The World’s Fastest Man, by Michael Kranish

Title: The World’s Fastest Man – The Extraordinary Life of Major Taylor, America’s First Black Sports Hero
Author: Michael Kranish
Publisher: Scribner
Pages: 365
Year: 2019
Order: Simon and Schuster
What it is: The fourth major biography of cycling’s first Black world champion, Marshall ‘Major’ Taylor, who overcame racism in the US, became world famous in Europe, and also raced in Australia and New Zealand
Strengths: It’s a colourful account of Taylor’s life and times
Weaknesses: It’s an account of the life and times of Taylor that places the emphasis on the times to the detriment of the life story

“There is nothing stopping interested white writers from sharing their interpretations of the Black experience in cycling. However, where this white narrative is given greater credibility than the Black narrative voice and paradigm, this perpetuates racism.”
~ Marlon Moncrief
Desire Discrimination Determination

Michael Kranish’s The World’s Fastest Man: The Extraordinary Life of Major Taylor, America’s First Black Sports Hero is the fourth major biography of the second Black athlete – and the first Black cyclist – to be crowned a World Champion, Marshall ‘Major’ Taylor. After three other attempts to write ‘the definitive account’ of Taylor’s life it is fair to ask this question: do we really need another book about Major Taylor?

The answer to that question comes in the shape of a story related to me last year by Lynn Tolman of the Worcester-based Major…