First published 2019
Major Taylor arrives in 1890s America with a dream to compete in cycling, the nation's most popular sport. The young black athlete faces a country where Jim Crow laws enforce racial separation and white competitors fear his success will challenge their prejudices. Birdie Munger, a former world champion cyclist, takes Taylor under his wing and promises to make him a champion. Taylor battles racism at every race while pursuing his goal of becoming the fastest man on two wheels. His journey takes him from American tracks to international competitions, where he finds acceptance abroad that his home country denies him. Twelve years before Jack Johnson entered boxing and fifty years before Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier, Taylor fights to prove himself in a white-dominated sport. The story unfolds during cycling's golden age, just before automobiles transform American transportation. Taylor's quest reveals the courage required to challenge racial barriers and the price of being first.
Genres: biography, historical-fiction, 20th-century, african-american, cycling, american-history
Vibes: emotional, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: overcoming-adversity, underdog
Setting: America, United States
Period: 1890s, Golden Age of Cycling
384 pages · Hardcover · Scribner
Content warnings: racism