Support Olivia Roque's Documentary Film, Urban Reigns!

Hello! My name is Olivia Graciela Roque and I'm an award-winning filmmaker and Film & Media Arts student in the Documentary Directing Concentration and receiving a minor in Latin-American Studies at Temple University.

My Senior Thesis film, Urban Reigns, is a documentary short film that aims to investigate Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club and explore the North Philadelphia horseback riding community and its histories. Through observational modes of documentary filmmaking, interviews, and the capturing of glimpses of everyday life at the stables in Strawberry Mansion, Philadelphia, the film tells the story of the tight-knit organization and the work they do to reach their ultimate goal of keeping children and young adults off the streets.

While the organization has been officially around since 2004, the club and its traditions have been around for nearly a century. The tradition of Black Horsemanship has served as a positive influence on the surrounding North Philadelphia community. The organization has garnered massive attention in media and popular culture over the past few years, as they have been featured in an episode of the PBS television program, This American Life, as well as through the 2019 Netflix film, Concrete Cowboy. While Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club has plenty of attention from individuals worldwide, the organization still needs help as a means of growing their organization and their mission on reaching out and helping with the local community in Strawberry Mansion. By capturing the work that Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club does at the stables, as well as the community events they host, the film will spread awareness on the organization and help in reaching their goals, while also sharing the deep, forgotten histories and traditions of Black Horsemanship in the United States.

As someone who was raised in North Texas, a region so rich with “Cowboy Culture,” the idea of Black Cowboys was not very familiar to me and many others. Due to the whitewashed histories of cowboy culture and horsemanship, much of the history of Black horsemanship has been swept under the rug and forgotten. with the recent resurgence of Western Americana in fashion and pop culture, an interest in Black cowboy culture has emerged.

What fascinates me most about Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club, also known as FSURC, is that they are representing Black cowboy culture in an urban Northeastern setting, unlike the rural settings of the American Southwest. FSURC carries out traditions of Black horsemanship that have been around for nearly a century. Personally, I feel that I still have to learn more about these histories, as there is so much to comb through and research. Overall, through this project, I would like to investigate such histories, FSURC's mission, and the impact they have left on the local North Philadelphia community.

While the film has been completed, funds from this campaign will go towards transportation costs, storage costs (harddrives, SD cards, etc.), equipment costs, film festival submission costs, and printing for a zine that coincides with the film! The remainder of the proceeds will go directly to Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club to aid with needs inside and outside of the stables!

You can read more about Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club at their website here: https://fsurc.com/

Thank you so much for donating and sharing!

Olivia Graciela Roque