August 3, 2026
Throughout U.S. history, horses have also played a role in Black and Indigenous political movements and land sovereignty projects.
In 2016 and 2017, the Standing Rock Sioux and their allies protested against the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline, which threatened their ancestral lands and water supplies. At the water protectors’ camp in North Dakota, horses were a common sight. Native protestors would patrol the camp on horseback to keep a lookout for law enforcement officers. At a standoff between protestors and security forces in November 2016, Democracy Now! journalist Amy Goodman interviewed a protestor who had brought their horses from Crow Creek, South Dakota. “We protected our water, and we did a good job at doing it,” the protestor told Goodman after the crowd refused to back down from pepper spray and attack dogs. In Ryan Vizzions’ iconic photo “Defend the Sacred,” a Standing Rock protestor on horseback faces a row of police officers and armored vehicles. While the rider is alone with their horse, this image is a far cry from the lone cowboy in the ICE recruitment ad. They face the police officers while knowing that entire communities are supporting them. Here, the horse and rider are not symbols of brash individualism or allegiance to a flag, but part of vast, multispecies networks that are fighting for the survival of current and future generations. The Standing Rock rider and their horse are part of a collective movement, an intergenerational struggle for the wellbeing of land, water, and people.
