Major Taylor

by Conrad Kerber

  Finally, on September 27, five days after the notorious assault, Taylor got word that a verdict was about to be rendered.

  He could not have imagined what was about to take place.

  Chairman Mott stepped out into the Maryland sun and issued the board’s decree. Instead of a life sentence and a stiff fine, as many had predicted, Becker received no suspension and a paltry $50 fine. The floodgates had opened.

  Publicly, Taylor remained mute, but internally he had to have been burning up. With his silence, it seemed as if he were trying to solve his problems by ignoring them, a strategy he would pay for later in life. Perhaps he believed he could do nothing about it. Or he thought if he kept improving and crowds kept flocking to see him race, his problems would go away.

  Unfortunately, the worst was yet to come. Shortly afterward, Taylor received word that most of the fine had been picked up by a passel of sympathetic white riders, another slap in the face to him. These despicable riders, lamented one Philadelphia writer, “were willing to identify themselves with one of the most disrespectful acts ever perpetrated on an American track.”

  Taylor felt alone. Three decades later, memories of the ’97 season and the Becker assault still haunted him. “I found that the color prejudice was not confined to the South entirely, in fact it had asserted itself against me even in and around Boston. It would be difficult for me to narrate all the experiences which I underwent . . . and also to call to mind all the vicious attempts that were made to eliminate me from bicycle racing.”

  The northern correspondents wouldn’t let the issue die. In their sports pages near the close of the year, the New York Times concluded that the assault “caused more animated discussion than any event this year.” Clearly Taylor had some important decisions to make about his future as the only black man in a sport ruled by the tight grip of white men. For him, the wheels of justice did not roll on; instead they had stalled one September day on a hardened Massachusetts homestretch.

  Following his win in Cleveland, Taylor packed his bags in preparation for what was known as the Southern Extension. Since the American Championship was granted to the rider who had the most points, there was no way a rider could win without picking up points from this Southern circuit. It encompassed one-third of the season.

  In October, with or without him, the circuit was scheduled to chug west through Wisconsin, Michigan, and Illinois, then move south through Kentucky and Missouri, finally finishing in the deep Southern states of Georgia and Florida on November 20. By then, despite the hostility directed at him, Taylor was still seventh in the standings. If given a fair shake and a good showing during the Southern Extension, he stood a decent chance of a top-three finish.

  But the Southern states proved unforgiving for black men in 1890s America, especially one who had been “humiliating” superior white men all season long. If Taylor decided to join the circuit, it would be an audacious move, reserved only for exceptionally ambitious men. “The Southern meets would never stand his entry,” warned one of the traveling cycling scribes, echoing the words of many columnists.

  And so, on September 28, special excursion trains stood waiting at the Buffalo, New York, depot. To save on travel and lodging cost for the riders, the league had commandeered a couple of “palace” railcars. One car had a glass observation room stocked with a grand piano; the other was a dining car with waiters, chefs, and “little gyp Pete.” A sawed-off vagabond of unknown origin, little Pete was a mascot-porter who had become popular among the riders because of his willingness to please and his mystical ability to hoist nearly twice his weight. Funded by manufacturers, advance teams arrived in each city before the riders, alerting racing fans of their pending visit.

  After inspecting the riders traveling home, two thousand fans stood in a light mist watching Major Taylor, Eddie Bald, and the rest of the field board the Iolanthe and the Pickwick. A haunting tension gripped the train as they rolled west over the plains. In Detroit on the first day of October, one of the first stops on the tour, Taylor was allowed to race. But a certain reticence clung to his racing style—the same one that reared up when he felt danger lurking. He quickly drifted out of the money, watching cautiously as Fred Loughead won the day.

