Women’s (Bike) History: Kittie Knox

There was no denying that Miss Kittie Knox was a card-carrying member of the League of American Wheelmen, but her attendance at the annual meeting in 1895 lit a fire that sparked newspaper headlines from coast to coast. Only 21 years old at the time, the bi-racial seamstress and cycling enthusiast dared to challenge the new “color bar” instituted by the League just one year earlier.

Even before the controversy at the 1895 meeting, Knox had made a name for herself in her hometown of Boston. In 1893, the Riverside Cycling Club became the first black cycling group and, according to historian Lorenz Finison, Knox was among a “small coterie of black women cyclists in the early part of Boston’s [bicycling] craze.” In 1893, the Indianapolis Freemen, a black newspaper of the time, reported on Knox and Viola Wheaton performing “graceful” cycling at a meet-up in Martha’s Vineyard. That same year, Knox was listed in the rolls of the Bulletin — the League’s newsletter of the time — as a member of the growing ranks of the Wheelmen. But controversy was brewing… In 1894, despite strong opposition from many local affiliates, including numerous cycling clubs in Boston, the League passed a color bar. Spearheaded by Colonel W.W. Watts from Louisville, Ky., it was resolved at the annual meeting in 1894 that “none but white persons can become members of the League.” Since Knox was already a card carrying member — one of just a few hundred women at the time — it set the stage for an possible showdown at the 1895 meeting. But Knox wasn’t one to shy away from the spotlight. In fact, in the run-up to the League’s annual meeting, she pushed the boundaries of women’s dress, winning a July 4th costume contest at the Waltham Cycle Park — clad in a gray knickerbocker suit. “Knickerbockers referred to what had been typical men’s and boy’s baggy trousers,” Finison writes in his upcoming book. “That Kittie won with such a uniform was quite astounding, and a testament to her seamstress skills, given the animus in some quarters against women of the time wearing anything but skirts – and long skirts at that.” Knox must have been prepared for some animus from members when she joined thousands of cyclists in Asbury Park to participate in the League Meet. What happened when she arrived isn’t entirely clear. Some newspapers described Knox being refused entry — and either withdrawing quietly or walking out defiantly — while other reports denied her exclusion. As Finison describes it:

[Knox] was entering a socially segregated space – the Asbury Park hotel district, and given recent history, she must have known the controversy her appearance might create. However, she had the support of her Boston cycling companions, and her entrance was featured in many of the national and local newspapers, which seemed to regard her as a full member of the Boston cycling contingent, despite the existence of the color bar. The New York Times reported: “With the Boston delegation is also Miss Kittie Knox, a pretty young colored girl, who rides in the Riverside Cycle Club, Boston’s only colored cycle club.” The Times got quickly to the heart of the conflict: “This afternoon Miss Knox did a few fancy cuts in front of the clubhouse and was requested to desist. It is thought that this episode will result in temporarily opening the color line question. Some of the Asbury Park wheelmen officials, it is said, will protest against permitting Miss Knox to remain a member of the league…  [and] the local ‘kickers’ say they will have a reckoning with the League Secretary, Abbot Bassett, upon his arrival.”