May/June 2024 Issue

EAST COAST EQUESTRIAN May/June 2024 Page 45 Real Estate Group Celebrates the History of Black Cowboys By Amy Worden Long before Buffalo Bill and the Wild West shows and John Wayne and Hollywood popularized the idea of the rough-and-tumble horsemen, riding the range and protect- ing their herds and families, enslaved men of African and Spanish descent were working cattle in Mexico and the Carib- bean. Last year DNA analysis of bones linked to African cattle were found in Mexico, indicating that the first cowboys in North America likely were Black, researchers say. A number of groups in the U.S., led by the New York City Federation of Black Cowboys, have made it their mission to recognize and celebrate that rich equestrian culture that has thrived despite discrimination and seg- regation. Among those groups today, the Crazy Faith Riders of New Jersey. In 2006, at a federation prayer breakfast, New Jersey’s only African American faith- based riding club was formed. Shortly after the group’s creation, Tammy Harris met one of the founders through her work in real estate and the next thing she knew, she caught the horse bug, joined the group – becoming its first female member – and bought a farm in Hunterdon County, the heart of the New Jersey horse country. Soon she not only owned a horse but was boarding other members’ horses. Harris, now the group’s president, said she had farming in her blood; her family farmed on the Jersey Shore generations ago, (Continued on page 50) Tammy Harris, president and first female member of the Crazy Faith Riders of New Jersey, participated in a funeral procession for a member who passed away in Harrisburg, PA. The group was formed to celebrate the culture of the Black cowboy, probably North America’s first cowboys.