Who Was Major Taylor?
"Life is too short for a man to hold bitterness in his heart."
Marshall W. "Major" Taylor
American bicycle racer Marshall Walter "Major" Taylor () was the world�s first black sports superstar. He was world cycling champion in , American sprint champion in , and set numerous track cycling records. Nicknamed �Major� in his youth in Indianapolis and later known as �the Worcester Whirlwind� after his adopted hometown in Massachusetts, he was the second African-American world champion in any sport (after Canadian-born bantamweight boxer George Dixon of Boston won his title in ). In the Jim Crow era of strict racial segregation, Taylor had to fight prejudice just to get on the starting line. He faced closed doors and open hostility with remarkable dignity. In his retirement he wrote his autobiography, �The Fastest Bicycle Rider in the World.�
Worcester Whirlwind flier
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The story behind the "Black vs. White" button
- A head-to-head bike race in was billed simply as "Black vs. White," but the reality for Major Taylor and Eddie McDuffee was more complicated.
"The Other Side"
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Major Taylor
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Who Was Major Taylor?
Cyclist Marshall Walter "Major" Taylor began racing professionally when he was 18 years old. By , Taylor held several major world records and competed in events around the globe. After 14 years of grueling competition and fending off intense racism, he retired at age He died penniless in Chicago on June 21,
Early Years
Marshall Walter “Major” Taylor was born November 26, , in Indianapolis, Indiana. In the early years of his life, Taylor was raised without much money. His father, a farmer and Civil War veteran, worked as a carriage driver for a wealthy white family.
Taylor often joined his dad at work and became close to his father’s employers, especially their son, who was similar in age. Eventually, Taylor moved in with the family, a radical change that gave the young boy a more stable home situation with opportunities for a better education.
Taylor was essentially treated as one of the family’s own, and one of their early gifts to him was a new bike. Taylor took to it immediately, teaching himself bike tricks that he showed off to his friends.
When Taylor’s antics caught the attention of a local bike shop owner, he
Major Taylor’s Autobiography Speaks to Us through the Decades
Some pros refused to cross the “color line.” He cited three-time national champion Eddie (The Cannon) Bald. Andrew Ritchie in Major Taylor: The Extraordinary Career of a Champion Bicycle Racer said that Bald had no prejudice against him. Taylor wrote that Bald complained about the volume of letters he received from fans scolding him for recognizing a Black man.
Recounting when W.E. Becker had choked him till the police intervened, Taylor wrote judges disqualified Becker and ordered the race to be re-run. “I was too badly injured to start,” he said. Becker was suspended for a couple of days and fined $50, paid for by white riders.
Taylor reprints a booklet by Paris journalists Paul Hamelle and Robert Coquelle, Major Taylor, the King of the Cycle, His Appearance, and Career. They said his skin color, “which had always been a serious drawback for him in America, was already a benefit to him in this country.” Upon Taylor’s arrival in Cherbourg, in northern France, and in Paris, the Frenchmen described “a rushing of reporters and photographers. For one so
Who was Major Taylor
MAJOR TAYLOR biography at a glance
by Lynne Tolman
TELEGRAM & GAZETTE
Worcester, Mass.
Taylor with his wife, Daisy, and daughter, Sydney. |
Nov. 26, -- Marshall W. Taylor is born in rural Indiana to a black couple who moved north from Kentucky around the time of the Civil War.
-- Taylor is raised and educated in the home of a wealthy white Indianapolis family that employs his father as coachman. The family gives him a bicycle.
-- Taylor is hired to perform cycling stunts outside an Indianapolis bike shop. His costume is a soldier's uniform, which earns him the nickname "Major." He wins his first bike race that year.
Fall -- Taylor moves to Worcester, Mass., with his employer and racing manager Louis "Birdie" Munger, who plans to open a bike factory there.
August -- Taylor unofficially breaks a world track record in Indianapolis. But his feat offends white sensibilities and he is banned from Indy's Capital City track.
December -- Taylor finishes eighth in his first professional race, a six-day endurance event at Madison Square Garden in New York.
-- Tay
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