  As the railcars loaded with journalists sputtered farther south, Taylor’s worst nightmares were realized. In town after town, including Indianapolis, New Albany, Louisville, and St. Louis, his entries were either refused by racist promoters or shunned by riders who, in cahoots with one another, refused to race against him. After a coldhearted riders’ protest at the bike track in New Albany, Indiana, that included open threats of violence, he was reduced to racing against a horse on a seedy horse track on the other side of town. Dejected and disheartened, he lost. “The colored boy,” one reporter wrote of his decision to leave the New Albany bike track, “thought discretion the better part of valor.” Louisville, the next stop, was a hopeless cause; the owners of the local Fountain Ferry Track not only barred blacks from racing but they wouldn’t allow them to step foot on the track surface for any reason.

  Some people were even calling for the color line to be drawn by the press. Bearings began receiving flack for including Major Taylor in their Bearings thermometer, an ongoing gauge of each rider’s total points and win percentage. Taylor was now relegated to reading about the men he had raced against all season, winning purses before idolatrous crowds. “I shall go to France,” he hollered to the Boston Globe in a fit of anger. “There, I can hold my own and will be thought something of, maybe.”

  Days passed, then a week, then a month, and Taylor’s point total remained frozen. Meanwhile, Bald, Cooper, Butler and others all saw their point totals rise. When the circuit headed into the deep South, he compared his point totals with the other riders. The spread had widened to the point where there was no chance of catching them even if he was allowed to race. His once prominent name had suddenly gone dark in the papers and in the standings.

  The speeding wheel of Taylor’s life had come to a standstill, his dream of becoming national champion and the honor and respect that came with it scattered to the southern winds. Soon the newsmen would splash the news. Eddie Bald, the man Taylor defeated in his first race at Madison Square Garden, was again crowned National Sprint Champion. Taylor’s train sped to Worcester. Out his window, the jagged countryside flickered past. Gazing out in deep reflection, Taylor felt hollow.

  Birdie Munger was having the kind of year no businessman cares to have. While Taylor was competing at the annual convention in Philadelphia back in August, hundreds of his employees had gone on strike. The strike had been preceded by a pay cut, which had been preceded by another pay cut. Since the day that Colonel Pope had dramatically reduced the price of his bicycles, Munger had been forced to lower costs on his models to an unprofitable level. There simply wasn’t enough room for hundreds of manufacturers. Without the means to compete against the massive Pope juggernaut, something had to give.

  Something did. Standing in his Middletown factory office one summer day, Munger and his partner heard a loud knock. When they opened the door, in walked a large, uniformed man—the kind of brown uniform a person usually saw when he was in trouble. It was a Connecticut sheriff named Brown there to place another lien on his four brick buildings, this time for allegedly failing to pay on a $25,000 loan. Soon after, Munger’s business was placed in the hands of a receiver. Like the auto industry decades later, the bicycle industry was consolidating. In the coming months, the once-thriving Worcester Cycle Manufacturers Company would pass into history.

  For the ex-high-wheeler—the most important man in Taylor’s life—the end of an era was near. He would have to find his way in a changing world. While weaving his way in that new world, Munger would have little time for anything else. Sadly, he and Taylor parted ways. Taylor was now without his patron, his surrogate father, his best friend for as long as he could remember.

  From his room in Worcester, Taylor watched the clouds thicken. Outside, bright lea
ves swirled in the cool, fall winds. He mulled over his future. With Munger’s shop in receivership, his options outside of racing had further narrowed. Effectively banned from competing in the latter third of the season, his choices inside racing didn’t look so good either. Over the years, he would see or hear of several cyclists who were either killed or seriously injured from racing. He knew that continuing in an environment so hostile toward him could prove suicidal. Or as some suggested, he could succumb to the intimidation, retreating to the confines of his parents’ farm and the life of anonymity from which he came.

  But since the carefree days of his youth, the bicycle was all he had known. On its leather saddle he felt alive and free, liberated from the menial toils of the farm and factory. He had already become a top-ten rider in America, but he wanted to accomplish much more, like someday becoming the fastest bicycle rider in the world, as Munger had prophesized. And there were many places to see, like those exotic, faraway lands Arthur Zimmerman spoke of back at Munger’s bachelor pad.

