Black History Month: Celebrating Athletes
During the last week of Black History Month, we are celebrating Black athletes. Athletes have long inspired greatness in their fellow human beings, accomplishing the impossible as they seemingly defying the laws of nature. Many Black athletes choose to use their platforms not only to inspire, but also to lead, fighting for racial equity, sometimes even in the face of history’s greatest villains.
Muhammad Ali
Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr., better known as Muhammad Ali, was an American professional boxer widely recognized as the greatest boxer of all times and one of the most famous American athletes. He was born in Louisville, KY in 1942. Ali began boxing at the age of 12 when he reported his stolen bicycle to a policeman named Joe Martin, who gave boxing lessons at a local youth center. Martin invited Ali to try boxing and soon recognized his talent. At 18, Ali won the gold medal in the light heavyweight division at the 1960 Summer Olympics and turned professional later that year. In February 1964, when he was only 22 years old, he fought and defeated Sonny Liston for the heavyweight championship of the world. He became the first boxer in history to win the heavyweight championship three times. Ali thrived in the spotlight; was known for trash-talking, and often free-styled with rhyme schemes and spoken word poetry. Ali has been described as the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time, and as the greatest athlete of the 20th century by Sports Illustrated, the Sports Personality of the Century by the BBC, and the third greatest athlete of the 20th century by ESPN SportsCentury. Inspired by Muslim spokesman Malcolm X, Ali began to follow the Black Muslim faith, became a Muslim, and changed his name to Muhammad Ali in 1966. In April 1967, Ali was drafted into military service during the Vietnam War. As a minister of the Black Muslim religion, he refused to serve. As a result, his boxing license was suspended and he was stripped of his heavyweight title. Ali was sentenced to five years in prison but was released on appeal, and his conviction was thrown out three years later by the U.S. Supreme Court. Ali retired from boxing in 1981 and made his Parkinson’s disease diagnosis public in 1984. Throughout his life, Ali focused on religion, philanthropy, and activism. He supported historically Black colleges and spoke about the importance of education. He donated millions to charity organizations and disadvantaged people and was engaged in a number of social justice causes. At the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia, Ali was chosen to light the Olympic torch during the opening ceremonies. In 2005, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. His life story is featured in the film Ali (2001), and in the documentary film I Am Ali (2014).
Simone Biles
Simone Biles is an Olympic gold medalist and World Champion gymnast. She was born in Columbus, OH in 1997, but when her mother was unable to care for her four children and they were placed in foster care, Biles’ grandparents moved the children to the Houston suburb Spring, TX in 2000. Biles and one of her sisters were officially adopted by their grandparents in 2003. Biles began gymnasts at age 6. In 2013, Biles competed in her first international meet, where she placed second. Later that year, she won her first national all-around title and her first world all-around title, making her the first African America to win the world title. In 2016, Biles was named to the U.S. team for the Rio Olympics. She helped lead the women’s team to Olympic team gold, and then won the individual all-around gold, the vault gold, floor exercise gold, and balance beam bronze. After taking a few years off, Biles returned to gymnastics in 2018. At the national championships, she placed first in every event over two days of competition. During the 2018 World Championships, Biles received emergency medical attention for kidney stones the night before the qualifying round. After checking herself out of the hospital, she helped the U.S. team qualify for the team final, while also qualifying for the all-around, vault, balance beam, and floor exercise finals herself. The U.S. team went on to win the team event, and Biles took the all-around title, the vault title, the floor exercise title, silver on the uneven bars, and bronze on the balance beam. This made her just the tenth female gymnast, and first American, to win a medal on every event. She achieved similar results at the 2019 World Championships, where she won 5 gold medals. Biles has had several skills named after her: one on vault, two on balance beam, and one on floor exercise. The Biles II on floor exercise has been given the highest difficulty score of any skill for men and women. However, there has been controversy around the difficulty assignment of some of her scores, with some arguing that the skills are underscored to discourage other gymnasts from attempting to perform the incredibly difficult skills Biles is capable of performing. In 2018, Biles designed and wore a teal leotard at the National Championships to represent the survivors of Larry Nassar’s sexual assault after announcing she had also been one of his victims earlier that year. Along with the other survivors, Biles received the Arthur Ashe Courage Award for speaking out about Nassar. Her list of awards and accomplishments cements her as one of the greatest athletes of all time. She has announced that she will retire after the Tokyo Olympics later this year.
