Introduction: The unlikely hero -- Longing for the road -- Becoming Rajo Jack -- Taking a step back to move forward -- The outlaw emerges -- The rise to prominence -- The folly of Negro League midget racing -- From obscurity to national champion -- Independence and reaching a new height -- Lucky charms fail to deliver -- The super-sub wins the other 500 -- The big crash and road to obscurity -- Racing on the fringes -- Rising from the ashes -- The new Indy 500 dream -- Hawaiian interlude -- A new dream -- Epilogue : Rajo Jack as a work of art -- Rajo Jack's wins.
Summary:
"The powers-that-be in auto racing in the 1920s, namely the American Automobile Association's Contest Board, barred everyone who wasn't a white male from the sport. Dewey Gatson, 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. Though Rajo Jack spent his whole life striving to reach the pinnacle of the sport, the Indianapolis 500, the greatest race in the world wouldn't have him. 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"--Provided by publisher.
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