  Professionally, the odds were stacked against him. Baseball and boxing had already rejected the idea of blacks at the professional level. But this was bike racing and Taylor was no ordinary man. When he allowed himself to think freely, emancipated from all attempts to bring him down to where blacks were “supposed” to be, he dreamed big dreams. In those moments, he was not satisfied with mediocrity; he wanted superstardom now and for posterity.

  But by the end of the 1897 racing season, no riders wanted a black man to humiliate them in front of thousands of adoring racing fans. Perhaps, as some reporters suggested, it would be best for all concerned if he just left the country. In his anguish Taylor probably lost himself in Zimmerman’s book, a wheelman’s bible at the time. In it were stories of the internationally famous bicycle tracks as well as bicycle row where much of France congregated, including the “pretty Parisian Mademoiselles.” France, the mecca of world cycling, would, he had heard, welcome him with open arms.

  In November, the New York Times picked up on his thoughts and highlighted them in an article titled “Taylor Yearns for France.” But going to France now would conflict with his goals. He had always wanted to follow in the footsteps of Arthur Zimmerman, his childhood hero who had first conquered his own country before sailing overseas.

  If Taylor was going to continue with his chosen career in the cold, hard world that was 1890s America, he would have to find strength and guidance from others. He needed someone who would shine a light on him when others tried plunging him in darkness—perhaps someone not of this world. Having neither the desire nor the time to manage his racing affairs, he would also need someone of this world with experience in such matters. Major Taylor needed the divinity of almighty God and the tenacity of William A. Brady. Sometime that winter while he lingered in the depths of despair, providence would unite them.

  ___________

  * The paying crowd at the 1897 League of American Wheelmen convention in Philadelphia was reported to be the largest for any sporting event in American history. For more information, see the Notes section in the back of the book.

  Chapter 9

  GUIDING LIGHT

  William Brady entered Major Taylor’s cruel world during the cold winter of 1897–1898. By then, Brady had become the nation’s preeminent sports promoter and, in his own immodest words, “was written up in more newspapers then Teddy Roosevelt.” After helping him get his professional license and then watching him at Madison Square Garden, Brady believed Taylor would fit in perfectly with his managing motto—“Always try to find a champion.” Now that he had at least partially recovered from the loss of his first wife, he was ready to get down to business. He contacted Taylor. The two men met and discussed a contract. Before signing on the dotted line, Brady, ever the businessman, checked with Albert Mott, chairman of the League of American Wheelmen, to make certain Taylor would have unfettered rights to race on all tracks nationwide. Mott assured Brady and a contract was signed.

  Brady was happy to have him on board. “Billy Brady has always had plenty of admiration for the colored boy,” a New York Journal reporter wrote “and his quick instinct to push a good thing along led him to take the colored boy under his wings.”

  An avid boxing fan, Taylor was aware of Brady’s reputation and must have known he’d expect nothing less than another champion. Never one to think small, Brady signed up around fifty other riders, most of them noncircuit pacemen, and immediately provided them with the best of everything. He shacked them up at a spacious cottage called “the homestead,” a stone’s throw from the famous Manhattan Beach Velodrome and Sheepshead Bay horse track. There, he employed full-time chefs to handle the riders’ nutritional needs. Riders were given access to a gymnasium, handball court, and a stable of masseurs, personal valets, and the nation’s best trainers—all innovations in sport. Large enough to sleep fifty people, the homestead was surrounded by vast acreage where the riders and their trainers could relax by riding horseback and shooting the breeze on nonracing days. Close to the Manhattan track yet far enough away from the main hotels where the mass of inquisitive reporters stayed, these idyllic surroundings would serve as their headquarters for the season.

  Under Brady’s organization, wrote one reporter, “Taylor will not lack proper encouragement to race, and if he is bound to become as much of a sensation as promised, this summer will develop all there is in him.”

  For Brady, Kennedy, and Powers, this sizable investment had the potential for big rewards. While Brady provided Taylor and his entire stable of riders everything they could have asked for, it was also ideal for him personally. He had purchased the Manhattan Theatre close to the track, making it easy for him to juggle his passions. It was not uncommon for him to oversee a Broadway play one moment, then dash down the street and fulfill his obsession for bike racing the next.

