The little-known history of the Black ‘Concrete Cowboy’
In Philadelphia, a Black cowboy in a white undershirt and a gold chain wrangles a wayward horse. Teens pile hay and clean up manure near brick row houses. Men and women ride cantering horses down a city street as cars pass by.
These are scenes from “Concrete Cowboy,” a new Netflix movie starring Idris Elba and Caleb McLaughlin. But they’re also the reality in parts of north Philly, where the movie was filmed and a subculture of urban Black cowboys has existed for more than a century.
“It’s a real community that exists right now and has been part of Philadelphia … and other urban cities around America for over 100 years,” Elba said on the “Today” show earlier this month. “These communities had these beautiful animals as part of their lifeblood. And when the motorcars came, the Black folk kept the horses as part of the fabric of their communities.”
Jessica KourkounisNetflix
Gentrification, or what can also be described as modern-day colonialism, has always been an invasive parasitic process and a severe detriment to the Black community. In North Philadelphia’s Strawberry Mansion neighborhood, gentrification and harmful city mandates are threatening the survival of the Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club (FSURC), a Black-owned and -operated horseback-riding group that mentors neighborhood children by teaching the century-long tradition of urban horsemanship. The community s fight has gained plenty of media coverage and, more recently, has made its way to the screen with Netflix’s
The film introduces a new kind of Western, one that isn’t set on the ranch, but instead on busy city streets. It features Caleb McLaughlin as Cole, a teen who after getting in trouble at school is sent to live with his estranged father and Fletcher Street stable owner, Harp (played by Idris Elba). The story is 100 percent fictionalized and based
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LOS ANGELES — It was a story Randy Savvy had heard countless times before: Another Black man had been killed in Compton. Hearts and lives were shattered. A community grieved.
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It was a story Randy Savvy had heard countless times before: Another Black man had been killed in Compton. Hearts and lives were shattered. A community grieved.
In early 2020, Savvy, born Randall Hook, learned that a friend’s boyfriend was fatally wounded by gunfire on his way to a store.
Savvy, 31, understood her grief. He’s lost loved ones to gang violence too.
He wrote “Colorblind,” his first single, in response.
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“That song came from a really inspired place of thinking about the life that we live in inner cities, how we lose lives and how it just seems to be a normal way of life in our culture,” said Savvy in a phone interview. “It’s a toxic, tragic cycle: People die. There’s a little celebration to honor their life. Then the next person dies and the same thing happens. The next person dies and the same thing.