Seventeen years after his demise, Bill Cooper retains considerable name recognition on 125th Street. Mention of him and/or Behold a Pale Horse rang a bell with a surprisingly high number of people of a certain age who identified themselves as longtime Harlem residents.
“Most people, anyone who once thought of themselves as radical in any way, knows William Cooper,” said one dapper-looking man standing under the marquee of the Apollo. “Behold a Pale Horse, we used to just call it ‘The Book.’ ” Others recalled talks given by the late Steve Cokely, an African-American independent researcher–street speaker who occasionally referenced Cooper. In the middle of a presentation on topics like Cointelpro, Cokely would pick up a copy of Behold a Pale Horse and say, “Let’s see what the white boy has to say about this.”
Still one of the most-shoplifted books in Barnes & Noble history, the popularity of Behold a Pale Horse began in prison, places like Attica, Clinton/Dannemora, Green Haven, and Sing Sing, where Cooper’s extreme paranoid view made complete sense. Besides, as Bro. Nova said, “Where else were people going to read it? Back then everyone was in jail. Or dead.”
This had the ring of truth. In 1990 and 1991, 5,077 people were murdered in New York, by far the highest two-year total in city history. It was the crack plague, and a new generation of griots arose to speak truth to the ongoing trauma of urban life. Many of the rappers who emerged during the early 1990s, the great Wu-Tangs, the formidable Nas of the Queensbridge Houses, were deeply influenced by the Five Percenters, a.k.a. the Nation of Gods and Earths. The movement had been founded in the late 1960s by Clarence Edward Smith, a.k.a. Clarence 13X, and eventually “Father Allah.” Kicked out of Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam for heresy and gambling, Father Allah said it was necessary for black men and women to become “lyrical assassins.” The tongue was “the sword,” Father Allah said, and when properly sharpened, it could “take more heads with the word than any army with machine guns could ever do.”
For many lyrical assassins, Bill Cooper’s Behold a Pale Horse became a key text. Rappers who have mentioned Cooper or his book include the Wu-Tang Clan, Big Daddy Kane, Busta Rhymes, Tupac Shakur, Talib Kweli, Nas, Rakim, Poor Righteous Teachers, Gang Starr, Goodie Mob, Suicideboys, Boogiemonsters, Wise Intelligent, Public Enemy, Miz MAF, Aslan, Lord Allah, Ras Kass, and the Lost Children of Babylon, who told their listeners to prepare to meet your fate “like William Cooper … when the storm troopers breach your gate.”
