Major Taylor Read online

  Copyright © 2014 by Conrad Kerber and Terry Kerber

  Foreword © 2014 by Greg LeMond

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

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  Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders. If any unintended omissions have been made, the authors would be pleased to add appropriate acknowledgments in future printings.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  ISBN: 978-1-62873-661-8

  eISBN: 978-1-62914-021-6

  Printed in the United States of America

  “Cycle tracks will abound in Utopia.”

  —H. G. Wells

  CONTENTS

  Foreword by Greg LeMond

  Prologue

  PART I

  Chapter 1 The War between Wheelmen and Horsemen

  Chapter 2 Zimmie and the Birdman

  Chapter 3 All that Remained of a Black Desperado

  Chapter 4 Prisoners in a Golden Cage

  Chapter 5 Utopia

  Chapter 6 The Fighting Showman from the West

  PART II

  Chapter 7 Six Days of Madness

  Chapter 8 Black and white, Darkness and Light

  Chapter 9 Guiding Light

  Chapter 10 The Boys Would Gladly Make Him White

  Chapter 11 The Weight of the World

  Chapter 12 Under the Cycle Moon

  Chapter 13 And Then There Were None

  Chapter 14 Edmond Jacquelin

  Chapter 15 “The Messiah”

  Chapter 16 The First World War

  Chapter 17 The Second World War

  Chapter 18 The Last Black Face in America

  Chapter 19 Royal Honeymoon

  PART III

  Chapter 20 Going Down Under

  Chapter 21 Lazarus

  Chapter 22 My Darling Wife, I Want to Come Home

  Chapter 23 Humility

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Notes

  Index

  Photo Insert

  FOREWORD

  BY GREG LEMOND

  Major Taylor’s extraordinary story of triumph over adversity is near and dear to my heart. In order to reach the pinnacle of their chosen sport, all professional athletes have to endure countless setbacks and unforeseen hardships. It is, in fact, their singular capacity to endure such hardships that often separates them from their competitors. And it is when they reach their lowest ebb, with thoughts of giving up racing in their heads, that they inevitably seek inspiration from those pioneering souls who suffered and endured before them.

  For me, that nadir presented itself while hunting with relatives shortly after becoming the only American to win the Tour de France. It was the spring of 1987; I was just twenty-six years old, a two-time World Champion, seemingly on my way to a string of consecutive Tour wins. It was as if I was on top of the world. But while camouflaging behind spring foliage near the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas that spring morning, scouring the bushy landscape for turkeys, the world as I knew it twisted upside down.

  There was the startling sound of shotgun fire from behind me, the sulfurous odor of spent shells, the sight of scattering birds, and the piercing pain of sixty pellets lodging in my heart lining, liver, back, arms, and legs. I slipped into a surreal state of shock, largely detached from the world around me. As if from out of nowhere, the twirling blades of a helicopter soon swooped down from the sky. Within minutes, I lay recumbent in a hospital bed, a few breaths away from bleeding to death.

  Instead of looking forward to the July day when I could defend my yellow jersey, I spent the next two years hobbling in and out of hospitals, fretting over my physical and mental health. I was concerned about my contract and my ability to pursue my life’s passion. I convalesced, searching for answers and inspiration.

  Eighty-three years earlier, a similar cloud hung over Taylor’s seven-bedroom home in Worcester, Massachusetts. In 1904, during a match race in front of yet another packed house at a bike track in Australia, Taylor was knocked unconscious by the wheels of an envious rival. He spent the next two years away from the sport he loved. He slid into a state of depression, struggling to overcome nearly a decade of racial abuse, both physical and emotional.

  Though we captivated the racing world with our attempted comebacks, both of us were left with divergent scars. I still have numerous lead pellets embedded in my heart lining, arms, and legs, which act as a constant reminder of how precious life is and how close I was to an early, shocking death. Taylor’s racial scars, like the sins of our nation’s past, could never be removed. His entire life story, deftly recited in all its drama by authors Conrad Kerber and Terry Kerber, is the stuff of legends, especially his courageous fight to become sprint champion of America and then world champion, and his highly publicized match race against French Triple-Crown winner Edmond Jaquelin. But it was his comeback that has inspired me the most over the years, as well as the honest and ethical way he lived his life.

  There are so many lessons in the pages of this epic story, but perhaps none are nobler than Taylor’s transcendent ability to forgive those who tormented him on and off bike tracks. That is why I was honored to speak at the unveiling of the Major Taylor statue at the Worcester Public Library, to stand in the very city that sheltered him from the racial storms a century before. I am equally honored to write the foreword to this engrossing book, written by two gifted writers and passionate cycling fans who just happen to live near my suburban Twin Cities’ home. As the sport of bike racing and our nation attempt to transition to a new and refreshing era of transparency, we would all be well-served to seek wisdom and guidance from the lessons left behind by this remarkable sportsman.

  PROLOGUE

  In 1907, amid a time of unspeakable racial cruelty, the world’s most popular athlete was not pitcher Cy Young or Christy Mathewson. It wasn’t shortstop Honus Wagner, center fielder Ty Cobb, nor was he a baseball player. During a period of frequent lynchings, the world’s most popular athlete wasn’t even white. He was an oft-persecuted, black bicycle racer named Marshall W. “Major” Taylor.

