Black Cowboys: Creole Trailrides Showcase Unique Culture
In Texas and Louisiana, a potent mix of zydeco, hip-hop and horses keeps an often overlooked tradition alive
September 21, 2018
by Joel Balsam in Calvert, Texas, with pictures by Stephanie Foden
The Guardian
Pickup trucks started pouring into the tiny town of Calvert, smack in the middle of Texas’s four metropoles. Some pulled wagons with horses peeking out of the metal bars. Others dragged flatbed trolleys stacked with speakers, a barbecue and a portable toilet.
Inside the vehicles, urbanites from Dallas and Houston slipped off their baseball caps and threw on their cowboy hats, swapping their shoes or flip-flops for cowboy boots.
The occasion was a Creole trail ride, a country party that features a procession, zydeco music, dancing and feasting that runs every weekend through spring and fall in Louisiana and east Texas. Trail rides date back decades, but if you’ve never heard of one before, you aren’t entirely at fault – there are centuries of revisionist history to blame for that.
Who do you think of when you think of a cowboy? A gun-slinging John Wayne type? Some historians believe that well before Hollywood distorted our view of what a cowboy looks like, French-speaking slaves from Africa – later clumped in with the cultural mishmash known as Creoles – rode horses in Louisiana.
Some even say the term “cowboy” derives from slave owners commanding to “go tend to the cow, boy,” though Andrew Sluyter, a history professor at Louisiana State University and the author of Black Ranching Frontiers, said there’s no hard evidence for that theory.
“Enslaved cowboys, vachères, in French, of African origin herded the cattle on the first French ranches established in south-west Louisiana, in the valley of Bayou Teche near Lafayette in the early 1760s, before the Acadians/Cajuns arrived,” Sluyter said. “Unlike their French masters, the Africans had long experienced herding cattle in the Sahel zone of west Africa.”
Prohibited from joining white-only rodeos, freed slaves and landowning Creoles practiced their own cowboy culture. At some point in the last half-century – no one can be sure – that culture started to take the form of trail rides. As oil work popped up in Texas, Creoles from Louisiana moved west, bringing their culture, and trail rides, along with them.
In the past decade, trail rides have surged in popularity, thanks in part to how hip-hop has infused with the washboard and accordion rhythms of zydeco. What were once a traditional country gatherings have transformed into huge festivals with attendees numbering in the thousands, often attracting city-dwellers far detached from their Creole roots.
“It’s fun. It’s addictive. It’s better than going to clubs,” said Jackie Cyrus, a female rider who came from Houston for the Calvert trail ride.
A college-age woman said she just came for the concert after the trail ride. Horses freak her out, she said.
This particular trail ride was held to celebrate the life of Mozell “Pike” Williams IV, a local boy who died in a car accident in 2010. Williams’s mother, LaToya Lanham, said her son loved riding horses.
“That’s about all they do around here,” she said. “That’s the most fun they have.”
Lanham said she gets emotional when she sees so many people at the trail ride to honor what would have been her son’s 25th birthday.
“It makes me happy,” she said. “Sometimes I cry, but I don’t let people see me. All these people coming to celebrate my son’s day.”
As the blazing Texas sun started to sink behind the horizon, horses lined up beside ATVs, sports cars with revving engines, motorcycles and trolleys blasting a body-shaking mixture of zydeco and hip-hop.
“I’m so sorry, but there’s gonna be some cuss words in some songs,” a DJ announced as the trail ride passed the cemetery where Williams is buried.
The procession moved along dirt roads and on to the highway as the party began to amp up. Cowboys with beers in hand trotted beside trolleys that bounced up and down with women twerking off the side.
As trail rides have grown in popularity there has been controversy.
In 2010, St Landry Parish in Louisiana moved to ban the Step-N-Strut trail ride, an event so big it’s referred to as the Creole Woodstock. The town council said it was responding to complaints about the mess left after the ride – but the ban was accused of being discriminatory. Why ban trail rides when Cajun Mardi Gras – which attracts crowds as numerous and rowdy – is permitted?
The town eventually decided to regulate the number of attendees for trail rides and Mardi Gras, which was seen as a victory.
Swells of trail ride attendees have also caused spates of violence, including the shooting death of a 48-year-old man in June. “This is something that hardly ever happens. That’s exactly why it shook us so hard,” said Amos Patrick Cravins III, an organizer for the Stop the Violence movement, a musician-led group that aims to nip any trail-ride violence in the bud.
Since the recent shooting, Stop the Violence has hosted several events in Louisiana to promote non-violence and the “family-friendly” nature of trail riding. “Out of that tragedy, the good part I can say is we as a culture and a community have come together on a larger scale,” Cravins said. “It has us working harder to preserve our culture and keep the tradition going.”
Wearing a cowboy hat with a hole in the top exposing his smooth bald head, Calvert native Robert Brown, 46, said trail rides are very different from when he first started going as a toddler. Back then, there weren’t as many people. “Why? Because it wasn’t as popular,” he said. “Now everybody wants to be a cowboy.”
As an MC rapped in front of a boisterous crowd late into the night, Brown admitted he prefers the zydeco country line dancing of his youth, but he’s OK with younger people throwing their music into the mix. “We’ve made black trail rides our own. It’s the way we do,” he said. “Even though I don’t like a lot of this stuff, it’s still taking the legacy on.”
When asked about whether he’s faced any discrimination being a black cowboy in Texas, Brown said people are mostly surprised. “They feel like black people aren’t supposed to be cowboys – it’s a white thing,” he said.
But that makes him want to celebrate his culture, and trail rides, all the more. “The reasons we honor being a black cowboy is because of all the struggles we went through. Not just a black cowboy, to be a cowboy. To be respected.”
