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East side horsemen keep Western history alive

Juneteenth paves the trail for local cowboys and trail riders.

SAN ANTONIO — The urban horsemen on San Antonio’s east side may not all look like typical cowboys, but according to 23-year-old Brady Woods, “If you call them out, they’ll rope you up in a flash.”

They are a quiet community with a loud history rooting back as far as the 1800s. The east side horsemen are keeping the Western spirit alive through professional African American rodeo cowboys and popular trail riders. Woods said he’s been hooked on horsemanship for more than 18 years.

“It’s just one of the things I seen and wanted to do, and by the grace of God, I was pretty successful at it,” he said.

Although he’s proud of his African American heritage, he learned early on that true horsemanship has nothing to do with the color of his skin. “It’s all about what you do, how you do it, and the style you do it in,” he said.

At first glance, you may not see the deep roots of professional black horsemanship in the young men on the east side, but you can’t judge a book by its cover.

RELATED: African-American horsemen bring Western culture to San Antonio's east side

“They’ll look at him and ‘Ah, yeah, he’s just a young thug,” and all that. People used to think that about us, coming from out here, when we’d go to the rodeos and all that, and then a lot of people got to sit down and get to know us. They got to see, ‘Ah, he’s just like us.’ You can’t judge people by their hair or by the gold teeth in their mouth,” said Woods.

June 19, 1865, General Gordon Granger’s declaration echoed from the beaches of Galveston through the state of Texas. Many slaves who worked on ranches took their experience and their freedom into the horseman industry. Many families have upheld the Western lifestyle through the generations. Now, whether they’re training for a rodeo or just ordering to-go chicken on horseback, they’re proud to be east side horsemen.

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