In the early 1920's, Charlie Wiggins was a black shoeshine boy in Evansville, Indiana. Life wasn't easy. The state of Indiana was controlled by the Ku Klux Klan. In fact, every elected official was a member of the klan and segregation was considered ... <BR><BR>To read the rest of this blog entry from The Jalopy Journal, click here.
awesome read...sad time in our history but what a great man! I can't imagine what Charlie and others had to go through...makes me ashamed to think that stuff like this ever went on...hopefully each day things get a little bit better
Perfect story on this day. He like Jackie Robinson in baseball and etc. etc. had to endure what no man should. ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL! Some just don't get it and they are as Ryan so eloquently put it.....ASSHOLES!
This is beautiful. Mechanical apptitude has no color......neither does free will. Sent from my iPhone using TJJ
Another example of how narrow minded people can rule this great country of ours. God Bless Mr. Wiggins for his perserverance to excel in the face of adversity. Thanks Ryan for taking the time to enlighten us.
Great piece of history, thanks for posting it. That man had to have alot of heart to push on through all the shit that was shoveled his way.
Thanks for the story! ..Kind of reminds me of the movie "Greased Lightning" about the black stock car racer after WW II. Some good history albeit unfortunate to have happened in the land of the FREE...?!
WOW! Never heard this story before. Times sure were different "Chocolate jockeys"!!!!!!! would make a great movie. "Greased Lightning" with richard pryor is still one of my favorites & one of his best dramatic performances period.
Great story, Ryan. I never heard of Mr. Wiggins before. Another grear driver was Wendell Scott. My family and I watched Greased Lightning over the weekend. The kids wanted to know why all the other drivers were being so mean to him
Great story! Thanks for posting it. Reminds me of Wendell Scott in Nascar. Let's hope that mankind will learn from this injustice. God bless you, Charlie Wiggins.
Thank you for a great read. Like some others above, I hadn't heard about him at all. Makes me wish I had met him. I agree with LIL TIMMY too.
From a race perspective, I'm a mutt. For all intents and purposes though, I'm a white guy. I was brought up to believe that only a man with character can judge only by character. No one is without flaws. I also grew up a car guy. I met and hung out with Willy T. Ribbs at a really young age. The color of his skin never even crossed my mind until I was old enough to recognize injustice. He was a RACE CAR DRIVER! That's it. And I idolized him. Even so, I can't pretend to even relate to what Charlie Wiggins did. I can't pretend to know how good of a man he was or was not. Hell, I can't even really appreciate what he did outside of his racing accomplishments. In my mind, only another black man that lived during that time could. From the safety of my white skin, I like to think that he put racing above everything else. The other shit was just noise. Skin color... Take that out of the equation and look what Charlie did. No one would let him race, but he still tried and he still dominated. Dude was straight up dedicated to doing what he loved and didn't let anything get in his way. That's punk rock. That's character. I love this guy...
Well stated Ryan. A champion is a champion, and to succeed when everyone around you wants you to fail takes some stones.
Great read for MLK day, Ryan! I just started watching 'Boardwalk Empire' on HBO, and you see how deeply race divided, ran, and formed this country in the teens/ twenties, when you watch it...
Tremendous and very timely story. Thanx for making more people aware of this automotive hero. ~sololobo~
Charlie, you are an inspiration, you are not dead, you live on in all that have suffered the burden of being considered sub-human. Punk rock forever.