Black American Women in Sports
I have really enjoyed the stories of all the great Black Women Athletes in the United States. There are thousands of black women in sports today, but they owe much of their opportunities to participate to a handful of courageous women who dared to take part in the “white-only” sports in the US. Courageous black men and women like Jackie Robinson, Althea Gibson, and Ann Gregory took advantage of the rare opportunity when it came for them to engage in the sport they loved. As one black face in a sea of white people it took intense resolution, boldness, and heart to participate in sporting events. They deserve honor and respect.
This week is our final post on Black American Women in Sports. We have already told the stories of some great Olympians – Wilma Rudolph, Serena Williams, Michelle Carter, and Florence Joyner. Now we turn to some other great summer athletes in golf, track, basketball, baseball, and gymnastics. We will focus on women who were the very brave Firsts and give mention to some of the many women who were encouraged to compete thanks to the pioneering efforts of Ann Gregory, first Black woman in a USGA championship and Alice Coachman.
Black Women Athletes in Summer Sports
Black Women athletes come from many different backgrounds. Some like Michelle Carter were born into comparative wealth and health, had a famous athletic father, and all the coaching and encouragement she could ever want. Contrast that with Wilma Rudolph who was born into poverty and poor health, suffering from polio. Wilma overcame these handicaps to become the fastest woman in the world!
This week’s story features a woman who also had to overcome sorrow and challenges in her early life to become a Black Woman First in many areas. I don’t do this very often on this blog, but I can’t improve on the story of the amazing Ann Gregory, golf legend who lived a life of many Firsts, tennis player, golfer, civic leader, and church leader as told by her daughter, JoAnne Gregory Overstreet.[1]
Ann Gregory, Pioneer for Black Women
“She loved the game of golf,” Overstreet said. “And she didn’t care about the fact the color of her skin should matter. And she lived by that.”
“I’m a resident of Gary,” Ann Gregory told the man in the pro shop, as her daughter recounted it recently. “I pay my taxes. My money’s as good and as green as anybody else’s. I want to play the big course.” Nobody stopped her.
“They called her a pioneer and a trailblazer,” said Overstreet.
Here is the remarkable story of Ann Gregory as told by her daughter.
JoAnne Gregory Overstreet is a 77-year-old retired teacher who lives in Las Vegas. She’s not a golfer. But she is the daughter of one, the only child of golf’s ultimate secret legend, Ann Moore Gregory. Mrs. Overstreet knows what her mother endured as a Black woman playing amateur golf in mid-century America. She tells her mother’s story because she must.
Her mother was born as Ann Moore in 1912 in Aberdeen, Miss. She attended segregated schools and after the death of her parents in a car crash went to school while working as a live-in maid for a white family. It was not fun and games. As a grown woman, she became the first Black golfer to play the 18-hole city-owned course in Gary, Ind. The “big course,” the locals called it. That was in 1947. Nine years later, in 1956, Ann Gregory became the first Black woman golfer to play in a U.S. Women’s Open and, two months later, a U.S. Women’s Amateur.
The latter breakthrough was reported in scores of American newspapers. From an AP account: “This tournament is also noteworthy because of the entry of its first Negro woman golfer. She is 38-year-old Ann Gregory of Gary, Ind., twice the winner of the National Negro Association title.” But she was actually 44. The 44-year-old rookie.
Ann Moore moved to Gary in the 1930s and married Leroy Gregory, a steelworker, in 1939. He was a transplanted Mississippian, too. The warmth of other suns. A bit of poetry from Richard Wright’s typewriter that captured the migration of millions of Blacks from the South, Ann Moore and Leroy Gregory among them.
Mr. Gregory took up golf. Mrs. Gregory took up tennis. Mr. Gregory joined The Par-Breakers, a club for Black male golfers in Gary. Mrs. Gregory asked herself, What is it with these men and that golf? (Same as forever.) Mr. Gregory served on a Navy ship in the South Pacific during World War II. Mrs. Gregory, a young mother with a husband a half-world away, started playing Gary’s city-owned hardscrabble nine-hole course. Mr. Gregory came home and started playing with his wife. Mrs. Gregory beat him like a drum and all his Par-Breaker buddies, too, even when they made her play from the men’s tees.
