Four generations of a Navajo family led a five-day horseback ride last month to the tribal capital of Window Rock to register new voters ahead of the November election. It is the second presidential election that the group Protect the Sacred has worked to increase participation on the vast, mostly rural, reservation where residents often face barriers to voting. The group’s final leg of the journey began at 7,750 feet atop the Defiance Plateau where horses are unloaded on a dirt road off Highway 264, just west of the Navajo Nation capital of Window Rock.
Lucinda Young and her 12-year-old son Latham are the first to unload their horses, Corona and Pony, from their bumper trailer. The group has ridden 45 miles through seven Navajo, or Diné, communities. Lucinda pauses to speak as she steadies Corona while Latham untangles the tack.
Lucinda is one of 20 “Saddle Up For Change” riders who have registered nearly 200 new voters this week. Almost 70,000 eligible Navajo voters are registered in Arizona; they’re courted by both Democrats and Republicans despite decades of fighting for their own voting rights. Lucinda grows emotional as she recounts how this trail ride continues her family’s legacy of civic engagement.
“My mother used to campaign and donate a sheep, prepare it for meals and serve voters. In remembrance of her, it's important to continue to carry that tradition to promote voting,” she says.
Diné consider the horse sacred and before the automobile they used them as primary transportation, including traveling by horseback for days to cast ballots.
“It's important to be part of this trail ride because,” Lucinda says with a sigh, “it took a long while for us Navajo people to vote. Our forefathers, grandmothers, once they were given the ability to vote, they rode to the polls. Horses have been important to the Native American and represent many things,” Lucinda says.
Lucinda’s brother Frank Young trots up alongside Lucinda on his horse Lady Knight. The ride was his idea ahead of the 2020 election, in which Natives were critical to President Joe Biden’s narrow Arizona victory. Frank says the horses have a magnetic presence as they travel between six chapter houses, providing both a conversation starter and cultural touchstone.
“Our culture is deep-rooted in horse culture,” says Frank. “We're the keeper of the horse, and they're our protectors. The horse travels on arrowheads underneath its hoof and those tracks, they fend off the bad and always bring us the good,” Frank says. “My ancestors had no vehicles. The only way they went to go vote was riding horses. We want to experience that in their memory.”
Frank’s daughter Allie Young runs the non-partisan Protect the Sacred to register new voters and ensure existing rolls are correct. During the ride she says - they have verified or updated the voter registration status of upwards of 400 Diné citizens. The horses elicit excitement from those old enough to remember riding to the polls.
“When we stopped in Many Farms, there was an, ahh, elder, a grandma that came over and she goes, ‘Everyone's talking about you and the trail ride’,” Allie says. “My father and I have been reminiscing about when we first started four years ago. In our culture, four is a sacred number.”
Many on the Navajo Nation lack a physical address and poll workers sometimes wrongly reject tribal IDs or federal certificates of Indian Blood as identification—all barriers to voting.
“We’ve been hearing voters are registered in the wrong county, because we're used to describing where we live, giving directions to our relatives, by saying ‘We’re eight miles down this road and turn at that tree, then go four miles that way.
Allie also says residents in remote areas of Navajo can have little contact with election officials.
“The worst story I heard was when we stopped at the senior center in Rough Rock, some of the elders there are talking about how they don't come out here. They don't come see us, because we're too far,” she says.
A 2022 Arizona law requires proof of U.S. citizenship for voter registration. It is yet another hurdle according to Allie.
“It is truly disrespectful, a slap in the face to ask Indigenous peoples to prove their citizenship in 2024. In our own ancestral homelands. We were here first, and they're on the wrong side of history,” she says.
But grassroots efforts like this are paying off. In the last general election her group registered more than 100 people.
“Between 2020 to now, the native vote is stronger, the momentum's building,” Allie says. “When we're talking to people, thankfully because of that, a lot of people are already registered and that's a really good thing. You know, disenfranchised communities, we're always fighting. Fighting. That's why we bring these events to our communities because we should also celebrate. We should also build in some fun for our communities.”
The day before Allie and her father Frank had led three other riders 7 1/2 miles from the Ganado Chapter House in Navajo County to here, just outside St. Michaels in Apache County. Allie’s grandfather, champion bull rider Stanley, recites a prayer and blesses the group in Diné bizaad, the Navajo language, before they saddle up.
Frank Young imagines what his ancestors went through. “They were tough people,” he says. “They used to ride from Kayenta to here, to the capital Window Rock. We've been riding all week and I'm pretty tired. And I just thought, wow, how tough they were.”
The riders depart the staging area, skirt a cattle guard by crossing through a barbed wire gate then begin their descent alongside the highway, weaving in and out of the breakdown lane and ditch. Honks of support from passing cars sound as the group canters toward Window Rock. They end their ride at the Navajo Nation Museum with another voter registration stop and a bull riding competition.
“Our ancestors fought for our sovereignty,” Frank says. “We wanna let them know that we're still here, fighting for something sacred to them. And through the horse connecting with them, we're gonna protect that sacred and fight disenfranchisement.”
