Race across America
Eddie Gardner and the Great Bunion Derbies
By Charles B. Kastner (Seychelles 1980-82)
Syracuse University Press
December 2019
319 pages
Hardcover - $75.00
Paper – $29.95
Reviewed by Thomas E. Coyne
This is a book worth reading! And well-illustrated, besides!
Actually, it is three books in one, drawing on Charles Kastner’s previous histories
of the, now largely forgotten, 1928 and 1929 C. C. Pyle’s International-Trans-
Continental Foot Races. The two races are covered but this is, equally, a focused look
at race relations in the United States in the 1920’s and the efforts of African Americans
to achieve full integration into white America.
Author Kastner uses the story of Edward “Eddie” Gardner to tell his tale. Gardner,
born in Alabama, was a respected African American distance runner in the greater
Seattle, Washington community. In 1928 he participated in the trans-continental race
planned by the Route 66 Highway Association to draw attention to the nation’s best-known
national highway. The Association contracted with C. C. Pyle to conduct the event.
Pyle succeeded, displaying a flair for attention and ballyhoo plus a level of incompetence
and callousness that, in retrospect, makes one marvel even more at the tenacity of the
runners who completed, not one, but two such races.
Money, not glory, was the motivation for these runners. They were international distance
running stars and poor, but athletic, working class Americans. The latter, with the same
desire as countless other Americans, generations before them, who had walked East to
West next to their covered wagons in pursuit of a better life for their families.
Pyle offered his competitors a shot at $25, 000 for the winner with $10, 000, $5,000 and
$2,500 for second, third and fourth. Finishers five through ten would win $1,000. In 1928,
this was life changing money for the average person. To seek it, one hundred ninety-nine
starters toed the line on March 4, 1928 in Los Angeles and, after running 3,422.3 miles,
fifty-five crossed a finish line on May 26 in New York City.
A year later, reality had set in. Seventy-seven contestants, including forty-three repeaters
from the first race, started on March 31st in New York City and, running a different route
of 3,553.6 miles, nineteen finished on June 16th in Los Angeles.
A major difference; the runners in the 1928 race received their prize money. The finishers
in the 1929 run received worthless promissory notes and never collected.
In his two previous books the author focused on the races with some attention given to
efforts by the African American runners to show their fellow white citizens they could
compete as well as white athletes as distance runners. In this writing, Kastner shines his
light on Gardner who finished in eighth place in the 1928 race. In 1929 he was the sole
African American to return for the second running and led the run in its early stages but
succumbed to injury and fatigue and dropped out after 1,536.60 miles.
Eddie Gardner clearly wanted to successfully represent his race and African American
newspapers were the primary sources of information about that effort. Yet, there is no
doubt he also had the same motivation as the white runners. Finishing in the top money
meant a better life for him and his family.
Gardner, however, had to face the Jim Crow South as well as racial prejudice in other
states on his journeys and Kastner’s recounting presents a sobering look at race history
in the United States. To the credit of his fellow competitors, Gardner was treated as a
respected comrade runner who shared the same miserable treatment C. C. Pyle gave
everybody.
Kastner deserves accolades for the years of research that have gone into his three books
about C. C. Pyle’s Bunion Derbies. This account gives graphic descriptions of men who
ran through rugged terrain and terrible weather conditions at paces per mile that would
be respectable in modern day marathons and ultra-marathons.
While the author does not comment on the hundreds of subsequent runs across America,
he should take pleasure in knowing that the spirit of the bunioneers lives on. Since Andy
Payne’s 1928 run of 3,422.3 miles in 84 days the cross-continent record has now dropped
to Pete Kostelnick’s 2016 run of 3100 miles in 42 days-six hours-30 minutes.
Read the book! The will power of these runners will impress you.
Thomas E. Coyne has been a runner since 1947. In all that time he never once
felt the urge to run one step more than the 26.2 mile marathon distance.
Ed. Note: Some of you may recall that Thom Coyne also reviewed the first two books
of this trilogy. The link to that review is: Vol 4 N. 3 April 29, 2014
This review was originally done for a blog by Thom Coyne's brother John Coyne for returned Peace Corps Volunteers. Mr. Kastner was a volunteer in The Seychelles 1980-82
of this trilogy. The link to that review is: Vol 4 N. 3 April 29, 2014
This review was originally done for a blog by Thom Coyne's brother John Coyne for returned Peace Corps Volunteers. Mr. Kastner was a volunteer in The Seychelles 1980-82
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6:18 PM (1 hour ago)
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George---I sent you several emails about Andy Payne of Okla City who won the 1928 Bunion Derby. He became the clerk of the Okla Supreme Court for 34 years.
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