One day in 1947, Ann and Leroy Gregory went out to play golf. Ann didn’t want to play the little course, the nine-holer to which Black golfers were relegated. But no Black golfer had ever played the big course.
“I’m a resident of Gary,” Ann Gregory told the man in the pro shop, as her daughter recounted it recently. “I pay my taxes. My money’s as good and as green as anybody else’s. I want to play the big course.” Nobody stopped her.
Consider what Ann Gregory endured to get to that first tee, and to others. She was mistaken for country-club help at one USGA event. She wasn’t permitted in the clubhouse for a contestants’ dinner at another. People said rude and threatening things to her. Her attitude was always the same: “Racism is their problem.” Ann Moore Gregory knew who she was, and others did, too. She was invited to play in an exhibition with Joe Louis, Jackie Robinson and Althea Gibson. (What a foursome!) She won hundreds of tournaments, local, regional and national. First the trophies took over a room. Later a basement.
She was a church leader at Delaney Memorial United Methodist. She played with the male owner of The Elbow Room, a bar and restaurant in her midtown neighborhood. She was a caterer. She was the first Black woman to serve on the board of the Gary Public Library. She helped Richard Hatcher become the first Black mayor of Gary.
Her daughter the teacher, JoAnne Gregory Overstreet, married a civil engineer. Now their grandchildren are learning all about their great-grandmother.
Mrs. Overstreet told me the story of her mother’s life as she has told it to others over the last 30 years. Her mother died in 1990, eight months after her father. Mrs. Overstreet packed the scrapbooks and sold the family’s redbrick house. It had three bedrooms, a one-car garage and a front door framed by distinctive stonework. Everything was nearby: JoAnne’s schools, The Elbow Room, her mother’s golf course and hairdresser and sister, the family’s church. Ann Gregory went in and out that front door a dozen times a day as a mother, wife, sister, civic leader, church elder. As a pioneer and an athlete. As a giant.
Alice Coachman (1923-2014)
Alice was the First Black woman to win a gold medal at the Olympics when she set a record high jump in the 1948 Olympics.
Alice was born to Fred and Evelyn Coachman in Albany, Georgia in 1923. She helped to supplement her family income by picking plums and pecans. She also attended school. She discovered that she was very athletic and wanted to play sports, but her father discouraged her, saying athletics were not ladylike. He even whipped her when she tried to play softball and baseball with the boys. And she could run very fast. A teacher and an aunt encouraged her to pursue track, but she didn’t have equal access to the training facilities that were only open to white children.
Alice trained on her own, running barefoot to increase her strength. She used sticks and a rope to practice high jump. While competing in high school track she was noticed by a coach for the Tuskegee Institute (an early historically Black college) and invited to transfer to Tuskegee to finish high school. Alice said that “track and field was my key to getting a degree and meeting great people and opening a lot of doors in high school and college.” She won four national championships.
She was soon encouraged to try out for the Olympics. She trained for track and high jump. From 1939 to 1948 she won the American national title in high jump every year.
The 1940 and 1944 Olympics were cancelled due to WWII. Alice was hesitant about trying out for the Olympics in 1948. She finally decided to try and even though she competed with a back injury, she completely shattered the existing high jump record. At Wembley Stadium in London in August 1948, Alice became the Gold Medalist with a 5 feet 6 1/8-inch bar on her first attempt. King George VI put the medal around the neck of the very first Black woman to win an Olympic gold, and the only American woman to win a gold medal at that event.
Alice did not continue in sports but finished school and became a teacher and a track coach. She has been inducted into nine halls of fame. In 1994 she started the Alice Coachman Track and Field Foundation to help young athletes with financial needs. Alice has been an inspiration to many, encouraging them, “when the going gets tough and you feel like throwing your hands in the air, listen to that voice that tell you ‘Keep going. Hang in there.’…Guts and determination will pull you through.” Alice Coachman died on July 14, 2014 at the age of 90.
More Black Women in Summer Olympics
There are so many wonderful Black Female Athletes today. In keeping with our theme of Black Women Firsts we will just mention a few women who deserve to be honored with their achievements.
