Watchlist: ‘Activist leads horseback ride to mobilize Native American voters’

By Kamiah Koch

Social media/digital journalist

Leading up to the 2024 election, a lot of news coverage showed endless lines of people waiting to cast their votes. To provide a different perspective, an ABC News clip instead showed a group of Indigenous voters riding their horses to the polls.

Navajo Tribal member Allie Redhorse Young organized 100 voters to ride on horseback to their polling station in Arizona as part of a campaign to mobilize Indigenous voters.

 “I have always been taught that when we are mounted on the horse, we carry this horse medicine,” she said. “It comes into our spirit, it re-centers us and brings us back into a spiritual balance. That is what I want our people to do here in the Navajo Nation, to be centered, to be grounded and to carry this medicine to the polling location.”

In the interview, Redhorse Young, sitting atop her horse, Lady Knight, emphasized voters to be grounded in their culture as they vote.

To Redhorse Young and others, the “Ride to the Polls” campaign began in 2020 to register new voters in person and online. This election was described as one of the most important rides of her life.

“Tribal sovereignty is at stake in this election,” Redhorse Young said. “We are defending it and making sure our Tribal sovereignty is respected, our lands, our water, our culture and our languages.”

Redhorse Young described the special nation-to-nation relationship between the Tribal governments and the federal government. As citizens of America and their Tribal nations, they are demanding that elected leaders live up to the signed treaty obligations and meet Native peoples’ demands. 

You can watch the entire ABC News interview with Allie Redhorse Young on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMKT5FyNHqY&t=87s.