As a boy, Miles Dean pretended to be John Wayne; imagining that his bicycle was his trusty steed as he shot Indians through the handlebars while cruising the streets of Brooklyn.
I wanted to be a cowboy,” says Dean, now 59. “But I grew to an age where I became uncomfortable being John Wayne because John Wayne was white and I didn’t see any black cowboys.”
Dean soon learned that numerous African-American pioneers made history during this nation’s earliest years, but he also never outgrew his dreams of being a cowboy, learning to ride horses, and competing in speed and endurance contests.
Those experiences, combined with a teacher’s desire to educate, and an inborn wanderlust, led to an almost unbelievable journey: Dean rode on horseback from New York City to Los Angeles, traveling more than 5,000 miles through 13 states.
At the journey’s start – at the African Burial Ground Memorial – and at the end – at the California African-American Museum – Dean invited the same Yoruba priest to give a blessing.
“I took my hat off to my ancestors when I started my journey, and I genuflected to them when I ended it,” Dean says.
Dean rode 46 miles on his longest day, five on his shortest. He rode through sandstorms and rain, through 95-degree weather in the Arizona desert and a chill so cold that his glasses iced up in Texas. Once trapped on a very steep California mountain ridge, he had to dismount and walk his horse down on foot.
Most often, that mount was a honey-colored stallion, whose name, Sankofa, means, “to return to the source,” in Ghanaian. Dean estimates the trip cost him close to $100,000 – his life savings, donations and loans. The journey, which began on September 22, took six months, one week, and one day.
Dean looks every bit a cowboy in his black boots, straw cowboy hat and snakeskin belt buckle the size of a saucer. He tells his story while sitting in the backyard of his New Jersey home as Sankofa lolls around in a dirt corral nearby. He admits he did not appreciate the enormity of his journey until he drove himself home afterward.
“It was overwhelming,” he says. “How did we cross this desert? How did we get over that mountain? If I had taken it all in on the way out, I may not have accomplished it.”
Dean is a language arts teacher in Newark, he used the trip to combine his love for riding, and a desire to honor places where African-Americans made a mark during the years of horse travel, from about 1500 to 1800.
Before he left on his journey, he incorporated some of that history into the lessons he gave his 5th grade students; back in the classroom, while he was away, his students studied the stories of his journey. Dean eventually set up a website with photographs and videos, documenting his trip. (www.blackheritageriders.org.)
One of those stories lay in the history of the Kentucky Derby. An African-American jockey, not surprising given the fact that most jockeys of that day were black, won the first Derby, run in 1875.
“There is a statue in Kentucky of the horse,” Dean notes wryly, “but no statue of the jockey.”
Dean says the Derby, dominated by black jockeys for years – also included rider Isaac Murphy who has the highest number of winnings in Derby history, but the Kentucky Horse Park commemorates him with only a tiny bust. When Dean visited the park in Lexington, photojournalists planted themselves by a life-size statue of the famous horse Man o’ War, expecting Dean to stop there to pay homage. Dean had other plans.
“I rode right past Man o’ War,” Dean says. The photographers scrambled. “I stopped and pointed to the little small bust of Isaac Murphy and I said, ‘That is the person I’ve come to see.’"
Dean’s quest also brought him to Tennessee, home to the Battle of Nashville, a turning point in the Civil War. When he visited a memorial there, Dean wanted to find the graves of the 1,600 black soldiers who died in battle, but had to ride all the way to the back of the cemetery to find them.
Both in planning the trip and along the journey, Dean says he felt “the presence of my ancestors.”
“I’m not a religious man, I’m a very spiritual man, but I felt they were behind me 100 percent, and they were going to see that this came to fruition,” he says. “When things needed to appear, they would appear.”
For example, Dean says he knew he needed a horse trailer with living space to follow him along the way with supplies. A family member surprised him by donating $10,000 toward the vehicle.
Throughout his trip, dozens of people – mostly strangers – offered to help him. When travelling through Nashville, Dean contacted the police department about an escort through the city, and Lt. William Kenneth Dyer invited Dean to stay for the night.
“I felt it was the humanitarian thing to do,” says Dyer, who is also a horse owner. Dyer did not know about Dean’s mission before he met the man, but was familiar with tales of black soldiers in the Civil War.
“It is a decent thing he was doing, the message he was getting out,” says Dyer.
Lynndell Johnson, a California teacher and self-proclaimed “black cowgirl,” heard about Dean’s trip through an email network of horse enthusiasts. She spent a month following Dean in the trailer or scouting locations for a filmmaker.
“It was a once in a lifetime, history-making event,” she says. “I believe the word needs to get out so people can be aware of the contributions that African Americans made for our great country.”
Dean jokes that he rode through West Virginia with only one hand on the reigns, waving to every passing driver on the way.
“As I rode further west, rodeos and livestock auction houses put me up,” he says. “The cowboys took care of me.”
The trip was not without low points. Money was always tight. In Maryland, Sankofa lost two horseshoes and ended up with abscesses on his hoofs that cost Dean hundreds of dollars in veterinarian bills and days of lost time. He suffered from back, leg and kidney problems so bad that in Texas he had to rest for days.
However, the bright spots far outshined the dark. Dean says he visited a youth prison in Texas, and at the end of his visit; one young man came to him and talked about his young daughter.
“He said ‘From this day forward I’m going to dedicate the rest of my life to her,’ ” Dean says. It was a moment that fit perfectly with Dean’s philosophy. “I’m only one man,” he says. “If I influence one child positively in my lifetime, I’ve done my life’s work, except that every day, I wake up with the same philosophy: One man, one child.”
Dean is still mulling what to do next with the cross-country trip, considering a book or a documentary. However, he knows what he would like to do for his next adventure – drive 1,000 horses into Louisville, KY, in honor of African-American jockeys like Isaac Murphy.
Why 1,000 horses? Dean pauses, flashes a broad, mischievous grin, and says, “Why not?”