Every now and then, a documentary comes along that doesn’t just inform you — it shifts something in you. High Horse: The Black Cowboys, the new three-part docuseries directed by Jason Perez and executive produced by Jordan Peele, is one of those rare projects. It’s educational, it’s soulful, it’s beautifully shot… and honestly, it feels overdue.
From the very first five minutes, High Horse made me sit up a little straighter. I learned something I’ve never been taught in any history class: the word cowboy — arguably the most “American” term we have — was originally used as a slur for Black men working cattle. White men were “cowhands.” Black men doing the exact same job were “cowboys,” because calling a grown Black man “boy” was another way to demean him. Yet here we are, generations later, with people unaware that even the language of the American West is rooted in anti-Blackness.
And that’s exactly why this docuseries is so necessary.
A History We Should Have Known All Along
Part 1 of High Horse focuses squarely on Black cowboys — not as background figures, not as myths, but as the people who built the West. Their techniques, their traditions, their stories are the blueprint of the cowboy culture celebrated across America.
Part 2 pulls the curtain back even further, diving into land theft and the erasure of Black ownership. If you’ve ever listened to anything about Black farmland, you already know how deep the generational losses run. But High Horse lays it out with clarity and heart, showing just how much was stolen — and how much has survived through resilience.
Part 3 shifts into music, culture, and the artistry born from Black cowboy life. And listen… when you see how country, folk, blues, and Western aesthetics evolved from us, you can’t unsee it. The doc connects the dots between identity, sound, and history in a way that’s powerful without ever feeling like a lecture.
Throughout all three parts, the series touches on food, film, family lineages, and the everyday lives of real Black cowboys and cowgirls today. The through-line? That our impact on American history is deeper, wider, and far more foundational than this country ever admits.
The doc features cultural icons and voices who add richness and weight to the story — Pam Grier, Bun B, Rick Ross, Lori Harvey, Glynn Turman, Blanco Brown, Lynae Vanee, The Compton Cowboys and more. The minute Lynae Vanee popped up, I knew we were locked in for a good time. Her cadence, her clarity, her intellect — she always elevates a conversation.
But what really grounds High Horse are the real families and descendants whose histories didn’t begin on a Hollywood set. Their stories make this history feel intimate, not distant — something that belongs to all of us.
Add to that an original score by Raphael Saadiq and executive producers like Peele, Win Rosenfeld, Keisha Senter, Jamal Watson, and Keith McQuirter, and you feel the intention behind every frame. This wasn’t made to entertain you. It was made to heal something.
Reclaiming What Was Always Ours
What High Horse does exceptionally well is give language and visibility to a lineage that’s been distorted, whitewashed, and outright stolen. When America strips all of us — not just Black people — of an honest education, we grow up believing certain spaces aren’t ours. Meanwhile, white America grows up believing in an ownership that was never rooted in truth.
As Tina Knowles says in the series, “We’re not rewriting history — we’re straightening it out.” And that’s exactly how High Horse lands. Straightening. Realigning. Re-centering.
If more people knew this history, we’d walk into these spaces differently. We’d claim cowboy culture as ours from the start. We’d understand our place in every layer of American identity instead of having to fight for acknowledgment every generation.
Watching High Horse introduced me to artists I didn’t know, stories I hadn’t heard, and chapters of American life that were intentionally left out of classrooms. It opened up a whole world of Black cowboy and cowgirl culture that I’m now diving even deeper into.
And that’s the beauty of this project: it makes you curious. It makes you proud. It makes you want to fill in every gap that America left blank.
High Horse: The Black Cowboys is more than a documentary — it’s a recalibration. It’s a reminder that the contributions of Black Americans aren’t footnotes in this country’s story. They are the story.