Item #6092 [Black Bikers, The Chosen Few] The Universal Motorcycle Association News Bulletin [Four Issues with Manuscript]. ed Everett Redd.
[Black Bikers, The Chosen Few] The Universal Motorcycle Association News Bulletin [Four Issues with Manuscript]
[Black Bikers, The Chosen Few] The Universal Motorcycle Association News Bulletin [Four Issues with Manuscript]
[Black Bikers, The Chosen Few] The Universal Motorcycle Association News Bulletin [Four Issues with Manuscript]

[Black Bikers, The Chosen Few] The Universal Motorcycle Association News Bulletin [Four Issues with Manuscript]

Los Angeles: Tropical Inn, 1961-1962. Mimeograph. Four (4) issues. Side stapled to top edge. 8 1⁄2 x 14 in. Very good, paper sunned with wear to edges, some tears along creases. Item #6092

Four issues of a typewritten, hand-stapled newsletter written and edited by Everett Reed, a Black motorcyclist in Los Angeles in the early 1960s, with manuscript notes and an essay written in his hand.

Everett Redd was a motorcycle rider and enthusiast, and the manager of biker bar and clubhouse The Tropical Inn in Los Angeles in the early 1960s. He published and wrote this newsletter, founded in 1960 and originally titled The Tropical Weekly News, then The Universal Motorcycle Association News Bulletin. Redd also contributed writing to more widely circulated publications including Bronze Motorcycle and BAM Motorcycle. A member of the Chosen Few Motorcycle Club, where he earned the nickname “Sexy”, Redd was a fixture of the Black outlaw motorcycle club scene in Los Angeles. Chosen Few was founded in 1959 as an all-African American club, but later invited white members to join, making them possibly the first mixed-race outlaw motorcycle club in existence.

Included in this lot are the January 20, 1962 issue, February 3, 1962 issue, February 11, 1961 issue, and a heavily edited and annotated copy of the February 11, 1961 issue with date crossed out and changed to March 11, 1961, with four sheets of manuscript writings and notes, presumably an early draft of the March issue.

Unique manuscript documentation of 1960’s South Central motorcycle club culture, through the eyes of a central figure in the scene.

Price: $850.00