Colin Kaepernick
Colin Kaepernick was an NFL quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers from 2011-2016. He was born in Milwaukee, WI in 1987. Kaepernick brought national attention to police brutality and racial injustices in the United States by protesting the National Anthem before football games by taking a knee. His protests were first recognized in August 2016 during a preseason game against the Green Bay Packers. When asked about his protest after the game, Kaepernick is quoted as saying “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way.” Kaepernick continued to protest the National Anthem for the remainder of the season, his last season as a player in the NFL. His protests quickly became a movement by other players throughout the League and other professional sports leagues. Kaepernick completed a Million Dollar Pledge for which he personally donated one million dollars to 37 organizations fighting for social justice. He also founded the Know Your Rights Camp to advance the liberation of Black and Brown people throughout the world. The Know Your Rights Camp was designed to create new systems that elevate the next generation of change leaders in the Black and Brown community. Readers are encouraged to read the New York Times article The Awakening of Colin Kaepernick to learn more about Kaepernick and his development as a social justice leader.
Althea Gibson
Althea Neale Gibson was an American tennis player and professional golfer. Gibson was born in Silver, SC in 1927, but moved to Harlem in 1930 where, at age 12, she was the New York City women’s paddle tennis champion. In 1941, she won her first tournament, the American Tennis Association (ATA) New York State Championship. In 1947, she won her first of ten straight national ATA women’s titles. In 1950, Gibson became the first Black player to receive an invitation to the US Nationals (now the US Open) at 23 years old, and her participation was internationally covered. In 1956, she became the first African American to win a Grand Slam title (the French Championships). The following year, she won both Wimbledon (and was the first champion to receive the trophy personally from Queen Elizabeth II) and the US Nationals, then won both again in 1958. She was voted Female Athlete of the Year by the Associated Press in both years. She also became the first Black woman to appear on the covers of Sports Illustrated and Time magazines. In all, she won 11 Grand Slam tournaments: five singles titles, five doubles titles, and one mixed doubles title. Gibson was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame and the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. In late 1958, having won 56 national and international singles and doubles titles, Gibson retired from tennis. Earning no prize money at major tournaments and confronted by racial discrimination, from 1964 (age 37) until 1978, Gibson was the first African-American woman to join the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) tour. In the late 1980s Gibson suffered two cerebral hemorrhages and in 1992, a stroke. Ongoing medical expenses depleted her financial resources until former tennis doubles partner Angela Buxton raised nearly $1 million in donations from around the world. In early 2003, Gibson survived a heart attack, but died on September 28, 2003, at the age of 76 from complications. During the 2007 US Open (50 years after her first victory) Gibson was inducted into the US Open Court of Champions. In 2013, the United States Postal Service issued a postage stamp honoring her. In 2019, a statue was unveiled in her honor at Flushing Meadows, site of the US Open. This was only the second Flushing Meadows monument erected in honor of a champion.
Jesse Owens
Jesse Owens was Olympic gold medalist in track and field. He was born in Oakville, AL in 1913, a son of sharecroppers Henry and Emma Alexander Owens and grandson of enslaved people. His family of nine moved to Ohio when he was 9 years old, and by the time Owens was a teenager at East Technical High School, he was already breaking track and field records. This was just the beginning of his incredible athletic career. Early on in college at Ohio State University, Owens broke three world records at the Big Ten Conference Championships and became known as the “Buckeye Bullet.” In later years at OSU, Owens went on to win all of the 42 events he completed, including in the NCAA Championships, AAU Championships, and Olympic Trials. Owens became a worldwide hero when he became the first American to win four gold medals at the Olympic Games in Berlin, Germany in 1936. Hitler watched in disbelief and anger as Owens, an African American, blew past the competition and shattered world records, publicly destroying Hitler’s declaration of Aryan racial superiority. In total, the United States won eleven gold medals that year, and six of them were won by Black athletes. President Franklin D. Roosevelt did not meet and congratulate Owens when he returned to the US, which was a disgraceful failure in leadership that should have been met with public outcry at the time. In Owens own words, “Hitler didn’t snub me—it was our own president who snubbed me…the president didn’t even send me a telegram.” It would be many years before Owens was properly credited for these historical accomplishments. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Gerald Ford in 1976. And 10 years after his death, he was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 1990 by President George H.W. Bush. His legend is carried on by his daughters Gloria, Marlene, and Beverly through their work with the Jesse Owens Foundation.
