WORCESTER — Even a century later, Marshall “Major” Taylor’s legend
lingers in Worcester — his home and, in many ways, his touchstone over
the turn of the 20th century. Taylor’s extraordinary and challenging
life in a racially charged nation is the focus of Michael Kranish’s “The
World’s Fastest Man: The Extraordinary Life of Cyclist Major Taylor,
America’s First Black Sports Hero,” published by Scribner.
The
book, recording Taylor’s courage in the face of fierce competitive
racism, is being released during Kranish’s appearance at 7 p.m. May 7 in
the Worcester JCC, 633 Salisbury St. A multistate book tour will follow
his appearance in Worcester, where Major Taylor’s career took off and
where he felt most comfortable living and working.
Major Taylor
Boulevard and a statue of Taylor outside the Worcester Public Library
honor his memory. A bicycling association named for him commemorates his
contributions with racing events. Taylor was the world’s first black
champion, an outstanding competitive bicycle racer during the sport’s
hottest era, from about 1890 to 1910.
“How did this obscure black
man, at the height of the Jim Crow era, become a world champion? He
left Indianapolis in his midteens to come to Worcester because in
Indianapolis, he couldn’t join the local YMCA, which he needed to become
a stronger bicyclist,” Kranish said. “That was his first taste of
racial prejudice - when he realized the monster he faced.”
Told
by his mentor that things were better in Worcester, he moved. Louis
“Birdie” Munger, a record-breaking white bicyclist who entered into
bicycle manufacturing after retirement, recognized Taylor’s competitive
potential and did much to further his career. In Worcester, Taylor was
able to join the YMCA.
“Worcester had been a stop in the
Underground Railroad, and a lot of blacks had settled there, so it had a
thriving black community when he arrived,” Kranish said. “His life
provides a wonderful lens to see history at the time, how the country
grew and changed. It was a period of time (1890s) at which there were
practically no automobiles and horses were on the way out; people bought
millions of bicycles. The transportation industry grew up around them.”
Without
weighing the book down in facts or repetitious data, Kranish has
written a swiftly paced journalistic narrative, rich in historical
detail. “My style of writing is more of a cinematic view,” he said.
“It’s not a compilation of facts but a constantly moving story that lets
you see and feel the times.”
He presents some previously unknown
historical materials about Taylor, using dozens of scrapbooks, letters,
news articles and family memories he collected to first write a feature
for The Boston Globe magazine in 2001. He later served as the Globe’s
White House correspondent until 2015. At the time, he covered Sen. John
Kerry’s political presidential campaign extensively. With fellow Globe
reporter Scott Helman, he wrote “The Real Romney,” published in 2012.
Kranish’s writing for the Globe’s 2015 series on inequality, “Divided
Nation,” earned him several national awards. Because he now covers
Washington, D.C., politics, he more recently wrote “Trump Revealed”
(with Marc Fisher).
Kranish spent years collecting letters,
interviews and documents to assemble a book that brings Taylor’s life
into the forefront, beginning with the Globe article. “I interviewed his
then-96-year-old daughter in Indianapolis,” he said. There, he accessed
Taylor’s collected personal papers, “a lot of firsthand material. I had
a lot left over after the story was published. I was very interested in
his life and I began to think, maybe there’s a book here about Major
Taylor.
“There was no other athlete like him. He came before
Jack Johnson, Jackie Robinson and other black athletes. He was lionized
in the American press and in Europe. Racism was crushing, but in the
end, it just made him more determined. He felt, if he could have a fair
race, he could beat anybody.”
Working on the book, Kranish traveled to Paris, where Taylor was
widely known and celebrated. “Bicycle racing was huge in France. They
saw him as an African American challenging the French champions, so he
became a sensation. A black man in Paris.” At times, discrimination
occurred there, but for the most part he was a star, and treated as
such.
He pored through records about Taylor in the Worcester
Telegram and The Evening Gazette. “I had to look through scrapbooks,
study microfilm at libraries by searching around key dates to find
things. The Worcester Spy (an abolitionist newspaper of the 19th
century) was digitized and had covered him very intently. They were very
pro-Major Taylor, wise about how they viewed civil rights at an
important time in his career. They followed him around.” Since Taylor
was widely covered across the country, Kranish found many digital
records about him.
Taylor’s path was difficult, even if he made
it look easy. He was a tremendous, one-of-a-kind athlete capable of
beating all the opposition, all of the time. Because of his color,
however, he was banned from many races and poorly treated by white
competitors in the races he entered, who grouped together to force him
out of first place or off the track. He sustained many injuries through
the course of his career.
Despite that, Taylor had broken speed
records across the bicycling industry by his mid-20s. He became a sports
idol in France and later in Australia, where he was considered a
monumental athlete.
While it lasted, racing made him rich, took
him around the world and gained him recognition for a physical talent
surpassing many. Were it not for Jim Crow, in fact, his name likely
would have earned greater recognition in this country. Even white
competitors had to acknowledge the champion among them, whom they strove
to keep out of competition.
“At the end of the day, his story
in one of inspiration and hope,” Kranish said. “He wanted his career to
be remembered by young people especially, so that they would know they
could overcome adversity.”
His appearance in Worcester is free. RSVP to Nancy Greenberg at ngreenberg@worcesterjcc.org or (508) 756-7109, ext. 232.
After
Worcester, Kranish appears on May 8 at Porter Square Books in
Cambridge, May 9 at Boston Public Library and then travels to Chicago
(where Taylor lived his last couple of years and where he is buried),
his birthplace of Indianapolis, New York City and Washington, D.C.
