Marshall Major Taylor became one of the most famous black sporting pioneers that has subsequently eluded recognition or proper public acclaim. He was the son of Gilbert Taylor, a Civil War veteran. Marshall was born on November 26, 1878, one of eight children. His father worked in Indianapolis as a coachman for a wealthy white family named Southard.
When he was young, he befriended Daniel Southard and lived with the family between the ages of eight until twelve and was tutored alongside his friend. The arrangement ended when the Southards moved to Chicago.
The Southards provided Taylor with his first bicycle. By 1891, he became noteworthy locally for his trick riding. He performed stunts dressed in a military uniform earning his nickname Major.
At twelve, he entered his first amateur cycling race finishing third in a ten-mile event. Five years later, he would become the only rider to finish a grueling 75-mile road race conducted near Indianapolis. He would participate later in the national championship for Black racers staged in Chicago, which he won.
He moved to Worcester, Massachusetts, then the center of the bicycle industry. He escaped much of the overt racial prejudice and hostility he had encountered throughout the Midwest to a more tolerant East Coast environment. He kept racing as an amateur building a stellar reputation.
Taylor’s professional trajectory continued to rise and by 1898, he could legitimately claim the domestic national championship. He would have won more often but due to his Baptist beliefs, he never raced on Sundays when many of the finals were staged.
During 1898-99 at the peak of his cycling career, Taylor established seven world records. At the 1899 world championships in Montreal, he prevailed in the one-mile sprint to become the first black racer to win a championship in cycling. Professional cycling underwent numerous controversies over licensing bodies at that time.
He agreed to participate in a European tour during 1901. He became popular amongst European race fans and news reporters. He was frequently mobbed and profiled in news journals. During 1902, his record peaked with 40 victories in 57 races defeating the champions of Germany, England and France. During 1903 and 1904, he competed in Australia and New Zealand. He was nicknamed the Black Cyclone.
The accelerated pace of professional adulation and expectation proved overwhelming. The mental and physical strain prompted him to take a 2 ½ year hiatus between 1904 through 1906. He returned with less success, but appeared to be financially secure. The Indy Cycloplex adjacent to Marian College is named in his honor.
Taylor had achieved a monumental global milestone with his career, but the American public remained largely ignorant regarding his accomplishments. He endured significant hurtful tactics and even violence from amongst his rivals. The most common tactic employed against him involved boxing him in on the track so that he could not break to the front of the pack. He was considered unparalleled in sprints.
He retired from racing, was blackballed from earning a degree in engineering and suffered financially during the 1929 stock market crash and the financing of his self-published autobiography. He suffered a major heart attack in March 1932 and following an unsuccessful heart operation was transferred to the Cook County Hospital’s charity ward. He died on June 21 at the age of 53 in near total obscurity and was buried in a pauper’s grave. In 1948, Frank Schwinn of Schwinn Bicycling Company and a group of former competitors raised funds to upgrade his cemetery plot at Mount Glenwood Cemetery near Chicago.