  At the height of the Jim Crow era, Taylor became an inspirational idol in America, Europe, and Australia, experiencing adoration so profound that it transcended race. Long before Jackie Robinson, people of all colors passed under Major Taylor billboards, exchanged Taylor trading cards, cooled themselves with Taylor accordion fans, and wore buttons bearing his likeness. When he competed, his admirers swarmed local streets, spilled out of “Major Taylor Carnival” trains, flooded the cafés, and waited for him in the rain outside packed hotels. His face stared out from newspaper pages on four continents. His appearances shattered attendance records at nearly every bike track and drew the largest throng ever to see a sporting event. At a time when the population was less than one quarter its current size, more than fifty thousand people watched him race, a crowd on par with today’s baseball games. Countless thousands paid just to watch his workouts, while thousands o
f others gathered at train stations to greet him and his elegant wife.

  But his immense fame, achieved in what was one of the nation’s most popular sports, came against incredible odds. He was repeatedly kicked out of restaurants and hotels, forced to sleep in horse stables, and terrorized out of cities by threats of violence. On the more than one hundred bike tracks called velodromes, he endured incessant racism, including being shoved headfirst into track rails. On a sweltering New England day in 1897, a rival nearly choked him to death, a violent incident The New York Times called among the most talked-about events that year.

  Along his turbulent path that began as a penniless horsetender from bucolic Indiana, Taylor received help from the most unlikely of men, all of whom happened to be white. When hotel and restaurant operators refused him food and lodging, forcing him to race hungry, a benevolent racer-turned-trainer named Birdie Munger took Taylor under his wing and into his home. One of Taylor’s managers was famed Broadway producer William Brady, a feisty Irishman who had brawled with Virgil Earp in cow-town boxing rings. He stood up for Taylor when track owners tried to bar him from competing. While winning more than one thousand bike races himself, Arthur Zimmerman, America’s first superstar, mentored Taylor even though others called him a useless little “pickanninny.” In the mid-1890s during a devastating depression, the extraordinary kindness these men bestowed helped elevate Taylor from rags to riches.

  But for Taylor and his helpers, it was merely the start of a fourteen-year journey filled with suffering and jubilation. From 1896 to 1910, Taylor emerged as one of history’s most remarkable sportsmen. Endowed with blazing speed and indomitable bravery, he traveled more than two hundred thousand grueling miles by rail and ship, started two-mile handicap races as far back as three hundred yards, and set numerous world speed records. His danger-filled struggle for equality on American tracks eventually drove him overseas where he became the most heavily advertised man in Europe, was talked about as often as presidents of countries, and captured more attention than some of the world’s wealthiest citizens. His dramatic match races with French Triple Crown winner Edmond Jacquelin, which attracted barons, dukes, and paupers from nearly every nation in Europe, were widely remembered a quarter-century later. And in 1907 after a fall instigated by an envious rival—a severe injury that led to a mental breakdown—the much-maligned black man attempted a comeback many thought impossible.

  But it wasn’t just athletic prowess that attracted people to him. Carrying the Scriptures with him always, this deeply religious man turned down enormous sums of money because he refused to race on Sunday. Thousands were captivated by his eloquent, peaceful delivery of messages about faith and kindness, and his mystical capacity to forgive those who persecuted him.

  During his ride from anonymity to superstardom, the gentle black man and the few white men who helped him starred in an epic story for the ages.

  It began with two boys on bicycles, riding free.

  PART I

  Chapter 1

  THE WAR BETWEEN WHEELMEN AND HORSEMEN

  Marshall Taylor felt a powerful force tugging at him—a force not unlike that of a sheet of steel to a giant magnet. In the spring of 1891, he was thirteen, tired of rural life, and even more tired of being at the whims of slow, sometimes unruly horses. He was a restless and ambitious boy, and if later photos were any indication, he was tautly muscled yet thin as a rail. He had frizzy hair and smooth, charcoal-colored skin that would later be described as polished ebony. The most successful jockeys at the time were African Americans—winning twelve of the first twenty-two Kentucky Derbies—and with his short, wiry frame, Taylor too had the makings of an ideal jockey. His father, Gilbert, a noble, white-haired Civil War veteran, taught his son all he knew about tending horses on their rustic Indianapolis farm. But even at a young age, Marshall had other aspirations. He was country born and bred, but rural life stifled him. He desperately wanted to expand his horizons. On a warm day that spring, he would get his chance.

  Despite his family’s penury, his childhood seems to have been a decent one. Born November 26, 1878, Marshall was the most ambitious member of the staid but proud Taylor family. His mother, Saphronia, raised eight genial, jaunty children while his father, Gilbert, worked long, hard days as coachman for a wealthy Indianapolis railroad family named Southards. Marshall helped out with the horses, trimming their hooves, hunching over an anvil to forge their shoes, mucking their stalls, feeding them oats, carrots, and water, exercising them, then washing, grooming, and brushing their manes and tails. Intensely competitive, young Marshall probably competed with his siblings over who could tend to the horses quickest, hoping to fall into his father’s good graces. It was a rugged existence for man and beast. “All we had was just what we needed,” he would later say, “and only such comforts as farm life affords.”