Louise Stokes and Tidye Pickett
We already mentioned Tuskegee Institute where Alice Coachman became the first to win Olympic gold. Two other Black women from Tuskegee qualified for the 1932 Olympics in track and field but were not allowed to compete because of their race. Louise Stokes and Tidye Pickett went on to become the first African American women to represent the United States in the 1936 Olympics. (See footnote 2.)
Lynette Woodard – Basketball
Lynette Woodard won an Olympic gold medal in 1984 as captain of the US team. She was very talented, able to play all five positions on the basketball court. She is the all-time leading scorer in women’s basketball with 3,649 points. In 1985, she became the first female member of the famed Harlem Globetrotters. In 1997, Lynette came out of retirement to play two seasons with the WNBA’s Cleveland Rockers and Detroit Shock.
Cheryl Miller – Basketball
Cheryl is considered one of the best players of all time in basketball. Cheryl won gold at the 1984 Olympics. She also led in scoring at the 1983 Pan American Games and the 1986 Goodwill Games.
She has been inducted into several US halls of fame, and the International Basket Federation Hall of Fame in 2010. She worked as a head coach and a broadcaster for seventeen years. She was named the Female Athlete of the Year by ESPN in 1984-85 and Player of the Decade for the 1980’s. In 2016 Cheryl was named the Pac-12 Player of the Century. In 2018 she was inducted into the Pac-12 Conference’s Hall of Honor in a group that included women for the First time. Her No. 31 jersey was retired in November 2006.
Today Cheryl is the head women’s basketball coach at Cal State LA.
Sheryl Swoopes- Basketball
Another outstanding basketball player is Sheryl Swoopes. Sheryl won three Olympic gold medals and one FIBA World Championship gold medal.
Sheryl was one of the first players to sign on to the WNBA in 1996. She was honored to do so because she had been a First Team All-America in 1992 and 1993 at Texas Tech. She was named the Naismith College Player of the Year and the WBCA Player of the Year in her senior season. She still holds the record for highest career scoring and most points in a season. While she played for the WNBA, Sheryl was named the Most Valuable Player three times (200, 2002, 2005). She was with the Houston Comets (1997-2000) when they won four straight championships. At the All-Star Game in 2011, Cheryl was recognized as one of the 15 greatest players in league history.
Sheryl returned to Texas Tech University to serve as director of player development for the women’s basketball team and went on to become an assistant coach.
Mo’ne Davis- Baseball and Softball
Switching now to baseball, in 2014 the then 13-year-old Mo’en Davis became the first Black girl ever to play in the Little League World Series. Leading her team, the Taney Dragons to victory she became the first female to pitch a complete game shutout. This marked a First win for a female pitcher. Not exactly “throwing like a girl” she pitched 70 mph fastballs. Mo’ne switched to softball where she plays as an infielder on the Hampton University softball team.
Look forward to hearing her on ESPN or other places as a broadcaster in the future. Mo’en said, “I just love being around sports, and being able to talk about them from my standpoint is really cool, especially sports that I’ve played, being able to see them from an outside perspective and relate them to people, it’s something I’d like to do in the future, something that I’m still working on.”
Gabby Douglas – Gymnastics
Gabrielle Christina Victoria Douglas was born on December 31, 1995. She grew up in Virginia Beach, Virginia where she began practicing gymnastics at age six. She is considered an artistic gymnast. Gabby “the flying squirrel” won a gold medal at the 2012 Olympics becoming the first African American in history to win the individual all-around event. She also won gold medals in team competition for the US in 2012 and 2016.
Simone Biles – Gymnastics
Simone was nineteen when she made her debut at the 2016 Olympics. Simone has accumulated 30 Olympic and World Championship medals. The is the only woman to hold seven all-around US championship titles and is currently the most decorated US gymnast.
Conclusion
The overwhelming numbers of Black women in sports today just proves that all they needed was the opportunity to try. Their excellence is proof of their capabilities. It’s a shame the world took so long to recognize this truth.
[1] Michael Bamberger, November 18, 2020, Golf.com, “Golf’s ultimate secret legend, Ann Gregory, lived a life of firsts. https://golf.com/news/features/golfs-ultimate-secret-legend-ann-gregory/
[2] There were 18 Black athletes at eh 1936 Olympics, including the famous Jesse Owens.
