My father who had never seen me race before came into my dressing room after the races were over to congratulate me. He had a rather surprised look on his face when he said, “Well, son, there is one thing I don’t understand, that is, if you are the fastest bicycle rider in the world, as the newspapers say you are, why in time don’t you beat those white boys out further at the finish line?” “Well,” I said, “I won by a couple of lengths, didn’t I?” “Yes,” he said, “but I expected to see you leave them so far behind that you could get dressed and come out and see the rest of them fight it out for second, and third money.” The innocence of old age.
I tried to explain to him that I was perhaps not quite as fast as the papers proclaimed me to be, and he readily agreed. Then he wanted to know as to why it was they made me start way back in the last place in the two-mile handicap race, and place all the white boys away out ahead of me. I again tried to blame it on to the newspapers, but he couldn’t see it that way; he insisted that I was being picked on again because of my color.
This was my father’s idea how fast his boy could ride a bicycle, and also his idea of what I was up against because of my color.
