The Brown Bullet

Rajo Jack’s Drive to Integrate Auto Racing

De: Bill Poehler

Narrado por: David Sadzin

The powers-that-be in auto racing in the 1920s, namely the American Automobile Association's Contest Board, prohibited everyone who wasn't a White male from the sport. Dewey Gaston, a Black man who went by the name Rajo Jack, broke into the epicenter of racing in California, refusing to let the pervasive racism of his day stop him from competing against entire fields of White drivers. In The Brown Bullet, Bill Poehler uncovers the life of a long-forgotten trailblazer and the great lengths he took to even get on the track, and in the end, tells how Rajo Jack proved to a generation that a Black man could compete with some of the greatest White drivers of his era, winning some of the biggest races of the day.

©2020 Bill Poehler (P)2020 Tantor

A interesting discovery in a mediocre story.

A for the author's effort and willingness to unveil a pretty cool and interesting story that had to be difficult to come up in research for. It's a story that needed to be told, not just because of the struggles of an African American man trying to make his way in to the sport of racing, but rather a man that turned out to be a very skilled racer, especially for having very little in life powered by perseverance. A good read, however it has some very slow parts (race entries, places, lap times, vague persons, ect) that were a struggle to get through.

Simply fantastic!

As a former racer you can feel that all to me longing to go race. It was no different than him But the barriers he faced must’ve been frustrating beyond all measure. Fascinating story and well written. To me I must read.