Jackie Robinson
Jack Roosevelt (Jackie) Robinson was the first African American to play baseball in the MLB in the modern era. He was born in Cairo, GA in 1919, and his family moved to Pasadena, CA after his father left the family in 1920. Jackie’s older brothers, including the Olympic silver medalist Mack Robinson, inspired Jackie to pursue athletics; he was a varsity athlete in football, basketball, track, and baseball. Jackie attended Pasadena Junior College, continuing to pursue all four sports, before enrolling at UCLA in 1939 and becoming the first athlete to win varsity letters in four sports. He left UCLA just shy of graduating, and pursued a football career in the Pacific Coast Football League. However, the attack on Pearl Harbor had drawn the U.S. into WWII, at which point Robinson was drafted into a segregated Army calvary unit. However, after being court-martialed for refusing to sit at the back of an Army bus, which was supposed to be unsegregated, Robinson was not deployed with his battalion and he ended up never seeing combat. After being acquitted, Robinson was transferred to a base in Kentucky, where he met a former Kansas City Monarchs baseball player. Taking the player’s advice, Robinson wrote to the team, which was part of the Negro American League, to ask for a tryout. He signed a contract in 1945 for $400/month. Frustrated with the lack of structure and role of gambling in the League, Robinson pursued tryouts with MLB teams, which at the time had no Black players. By the end of 1945, Branch Rickey, the general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, negotiated a contract for Robinson in the MLB, and he spent the next season playing in the minor leagues. Robinson was called up to the Dodgers in 1947, scoring a run in his first game at Ebbets Field, and becoming the first athlete to break the color line since 1884. Robinson played for the Dodgers until 1956, and retired as a six-time All-Star, World Series champion (1955), National League MVP, Rookie of the Year, National league batting champion, and two-time National League stolen base leader. His number, 42, has been retired by all MLB teams, and Robinson was named to the MLB All-Century Team. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962. After his baseball career, Robinson was active in politics and the civil rights movement, and lobbied for increased diversity among the baseball management and coaching. His life story has been portrayed in several productions, including the 2013 movie 42, featuring Chadwick Boseman as Robinson. Robinson passed away in 1972.
Serena Williams
Serena Jameka Williams is an American professional tennis player and former world No. 1 in women’s single tennis. She was born in Saginaw, MI in 1981, the youngest of five daughters, including another tennis great, Venus Williams. Williams moved to Compton, CA, where she started playing tennis at age 4. Her rise in tennis was meteoric, reaching world No. 1 for the first time on July 8, 2002. Now 39 years old, she holds 23 Grand Slam singles titles, the most of any player in the Open Era, and second only to Margaret Court. She also holds the most Grand Slam titles in singles, doubles, and mixed doubles combined among active players. Williams gave birth to her daughter in September 2017 by emergency C-section, and suffered a pulmonary embolism after giving birth. When Williams returned to tennis in March 2018, she wore a catsuit while playing in the French Open, which aided her recovery from pregnancy. When her outfit was banned by the French Tennis Federation, she returned in a tutu. That same year, Williams made it to the finals at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. Just last week, Williams reached the semi-final of the Australian Open, where she lost to Naomi Osaka, who ended up winning the tournament. Williams has won the Laureus Sportswoman of the Year award four times, and was named Sportsperson of the Year by Sports Illustrated magazine in 2015. In 2019, she ranked 63rd in Forbes’ World’s Highest-Paid Athletes list. Williams is also an entrepreneur with a designer apparel line named Aneres. In 2002, People magazine selected her as one of its 25 Most Intriguing People. Essence magazine called her one of the country’s 50 Most Inspiring African Americans. Seeking to improve educational opportunities, the tennis star formed the Serena Williams Foundation which helps build schools in underprivileged areas around the world.