Photo: 1952 Olympic gold medal winners of the Women's 400-meter relay (Credit: Corbis)
I am part of a local chapter of Black Girls Run! national running group. I love it. The group is inspiring and supportive. They have caused me love running, something I never thought I'd do. I've lost a total of 30 pounds in the last couple years by eating well and running regularly. Running brings a vibrancy and positivity to every area of my life I can't imagine living without. Raising a family with young children, managing a full career, and serving the community, I truly run to keep the crazy away.
In honor of Black History Month and this illustrious group of black women who have done so much to encourage each other to live healthy, well-balanced lives, I share this history of black women who have run before us and whose spirits and drive still run with us today.
1. Dorothy Cure
Very little is recorded about Ms. Cure. What has been discovered is that she was a high jumper from Lynchburg, Virgina, and the first black woman to set a national record in 1914 for the running broad jump when she cleared 15 feet and 2 1/2 inches. It may have been due to racial restrictions at that time that prevented Ms. Cure from having much notoriety. But every movement gains traction from the sacrifices of unknown people. Her early work blazed a trail for big track and field names such as Wilma Rudolph and Flo-Jo. So today we reach back and acknowledge Dorothy Cure for her significant contribution.
2. Louise Stokes (1913–1978) and Tydie Pickett (1914-1986)
These two women were highly awarded, trophy-winning, and record-setting track and field athletes. They became first African American women to qualify for and win positions on the 1932 U.S. Olympic Team, but at that year's games in Los Angeles, the women were replaced by two white women since black people were not allowed to compete on behalf of the U.S. at that time. How devastating. In 1936 both women prepared themselves to return to the U.S. Olympic team. Ms. Pickett did not make the cut due to her trailing leg hitting one of the hurdles and her breaking her foot. Ms. Stokes did qualify and traveled to the Berlin to compete with her team. Yet, upon her arrival on the track she was informed that she would again be replaced by a white teammate. Shortly after she retired from track and field and in 1941 founded the Colored Women's Bowling.
3. Alice Marie Coachman (1923–2014)
Though this remarkable woman is not widely known, her contribution to running and track and field is remarkable. Alice Coachman was the first African American woman to win an Olympic gold medal, after setting a record for the high jump in the 1948 London Olympics. An alumna of Tuskegee University (then Tuskegee Institute), Coachman was also a phenomenal sprinter. Due to her national dominance in the high jump for almost a decade, it is speculated that she would have also won medals in the 1940 and 1944 Olympics had the games not been canceled due to the conflicts of World War II.
4. Wilma Rudolph (1940–1994)
Diagnosed with polio as a child, it would be hard to predict that Wilma Rudolph would be the first American woman to win three track-and-field gold medals in a single Olympics. But she did. She was determined to silence the naysayers. By age sixteen, Ms Rudolph had qualified for the 1956 Olympics where she won her first medal, a bronze in the 4x100-meter relay. Four years later in the 1960 Olympics in Rome, the lightning-fast runner won three more gold medals for the 100 and 200 meters and 4x100-meter relay.
Not satisfied to keep her winnings to herself, Ms. Rudolph generously devoted herself to the Civil Rights Movement and her community, participating in “whites-only” restaurant sit-ins, running a community center, and later founding the Wilma Rudolph Foundation, for community-based amateur sports.
5. 1952 Olympics Gold Medal Relay Team
Catherine Hardy (1930– ) of Georgia; Barbara Jones (1937– ) of Chicago; Mae Faggs (1932–2000) of Bayside, NY; and Janet Moreau (1927– ) of Pawtucket, RI, are the four incomparable women who set out to compete against the best in the world in the 1952 Olympics, and they won the top prize.
Catherine Hardy was the anchor the 4x100-meter relay team. Originally, Janet Moreau—age twenty-four, the oldest and the only white team member—was chosen to be the anchor until the coach realized that Ms. Hardy was the fastest runner on the team.
Barbara Jones was the youngest on the team at fifteen years of age. At the time she was the youngest female to win an Olympic gold medal in track and field. Ms Jones missed the 1956 Olympics, but returned to the 1960 Olympics in Rome and won another the gold medal with a new set of 4x100-meter relay teammates: Martha Hudson, Lucinda Williams, and the multi-medaled champion Wilma Rudolph.
After the 1952 gold-medal win, Mae Faggs was the only one from the 1952 relay team to return to the Melbourne 1956 Games. She teamed up with Margaret Matthews, Wilma Rudolph, and Isabelle Daniels, winning the bronze. Ms. Faggs went on from competing in the Olympics to teaching athletics at Princeton High School in Cincinnati, Ohio, for many years. In 1976, she was elected into the National Track and Field Hall of Fame.
