VOL. 52 ISSUE 9 MARCH 3, 2015 P127
munity in the late 1940s and early 1950s. One of the
stars to emerge from those events was a rider they
called "The Utah Kid." His real name was Howard Jack-
son, originally from Utah. His story was quite unique
in that he learned to ride at a young age, and was
taught by a Mexican female rider from Salt Lake City.
His entire family became motorcycle riders, including
a younger sister, and Jackson went on to win titles in
Utah before moving to Atlanta, where he continued his
racing exploits and was given one of the best nick-
names of any rider of the era.
Leroy "Bus" Payne
A seminal figure in motorcycle racing, Leroy "Bus"
Payne is the first known African-American rider to
race an AMA Grand National. Payne, of Philadelphia,
raced professionally throughout the 1950s. He attained
expert status at the end of the 1952 season. Payne,
sometimes known as Buster, was not only a good dirt
track racer, but a solid road racer as well. He scored
a 19th-place result in the prestigious Laconia National
Road Race in 1953 and also qualified later that year
for the national road race in Windber, Pennsylvania.
The AMA Grand National Championship was launched
in 1954 and on July 25 of that year history was made
when Payne finished tenth in the AMA Grand National
road race at Windber, Pennsylvania, thus becoming
the first African-American to compete and finish in an
AMA Grand National Championship race (although he
did not score national points since at that time only the
top-six finishers earned points). It also marked the top
Grand National finish to date by an African-American
rider. Payne raced into the late 1950s and rode Harley-
Davidson motorcycles his entire career. The Payne
legacy continued when Payne's son, also named Le-
roy, made history on his own by being the first African-
American admitted to the Pennsylvania Bicycle Club
and won numerous cycling championships as a teen.
Milton Hall
Milton Hall was one of the leading African-American rid-
ers in the country in the early 1950s. He raced in what
were then called "negro races" across the southeast
and was a star of those events. Hall could be de-
scribed as motorcycle racing's Satchel Paige. He was
so popular he was even invited to mainstream whites-
only events to stage exhibition races and stunt rides.
Hall saved for his first Harley-Davidson motorcycle
when he was in the Army. Hall was also a pioneer
off the track, as part of the class of the first African-
American police officers to be hired by the city of Sa-
vannah, Georgia. By the early 1950s Hall had left the
police department and he and his wife Ruth opened
a cab company in Savannah. The company was
successful and he had the money to buy a race bike
and the diminutive Hall rapidly became a champion
rider in the African-American events of the South.
He became popular enough that his was a headline
name when promoting races. So it was great fanfare
that Hall, along with Julius Walker, became the first
African-American riders permitted to race at Daytona
in 1955, an event covered by Ebony Magazine. Hall
went on to participate as a novice and amateur rider
in AMA pro events for the next two seasons. Unfortu-
nately Hall's story didn't have a fairytale ending. Tragi-
cally he died while racing at the infamous Langhorne
(PA) Mile in September of 1956.
Julius Walker
Julius "Jim" Walker earned a lot of notoriety by being
featured in Ebony Magazine's coverage of the 1955
Daytona motorcycle races, where Walker and fellow
racer Milton Hall became the first African-American
riders to race in the era's most prestigious motorcycle
race. Walker, who originally hailed from Littlestown,
Pennsylvania, and later moved to Marion, Ohio, was
known as a hard-charging rider and he won numer-
ous regional events, though he never qualified for an
AMA National. A big, friendly, smiling man, Walker
was well liked by fans and his fellow competitors. An
illustration of Walker's acceptance came when he
had a number of votes cast for him in the ballot for the
AMA's Most Popular Rider contest in 1957. CN
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