Hard Things Come Before Good Things

"Hard things come before good things."

Over the weekend, I watched a really good Netflix movie called, Concrete Cowboys. A black kid named Cole from Detroit was expelled from his high school, and his mom sent him to live with his dad, Harp, in Philadelphia. In his dad's inner-city home was a horse, and the kid quickly realized that he was living in a different place at a seemingly different time.

Harp lived in a neighborhood where they still bred, took care of, and rode horses. Around a fire one night, the elders in the neighborhood told stories about how they created the neighborhood generations ago, and while most of the country transitioned from horses to cars, they held onto their love of horses. Harp lived in a community of Black horse riders at the Fletcher Street stables, where he helped maintain and care for the horses. The stables are the foundation and bedrock of the neighborhood, and they provide a safe haven from the challenges the people face in their everyday lives.

While Hollywood westerns have popularized the image of the sharp-shooting and fearless, white cowboy, this film touches on how black cowboys heavily influenced our country. Historians estimate that one in every four cowboys was Black.

When Cole moved to his dad's neighborhood, his dad told him that he had to earn his keep. One of the messages that was shared early in the film was, "Hard things come before good things." Cole asked his dad about the opportunity to ride horses, and his dad told him that he had to learn how to take care of them before he could learn how to ride them.

The people in the neighborhood taught him how to take care of the horses, and they taught him the importance of taking care of the horses.

We hear the idiom, "Don't put the cart in before the horse." This was a movie version of that quote. We have to earn our opportunities before we can enjoy them. Don't be afraid to put in the work. But also, it is important to know REAL history. Much of what we know about Western culture and 'Cowboys and Indians' are tales of real, black cowboys.