The Hard Ride

Streaming video - 1996

An intimate look at black cowboys as they gather for a rodeo and dance on the 40 acre Circle 6 Ranch in Raywood, Texas. A dirt road leads onto the ranch, where all of the structures, including a frame house, rodeo arena, and barn, are hand-wrought. A.J. Walker, his wife Pam, and his son, Anthony, are preparing for the monthly rodeo. This rodeo, which draws from the surrounding communities, is very much a family operation. Black cowboys drive their horsetrailers onto the ranch. A.J. Walker reveals that as many as four generations of cowboys are involved in this event. Before he and his father started this ranch fifty years ago, Walker himself had worked as a cowboy on white-owned ranches in this area of southeast Texas and because of the rac...ial discrimination against black cowboys, he decided start his own rodeo. In the film poignant stories and songs, as well as foodways, crafts, blues, zydeco, and cowboy poetry evoke the unique ways this community has combined Anglo-European traditions with distinct African-American perspectives. more