  Despite the inevitable difficulties of managing a black man in 1890’s America, Brady saw big things in Taylor and sent for noted trainer Willis Troy to round him into top shape. A quick-witted Italian who had helped Arthur Zimmerman achieve worldwide stardom, Troy was hailed as one of the best trainers in the business.

  Following the rough treatment he had endured the previous year, Taylor was pleased with the first-class arrangement and motivated to prove himself to Brady. “Naturally I was somewhat disturbed by these conditions until I signed up with . . . Brady. I’m out to whip the champions this season,” he excitedly told a reporter, “and hope to have better luck on the track, and I’ll start out to make this my banner year.”

  With the security of a contract with Brady, his future looking brighter, Taylor began filling his closets with new garb. Gone were any remnants of farm life, the Sears & Roebuck denim overalls and work shirts, the heavy lace-up work boots, the newsboy-style cap, the bandana around the neck. He began appearing in tailored suits, pleated gambler shirts with suspenders, and various accessories like a gold gentleman’s pocket watch, brass-headed walking stick, white gloves, and custom shoes. Crowning the impressive wardrobe was the popular black felt Earl of Derby bowler hat. Flitting from town to town, Taylor cut a dapper figure in his new raiment. So much so, he was often hailed by sportswriters as the best-dressed man in the peloton, a notable distinction against men like Tom Cooper and Eddie Bald, long known for their stylish appearances.

  When 1897 became 1898, Taylor was all dressed up with someplace to go. To succeed in the competitive sport of track racing a rider must begin training early in the season, usually January or February. This challenged riders living in cold Northern states. To overcome this, professional riders had trained at Camp Thunderbolt in Savannah, Georgia, for more than a decade or at a handful of tracks in sunny Florida. It was widely accepted that any rider failing to go south for winter training would be at a significant competitive disadvantage when the regular season began. So, wanting to get the season off to a good start, Brady assigned Troy the task of organizing a southern trip.

  But as everyone knew, the South wasn�
��t known for rolling out welcome mats for precocious black men. Troy accepted the assignment with much trepidation. Taylor didn’t seem too concerned. “I think the change to a warmer climate will improve my health,” he said with surprising naïveté.

  Around the time Taylor signed with Brady, he also made a deep commitment to the teachings of Jesus Christ. Following in the footsteps of his loving mother Saphronia, he became a devoted Baptist. On New Year’s Day, he declared his faith through an adult public baptism at the Johns-Street Baptist Church, a quaint wooden church in Worcester. From that moment until the day he died, he and his Bible became inseparable. He immersed himself in its pages at every opportunity—on trains traveling from town to town, in velodrome locker rooms across the country, on ships, and at home in his spare time. It gave him a sense of love for himself and others as well as a feeling of assurance, warmth, and security. The lessons he learned from its pages were exemplified in the kindness he displayed to those around him. His close relationship to God, his caring nature, and his pacific personality would all be given a startling amount of space in newspapers throughout his career.

  Taylor’s deeply held belief in the Baptist faith was sincere. As the lone black man in his chosen sport, it gave him strength when others tried knocking him down both physically and emotionally. It helped guide him during his racing career and through the racism he faced in his personal life. Religion became an integral part of his life, as was his relationship with his pastor, Reverend Hiram Conway. He followed his pastor’s teachings to the best of his ability and devoted Sundays, the Sabbath day, entirely to Christ.

  Spiritual leaders of all denominations would come to cherish true believers like Taylor, but initially at least many of them were none too happy with the rise of the wheelmen. As a nation deeply Calvinistic in orientation, they had strict ideas about what was permissible on Sundays. Sporting events were not among them. Yet for many Americans who worked long hours Monday through Saturday, Sunday was the only day they had for leisure and to attend sporting events. Intense debates sprang up over the issue of Sunday racing and leisure riding.