Black Protest and the Man on Horseback: Race, Animality, and Equestrian Counter-Conduct

This paper explores the history and political significance of black horsemen and horsewomen, using the appearance of mounted protesters at the 2020 Black Lives Matter rallies in the US to consider the role of the horse as both an adjunct of authority, in symbol and in material power, and as a partner in forms of protest and resistance. This paper begins with the brute power of the horse, and through its military and policing duties, its role supporting state authority. But we underline the racial framing of “the man on horseback,” using this figure not merely as a metaphor for military authority but as a representation of racialized power and as an adjunct to racial regimes. The significance of this figure is explored through the history of black horse riders and the “threat” that the image of the black rider poses to majority white culture. We examine the political value of placing black horse riders in the position of authority long claimed by white men and celebrated in public statuary and in art. The final section considers the black horsewoman, however, warning against disconnecting the martial model of masculinity from gender privileges as well as racial ones. The paper uses the example of black horsewomanship to argue for a better understanding of the partnership between human and nonhuman. In the performative politics of assembly that we call “political dressage” we suggest a distinctively more-than-human variety of “counter-conduct.”