Pulitzer-winning photographer said he hopes to change the traditional John Wayne image of a cowboy and challenge the “whitewashed” cowboy narrative.
At some point during the Multicultural Western Heritage Trail Ride from Brackettville to San Antonio ’s Union Stock Yards for a cattle sale in 1994, photographer Ron Tarver decided he wanted an aerial shot to show the expanse of the Texas landscape.
Tarver had joined the diverse group of trail riders for a week to document their lifestyle. He found a man who said he had a helicopter service and agreed to meet him in a field. The man drove up a dusty road with a tiny helicopter in the back of his pickup and said, “Hop in.” The resulting photo isn’t in the book Tarver will release next month, but several others taken in and near San Antonio are, including the one on the cover, a profile portrait of a young cowboy. Called “The Long Ride Home: Black Cowboys in America,” the collection began as a photo essay in the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1993 but spans 30 years, with photos taken across the United States, including some unlikely urban settings. Tarver, the grandson of a working Oklahoma cowboy and a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist, says he wants to change the traditional John Wayne image of a cowboy and challenge the “whitewashed” cowboy narrative. “I want it to be beautiful images of this lifestyle, to make a distinction between the way we think about white cowboys, because Black cowboys are all over,” said Tarver, now a Pennsylvania resident and Swarthmore College art professor. The book includes a history noting that many enslaved Black men worked cattle in eastern Texas and Oklahoma before the Civil War. Newly freed Black men were hired in Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri to work in cattle drives, and by one estimate, at least one-fifth of those herding cattle on the trails north out of Texas were Black. RELATED: A horsed named Cadillac, and China Grove memories in Bexar County Jordan Peele, the Oscar-winning director of psychological horror films with racial themes like “Nope,” which portrays a modern-day Black cowboy, recently announced he is making a three-part documentary series about Black cowboys for the streaming service Peacock. His production company asked Tarver for the use of some of his photos. Tarver sent them a portfolio, including images from Philadelphia and some from that San Antonio trail ride. Tarver credits “Nope” and other film, music and fashion references in pop culture, including Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” and Beyoncé's “Cowboy Carter,” for introducing Black Western culture to a modern-day audience. “It just put it out there in the zeitgeist even more, you know?” he said. Part of the reason Tarver didn’t turn his collection into a book sooner is that there just wasn’t enough interest, he said. One acquisition editor told him there was “no such thing as Black cowboys,” he remembers. That was around 2004. “Well,” Tarver said, “I have about 20,000 slides that say there are.”
Please follow us on Google to support us Swarthmore College Philadelphia Inquirer Lil Nas X Cadillac Ron Tarver Black Ordan Peele John Wayne Beyoncé Cowboy Carter Peacock San Antonio Brackettville Texas Oklahoma United States Connecticut Nebraska Kansas Missouri Philadelphia Black Western Old Town Road China Grove Bexar County Multicultural Western Heritage Trail Ride Civil War Pulitzer Nope Oscar The Long Ride Home: Black Cowboys In America
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