6. Willye White (1939–2007)
Committed to finding a way out of the Mississippi cotton fields, Willye B. White was the first American track and field athlete to compete in five Olympics, from 1956 through 1972. Only an injury kept her off the 1976 team. In 1956 at sixteen years old, Ms. White won a silver medal in the long jump and another in the 4x100-meter relay in 1964. She maintained her status as the best female long jumper for just short of two decades.
After her stint as a best-in-the-world athlete, Ms. White spent almost forty years working in as a city health administrator, a director of recreational services, and a creator of sports programs for young girls in housing projects. In 1991, she founded the Willye White Foundation to help children develop self-esteem.
7. Valerie Brisco-Hooks (1960– )
Wife, mom, advocate, and coach, Valerie Brisco-Hooks is an inspiration to us everyday black girls who run. After gaining over forty pounds during pregnancy, she did not begin training until 1982 and was in competitive shape in time to qualify for the 1984 U.S. Olympics Team, where she won not one but three gold medals, and became the first Olympian to ever win two gold medals in two races at a single Olympics. She is still the eighth fastest woman in the world.
8. Florence Griffith-Joyner (1959–1998)
Nicknamed FloJo and the sister-in-law of track star Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Florence Griffith-Joyner was not only known for her amazing athleticism but also for her diva style on the track, wearing one-legged unitards and lace attachments when other women wore shorts. She made winning three gold medals at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, look like a cat walk. She became known as the fastest woman in history, running the 100-meter in 10.49 seconds and the 200 in 21.34 seconds.
Sadly, a decade later, she died of a heart seizure.
I remember when FloJo came to visit my second-grade elementary class. She was a big-time celebrity in my seven-year-old eyes. I distinctly remember her long colorful nails, and her makeup and hair were totally Hollywood to me. She was so nice and smiled a lot.
While her spirit and personality live on in many of today's black women athletes such as Sanya Richards Ross and Allyson Felix, her presence is truly missed.
9. Evelyn Ashford (1957– )
Ms. Ashford began competitive running in high school and continued her pursuits through her college years. In 1984 she qualified for and competed as a member of the U.S. Olympic Team. There, she won her first gold medal for the 100-meter dash, for which she also set the world record for being the first woman to run that distance in under 11 seconds. After the 1984 games she started a family with husband Ray Washington. Then in 1988 she was back at the Olympics to win two more medals: a silver for the 100 meters and a gold in the 400-meter relay. In 1992, Ashford became the oldest woman to win an Olympic gold medal in track and field. She ran with that year's gold medal-winning 400-meter relay team. The five-time Olympian
was inducted into the USA Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1997, and into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame in 2005.
10. Jackie Joyner-Kersee (1962– )
Described as “the best all-around female athlete in the world,” in the 1988 and 1992 Olympics, Jackie Joyner-Kersee won gold medals in the heptathalon (a punishing, two-day contest that tests an athlete’s strength, speed, and stamina). She was the first athlete to win back-to-back Olympic heptathalons. Overcoming her asthmatic condition, Mrs. Joyner-Kersey established herself as one of track and field’s most competitive and determined performers ever.
These women are just like the phenomenal women I run with every day, although many times we connect in spirit and through online posts. Despite the responsibilities of family, work, or school and the pressures of the culture, the women of Black Girls Run form supportive and empowering running teams and we find our way to the nearest track, trail, or treadmill and mile by mile we carve out the best selves we can be. While being a world-class athlete is not my goal, I am honored, as a black woman runner, to have a women like them in my corner and to also have a legacy like the one highlighted above. This is what I stand on every morning when I hear my alarm go off at 5:15, faithfully reminding me, "Time to hit the pavement."
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References
"Barbara Jones," Wikipedia.com.
Bill Rhoden, "Women in Sports: A Fruitful Past but a Shaky Future," August 1977, p. 61-64.
"Black Women Athletes Photo Gallery," History.com.
"Catherine Hardy Lavender," Wikipedia.com.
Eric Williams, "The Greatest Black Female Athletes of All Time," BlackAthlete.net, April 6, 2006.
"Evelyn Ashford Biography," Biography.com.
Frank Litsky, "Willye B. White, the First 5-Time U.S. Track Olympian, Dies at 67," NyTimes.com, February 7, 2007.
"Janet Moreau," Sports-Reference.com.
"News of the Outdoor World," Outing, LA84 Foundation Sports Library, Vol. 62