  But Gilbert and Saphronia still found time to smother their children with affection, instill a strong work ethic, and weave the word of God into their lives—words that would guide Marshall’s judgments and channel his energies throughout his life. In the Taylor home, a well-worn Bible was surely always open, a piano played, James Bland songs sung, Civil War stories spun.

  One of three boys and five girls, Marshall may have been the only one with itchy feet. His brother William was said to be athletic, but he seems to have been more content with farm life. Seeing Marshall’s restlessness, his parents must have known he wouldn’t stay in the countryside for long.

  Marshall’s first taste of the broader world came sometime around the age of eight. During his duties as a coachman, his father began taking him to the Southards’ quarters on the outskirts of Indianapolis. There, young Marshall was introduced to Daniel, the Southards’ eight-year-old son. The young boys, oblivious to their color differences, soon became best friends. Eventually he was employed as Daniel’s playmate and companion, was provided with clothing, and was given access to a playroom filled to the rafters with every toy imaginable. But Marshall preferred whiling his time away in the great outdoors, playing on the grassy fields of the Southard estate or in their family workshop where he could tinker with machinery. Each day, a private tutor stopped by the Southards’ Victorian home to instill a rudimentary education into the two boys. Back on the family farm, Taylor’s siblings, educated by a man named Milton Lewis, continued to toil away. This difference surely caused family friction.

  Taylor played with young Daniel, licking him in impromptu roller-skating, running, and tennis matches. He also handled the farriery needs of his father’s horses and waited for something exciting to come along. It came when Daniel and several of Daniel’s friends wearing euphoric smiles returned to his sprawling estate atop strange, two-wheeled contraptions. Reportedly all of Daniel’s friends, except penniless Marshall, had expensive new machines some were calling “wheels.” Seeing the forlorn expression on Marshall’s face when they rolled in each day, Daniel talked his parents into buying one for him.

  For centuries, man had been concocting outlandish devices in the futile attempt to replace the horse as the primary means of personal locomotion. Most of these early “bone-shakers,” “hobby horses,” and “velocipedes” were ponderous, impractical, and a serious threat to one’s manhood. But in the 1860s, a handful of men with nothing better to do dreamed up the first semiworkable models and shoved them on the market. The peculiar men who bought those first versions often blew half a year’s wages on these absurd steel skeletons known as high-wheelers. Many of them would repent their decision. Initially, the public and the press didn’t know what to think of them. Thus the machines—and the odd individuals who first rode them—were rebuked and disparaged, especially by horsemen.

  Their loathing was not without merit. So exciting at first glance, those “high-wheelers” with their giant front wheels, tiny rear wheels, and solid rubber tires, were in reality a public nuisance, and scared the wits out of veteran draymen, teamsters, dogs, and midsummer strollers. Irate local lawmakers—many with extensive tie
s to the livery industry—responded with laws ranging from the absurd to the draconian. In the early 1880s, an Ohio legislator was among the first to weigh in, proposing punitive legislation after his prized horses had twice been “frightened” by a high-wheelsman. Jersey City ordered that if the driver of a buggy or wagon raised his hand at the approach of a cyclist, this signal constituted a warning that the horse was getting skittish. The gesture repeated was a direct command for the invading cyclist to pull over, dismount immediately, then quietly tiptoe around the sacred beast. Not to be outdone, the Illinois legislature floated a bill compelling cyclists to dismount anytime they came within one hundred yards of teams of horses.

  Many cities mandated that bikes be saddled with bells, gongs, whistles, sirens, and kerosene or carbide lanterns. And if all those gadgets didn’t slow a rider down, the six-mile-per-hour speed limit imposed in some towns did. Some legislators simply couldn’t take all the complaints from horsemen. In several urban centers, including Boston, Massachusetts, and Hartford, Connecticut, they went so far as to ban wheelmen from riding their bicycles on public streets or in parks, effectively outlawing all bicycles from those cities. To add further insult, pedestrians—also no friends of the wheelmen—joined with the teamsters and horsemen to pass laws dictating where bicycles could be used and at what speed.

  According to one early report, there was a brief but “obligingly friendly” détente between the horsemen and this new breed of “wheelmen.” But as more and more cyclists took to the streets, horsemen responded the best ways they could think of: by spreading glass, scrap metal, and tacks to keep the intruders off “their” roads. When they were in a really diabolical mood, horsemen took the law into their own hands, gleefully pointing their horses at the nearest cyclists and purposely running them down. The wheelmen retaliated, carrying small pistols from which they squirted diluted ammonia on overly aggressive horsemen or barking dogs. These first instances of road rage triggered a war between the wheelmen and horsemen that would span decades. “For some reason the equine mind has a distinct aversion to motion whose secret it does not understand,” hollered a sympathetic Brooklyn Eagle reporter.