Alice Coachman (1923-2014) was the first Black woman to win an Olympic gold medal.
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Hello, from Wonder Media Network, I’m Jenny Kaplan and this is Encyclopedia Womannica.
Today’s Olympian reached the pinnacle of her sport despite systemic and familial barriers to doing so. She specialized in the high jump, won many U.S. championships, and eventually became the first Black woman to win an Olympic gold medal. Today, we’re talking about Alice Coachman.
Alice was born on November 9, 1923 in Albany, Georgia. She took to track and field at a young age, despite lacking her parents’ support. Deep in the segregated South, barred from organized sports events and training grounds, Alice improvised. She ran barefoot on dirt roads and used old equipment to work on her high jump.
Alice enrolled in Madison high school in 1938. There, the boys’ track coach, Harry E. Lash, noticed Alice’s talent and nurtured it. During her time there, she broke both the high school and college high jump records in the Amateur Athlete Union (AAU) national track and field championship. Barefoot.
Within a year she caught the attention of Tuskegee Institute, now known as Tuskegee University. Tuskegee offered her a scholarship when she was 16.
Alice continued to dominate the AAU championship over the next nine years. By 1948, she could say she won ten national championships in a row, breaking records along the way. Still, it was a time of mixed fortune. At the peak of her athletic performance, WWII broke out. The Olympics were canceled in 1940 and 1944. After graduating from Tuskegee, Alice enrolled in Albany State College in 1946, where she studied home economics and science. She would later become a teacher and track and field coach.
But before that, she would make history.
It was the summer of 1948 and the Olympics were held in London after a twelve year hiatus. A heavy rain broke over England that early August, lasting for days. On the drizzly morning of August 7, 83,000 spectators gathered to watch the closing track and field event. Up to that point, no American woman had taken the gold medal in any of the competitions.
Alice made a name for herself by jumping a stunning 5 feet, 6 1/8 inches in the high jump. She surpassed the Olympic record, beat Dorothy Tyler of Britain, and jumped into the history books as the first Black woman to win an Olympic gold medal.
King George VI presented Alice with her gold medal. And upon her return home, a parade welcomed her back in honor of her historic achievement. She met Harry Truman and Eleanor Roosevelt.
Still, the racial attitudes of the time diminished her accomplishment. The mayor of Alice’s hometown refused to shake Alice’s hand at her own honors ceremony.
Many years later, in an interview with the Visionary Project, Alice was asked if she was put down by others when she won. She said: “There was nothing they could say to me that could bring me down, or make me feel cheap. Because I was champ.”
Alice’s athletic career ended at the age of 24. She then raised a family and became an elementary and high school teacher. She also created the Alice Coachman Track and Field Foundation to aid young athletes and former competitors in financial need.
Alice was honored as one of the 100 greatest Olympians in history at the Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta, in 1996. She's also been inducted into nine different halls of fame, including the National Track & Field Hall of Fame and the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame.
Alice died on July 14, 2014, at the age of 90 in Georgia.
All month we’re talking about Olympians.
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Talk to you tomorrow!