In Texas and Louisiana, a potent mix of zydeco, hip-hop and horses keeps an often overlooked tradition alive
September 21, 2018
by Joel Balsam in Calvert, Texas, with pictures by Stephanie Foden
The Guardian
 |
| Dee Davis checks out his horse at the trail ride. Photograph: Stephanie Foden |
Inside the vehicles, urbanites from Dallas and Houston slipped off their baseball caps and threw on their cowboy hats, swapping their shoes or flip-flops for cowboy boots.
The occasion was a Creole trail ride, a country party that features a procession, zydeco music, dancing and feasting that runs every weekend through spring and fall in Louisiana and east Texas. Trail rides date back decades, but if you’ve never heard of one before, you aren’t entirely at fault – there are centuries of revisionist history to blame for that.
 |
| Blay Jay sits on his horse at the trail ride before the activities start. Photograph: Stephanie Foden |
 |
| Dee Davis checks out his hourse at the trail ride. Photograph: Stephanie Foden |
Some even say the term “cowboy” derives from slave owners commanding to “go tend to the cow, boy,” though Andrew Sluyter, a history professor at Louisiana State University and the author of Black Ranching Frontiers, said there’s no hard evidence for that theory.
“Enslaved cowboys, vachères, in French, of African origin herded the cattle on the first French ranches established in south-west Louisiana, in the valley of Bayou Teche near Lafayette in the early 1760s, before the Acadians/Cajuns arrived,” Sluyter said. “Unlike their French masters, the Africans had long experienced herding cattle in the Sahel zone of west Africa.”
Prohibited from joining white-only rodeos, freed slaves and landowning Creoles practiced their own cowboy culture. At some point in the last half-century – no one can be sure – that culture started to take the form of trail rides. As oil work popped up in Texas, Creoles from Louisiana moved west, bringing their culture, and trail rides, along with them.
 |
| Sonya Jernigan, Derek Reed and Shaniqua Johnson in the back of a pickup truck at the trail ride. Darryl ‘Dingo’ Browning moderates riders on his horse at the trail ride in the background. Photograph: Stephanie Foden |
“It’s fun. It’s addictive. It’s better than going to clubs,” said Jackie Cyrus, a female rider who came from Houston for the Calvert trail ride.
A college-age woman said she just came for the concert after the trail ride. Horses freak her out, she said.
This particular trail ride was held to celebrate the life of Mozell “Pike” Williams IV, a local boy who died in a car accident in 2010. Williams’s mother, LaToya Lanham, said her son loved riding horses.
 |
| Riders walk, drive and ride in procession. Photograph: Stephanie Foden |
“That’s about all they do around here,” she said. “That’s the most fun they have.”
Lanham said she gets emotional when she sees so many people at the trail ride to honor what would have been her son’s 25th birthday.
“It makes me happy,” she said. “Sometimes I cry, but I don’t let people see me. All these people coming to celebrate my son’s day.”
As the blazing Texas sun started to sink behind the horizon, horses lined up beside ATVs, sports cars with revving engines, motorcycles and trolleys blasting a body-shaking mixture of zydeco and hip-hop.
 |
| Xavier McNeal and James Wilborn sit on a car at the trail ride. Photograph: Stephanie Foden |
“I’m so sorry, but there’s gonna be some cuss words in some songs,” a DJ announced as the trail ride passed the cemetery where Williams is buried.
The procession moved along dirt roads and on to the highway as the party began to amp up. Cowboys with beers in hand trotted beside trolleys that bounced up and down with women twerking off the side.
As trail rides have grown in popularity there has been controversy.
In 2010, St Landry Parish in Louisiana moved to ban the Step-N-Strut trail ride, an event so big it’s referred to as the Creole Woodstock. The town council said it was responding to complaints about the mess left after the ride – but the ban was accused of being discriminatory. Why ban trail rides when Cajun Mardi Gras – which attracts crowds as numerous and rowdy – is permitted?
The town eventually decided to regulate the number of attendees for trail rides and Mardi Gras, which was seen as a victory.
Swells of trail ride attendees have also caused spates of violence, including the shooting death of a 48-year-old man in June. “This is something that hardly ever happens. That’s exactly why it shook us so hard,” said Amos Patrick Cravins III, an organizer for the Stop the Violence movement, a musician-led group that aims to nip any trail-ride violence in the bud.
 |
| Dee Davis on his horse at the trail ride. Photograph: Stephanie Foden |
 |
| Tre’shon Brown holds his horse belt at the trail ride in Calvert. Photograph: Stephanie Foden |
Wearing a cowboy hat with a hole in the top exposing his smooth bald head, Calvert native Robert Brown, 46, said trail rides are very different from when he first started going as a toddler. Back then, there weren’t as many people. “Why? Because it wasn’t as popular,” he said. “Now everybody wants to be a cowboy.”
As an MC rapped in front of a boisterous crowd late into the night, Brown admitted he prefers the zydeco country line dancing of his youth, but he’s OK with younger people throwing their music into the mix. “We’ve made black trail rides our own. It’s the way we do,” he said. “Even though I don’t like a lot of this stuff, it’s still taking the legacy on.”
 |
| Eric Moody on his horse after the trail ride. Photograph: Stephanie Foden |
When asked about whether he’s faced any discrimination being a black cowboy in Texas, Brown said people are mostly surprised. “They feel like black people aren’t supposed to be cowboys – it’s a white thing,” he said.
But that makes him want to celebrate his culture, and trail rides, all the more. “The reasons we honor being a black cowboy is because of all the struggles we went through. Not just a black cowboy, to be a cowboy. To be respected.”
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