Major Taylor May 21, 2008: Dedication Of The Monument In Worcester, Mass

from the Major Taylor Association press release

CHAMPIONS TO DEDICATE MAJOR TAYLOR STATUE
Greg LeMond, Edwin Moses will be featured speakers at May 21 unveiling
WORCESTER, Mass. -- Three-time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond and three-time Olympic medalist Edwin Moses will be featured speakers at the public unveiling of the Major Taylor memorial from noon to 1 p.m. Wednesday, May 21, at the Worcester Public Library. LeMond, who won a world championship in cycling 90 years after Major Taylor did, and Moses, who dominated the 400-meter hurdles in track and field for a decade, were each named "Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year" at the height of their athletic careers in the 1980s. The statue of the "Worcester Whirlwind" created by sculptor Antonio Tobias Mendez is Worcester's first monument to an African-American. The dedication ceremony will be followed by a reception with refreshments in the library's Banx Room. Preceding the noontime ceremony, the Seven Hills Wheelmen and the Charles River Wheelmen's Wednesday Wheelers will lead a 30-mile bicycle ride starting and ending at the library. At 7 p.m. at the library, the Clark University History Department and Higgins School of Humanities will present a panel discussion on "Race, Sports, and Major Taylor's Legacy." Boston Globe columnist Derrick Z. Jackson will be moderator for these scholars, historians and authors exploring diversity in sports and society, then and now: Andrew Ritchie, author of the biography "Major Taylor: The Extraordinary Career of a Champion Bicycle Racer" (1988), Janette T. Greenwood, associate professor of history at Clark University, author of a case study of Worcester County's black community in the late 1800s and of "Bittersweet Legacy," on the emergence and interaction of the black and white middle class, David V. Herlihy, author of "Bicycle: The History" (2004), with research on Major Taylor's popularity abroad, C. Keith Harrison, associate professor of sports business management at the University of Central Florida, and associate director of the Institute for Diversity & Ethics in Sport

Major Taylor 2

WNBC-TV (Channel 4) New York featured 1899 world cycling champion Major Taylor in a segment broadcast on Nov. 24, 2007. Very well done in my opinion.

Major Taylor

There's a Major Taylor Blvd in Worcester and I was curious as to why it was there. I had known about him from studying and teaching black history and had made part of the slide show five years ago. Yes, I know the background song is whacky. I stuck it in because it was a favorite of my mother. Excerpt from the Major Taylor Association

"Marshall Walter "Major" Taylor (26 November 187821 June 1932) was an American cyclist who won the world one-mile track cycling championship in 1899 after setting numerous world records and overcoming racial discrimination. Taylor was the second African-American athlete to achieve the level of world championship—after boxer George Dixon.
Taylor was the son of Gilbert Taylor and Saphronia Kelter, who had migrated from Louisville, Kentucky with their large family to a farm in rural Indiana. Taylor's father was employed in the household of a wealthy Indianapolis family as a coachman, where Taylor was also raised and educated. At an early age, Taylor received a bicycle the family and he began working as an entertainer at the age of 13. Taylor was hired to perform cycling stunts outside a bicycle shop while wearing a soldier's uniform, hence the nickname Major.
As an African-American, Taylor was banned from bicycle racing in Indiana once he started winning and made a reputation as "The Black Cyclone." In 1896, he moved from Indianapolis to Middletown, Connecticut, then a center of the United States bicycle industry with half a dozen factories and 30 bicycle shops, to work as a bicycle mechanic in the Worcester Cycle Manufacturing Company factory, owned by Birdie Munger who was to become his lifelong friend and mentor, and racer for Munger's team. His first east coast race was in a League of American Wheelmen one mile race in New Haven, where he started in last place but won.
In late 1896, Taylor entered his first professional race in Madison Square Garden, where he lapped the entire field during the half-mile race. Although he is listed in the Middletown town directory in 1896, it is not known how long he still resided there after he became a professional racer. He eventually settled in Worcester, Massachusetts (where the newspapers called him "The Worcester Whirlwind"), marrying there and having a daughter, although his career required him to spend a large amount of time traveling, in America, Australia, and Europe."

It looks like his former home on Hobson Ave is right near Clark University
great kids' biography by Lesa Cline-Ransome and James E. Ransome

There's also another good bio by Todd Balf

Lower Manhattan Slavery in New York Walking Tour 2009, Slide Show

Don't Lie and Don't Lie About History. I had some stills from the walking tour and I thought this song might fit. A main thread of the tour is that "It's time to tell the truth about slavery in New York."

