Black Bike Week an informal tradition in Daytona
DAYTONA BEACH – As Jeff “Crawler” Smith hopped off his Harley-Davidson Road Glide along Mary McLeod Bethune Boulevard, it didn’t take long for the tantalizing aroma of Jamaican jerk chicken and Cajun catfish to welcome him to the 2024 edition of Black Bike Week.
“It’s all pretty good,” said Smith, 52, a member of the Love Doctors Motorcycle Club of Jefferson, South Carolina, who arrived in an entourage with a dozen or so additional club members — all of them ready to eat. “That’s what we were talking about just now.”
A few miles from the crowded epicenter of the 10-day Bike Week celebration along Main Street, the traditional informal gathering known as Black Bike Week opened on Thursday for a fourday run in Daytona’s historic Midtown Neighborhood.
Smith and his friends timed their Daytona Beach arrival to make opening day of the informal family-oriented gathering that has been a staple for more than 50 years along the streets surrounding Joe Harris Park in the shadow of Bethune-Cookman University.
It’s a showcase of gleaming, highend motorcycles, of course, but also a chance to explore merchandise and culinary treats that offer a twist on fare found at other Bike Week hot spots.
Food and merch — from curry chicken to Redd Foxx
On Thursday, there were food vendors serving oxtail, curry goat and chicken, garlic shrimp, collard greens, conch fritters, fried oysters and smoked turkey legs, among other items.
Along Mary McLeod Boulevard, there also were vendors offering everything from perfumed oils to designer purses, jewelry, beads, leather jackets, patches, brightly colored sundresses and Tshirts emblazoned with cultural icons from Martin Luther King and Malcolm X to comedian Redd Foxx.
Among the merchandise vendors was Tia James-Dozier, who traveled from Orlando with tables of vibrantly colored custom-designed T-shirts and baseball-style jerseys created by her family-owned company, Cameron’s Gear.
Black Bike Week is an event that the company looks forward to annually, she said.
“It’s a great cultural event and we enjoy meeting people from all over the country,” she said. “This street (Mary McLeod Bethune Boulevard) has a lot of history to it.
“Every year at this event, it’s like a big family reunion where people pay homage to all the riders that went before them. We have a lot of liberties now that they didn’t enjoy back in the day.”
Black Bike Week steeped in history
Black Bike Week was born in 1971, when segregation was still a reality nationwide, after a Black biker said he was told to leave the main Bike Week event on Main Street on the beachside, supposedly because his Harley Davidson was dripping oil.
He and other Black bikers formed their own event, an informal annual gathering that features music, food and vendors at Joe Harris Park, at the corner of Mary McLeod Bethune Boulevard and Green Street.
It still unfolds annually over Bike Week’s closing weekend, although those attending on this year’s opening day acknowledge that times have generally changed for the better.
The attitudes of racial discrimination that inspired the event’s creation have “absolutely, most definitely” improved, said James-Dozier, the Orlando-based vendor.
“We always want to see continuous improvement,” she said, “but a lot has changed for the better over the years.”
That sentiment was echoed by Smith and his brothers in the Love Doctors Motorcycle Club.
“Black and white exist with each other now; we’re pretty much one family,” he said.
“The culture is just a little bit different, that’s all.”
Equally as important, the club members praised Daytona Beach for the welcome that it extends to motorcycle riders, a niche crowd that isn’t always greeted so hospitably, they said.
“Every time we come here, we meet new people, and the town really welcomes people on motorcycles,” Smith said. “That’s the biggest thing because every city isn’t biker friendly. That’s not always the case.”