think the side of black men and women on horses kind of does the same thing for a lot of people. Like it taps into a sort of maybe subconscious fear of this like plantation revolt, right? The sort of reversal of power or like, you know, revenge or, you know, equality, right? It just shows that I think black folks have been forced to find creative ways to survive over time and generations. The side of black men and women on horses to me also, you know, speaks to something more larger, right? It sort of speaks to this, it's a political statement, right? Like, it's both saying that, like, yes, we exist, right?

Black men and women can be cowboys. But also, we are here to express ourselves in a political way. And these horses are, you know, are our vehicles. And these horses, you know, are essentially leading the charge for racial equality. We're more than just a trail riding group. We're more than just a wagon. We're more than just men on horses. We're black.

We're mothers. We're sisters, we're grandmothers, we're aunts, with uncles. So if it takes me to get out in a hundred-degree weather, in the middle of a pandemic, to walk and show you what I believe in, I'm going to do it. Endless Thread is a production of WBUR, Boston's NPR station in partnership with Reddit. Josh Swartz is our producer who loves seeing horses at protests because it's a great example of Animals Doing Stuff. Iris Adler is our executive.

producer, and she thinks the controversy around Old Town Road was just one big face palm. Mix and sound design by Paul Vicus, who grabs life by the horns to escape our boring dystopia. Michael Pope is our advisor at Reddit, and he does not dance to Zytoe, but he does love dancing to. Music, French people might play at a party or just with friends around. Editing help from managing producer Kat Brewer, extra help from Frank Hernandez, and additional music by Paul Vikis. Also, if you want to hear more from Walt Dr. Thompson Hernandez, you're in luck because his podcast, California Love, debuted just this week. It's an audio memoir that explores what it means to belong or not belong to the places we're from.

You can find it wherever you listen to us. On Reddit, we are endless underscore thread. If you want to contribute art for an upcoming episode or give us a story tip so we can tell it like we did today, hit us up there. My co-host and producer is Amory Severson. My co-host and senior producer is Ben Brock Johnson. Yaha!