Hey, baby my nose is getting big
I noticed it be growing when I been telling them fibs
Now you say your trust's getting weaker
Probably coz my lies just started getting deeper
And the reason for my confession is that I learn my lesson
And I really think you ought to know the truth
Because I lied and I cheated and I lied a little more
But after I did it I don't know what I did it for
I admit that I have been a little immature
F...... with your heart like I was the predator
In my book of lies I was the editor
And the author
I forged my signature
And now I apologize for what I did to you
Cos what you did to me I did to you
No,no, no, no baby, no, no, no, no don't lie
No, no, no, no, yeah, you know, know, know, know, you gotta try
What you gonna do when it all comes out
When I really see you & what you're all about
No, no, no baby, no, no, no, no don't lie
Yeah, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you gotta try
She said I'm leaving
Cos she can't take the pain
It's hard to continue this love it ain't the same
Can't forget the things that I've done inside her brain
Too many lies committed too many games
She feeling like a fool getting on the last train
Trying to maintain but the feeling won't change
I'm sorry for the things that I've done and what I became
Caught up in living my life in the fast lane
Blinded by lights, cameras, you know the fame
I don't know the reason why I did these things
And I lie and I lie and I lie and I lie
And now our emotions are drained
Cos I lie and I lie and a little lie lie
And now your emotions are drained
No, no, no, no baby, no, no, no, no don't lie (no, don't you lie)
No, no, no, no, yeah, you know, know, know, know, you gotta try (got to try, got to try)
What you gonna do when it all comes out (what you gonna do baby)

Lower Manhattan Slavery in New York Walking Tour 2009, Part 3

from the event description: Lower Manhattan Slavery in New York Walking Tour. At each site along the tour route, students from Law, Government, and Community Service High School will be performing and presenting historical information. Classes are encouraged to make posters and banners about slavery in New York to carry and display along the tour route.
• Distributed by African American History and United States History students from Law, Government and Community Service Magnet High School, Cambria Heights, Queens.
• Based on the New York and Slavery: Complicity and Resistance curriculum guide
• Other than at the colonial era African American Burial Ground, which was uncovered during excavations for a federal office building in 1991, these sites, and slavery in New York in general, have been erased from historical memory. There is not even an historical marker at the South Street Seaport in the financial district of Manhattan where enslaved Africans were traded in the 17th century and were illegal slaving expeditions were planned and financed up until the time of the American Civil War.
• For more information, contact Dr. Alan Singer, Department of Curriculum and Teaching, Hofstra University, at
516-463-5853 or catajs@hofstra.edu or Michael Pezone at zenmap@aol.com.
full page google map at mapchannels

Lower Manhattan Slavery in New York Walking Tour 2009, Part 2

from the event description: Lower Manhattan Slavery in New York Walking Tour. At each site along the tour route, students from Law, Government, and Community Service High School will be performing and presenting historical information. Classes are encouraged to make posters and banners about slavery in New York to carry and display along the tour route.
• Distributed by African American History and United States History students from Law, Government and Community Service Magnet High School, Cambria Heights, Queens.
• Based on the New York and Slavery: Complicity and Resistance curriculum guide
• Other than at the colonial era African American Burial Ground, which was uncovered during excavations for a federal office building in 1991, these sites, and slavery in New York in general, have been erased from historical memory. There is not even an historical marker at the South Street Seaport in the financial district of Manhattan where enslaved Africans were traded in the 17th century and were illegal slaving expeditions were planned and financed up until the time of the American Civil War.
• For more information, contact Dr. Alan Singer, Department of Curriculum and Teaching, Hofstra University, at
516-463-5853 or catajs@hofstra.edu or Michael Pezone at zenmap@aol.com.
full page google map at mapchannels

Lower Manhattan Slavery in New York Walking Tour 2009, Part 1

from the event description: Lower Manhattan Slavery in New York Walking Tour. At each site along the tour route, students from Law, Government, and Community Service High School will be performing and presenting historical information. Classes are encouraged to make posters and banners about slavery in New York to carry and display along the tour route.
• Distributed by African American History and United States History students from Law, Government and Community Service Magnet High School, Cambria Heights, Queens.
• Based on the New York and Slavery: Complicity and Resistance curriculum guide
• Other than at the colonial era African American Burial Ground, which was uncovered during excavations for a federal office building in 1991, these sites, and slavery in New York in general, have been erased from historical memory. There is not even an historical marker at the South Street Seaport in the financial district of Manhattan where enslaved Africans were traded in the 17th century and were illegal slaving expeditions were planned and financed up until the time of the American Civil War.
• For more information, contact Dr. Alan Singer, Department of Curriculum and Teaching, Hofstra University, at
516-463-5853 or catajs@hofstra.edu or Michael Pezone at zenmap@aol.com.
full page google map at mapchannels