A century ago in the U.S., sports didn’t look like they do today because of segregation. There were no Dwayne Wades, Williams sisters or Floyd Mayweathers.
The athletes who first entered the predominantly white sports leagues and associations had to deal with discrimination, hate speech and doubt, things that today’s players don’t have to deal with because of their predecessors’ bravery. Their sacrifice of dignity is what made it possible for other blacks to follow in their bold footsteps and become some of the greatest athletes of all time. Here is a list of the black athletes who brought their talents to the field and court so that others could enjoy the game.
Jackie Robinson (1919-1972)
The original American sport of baseball was forever changed when Jackie Robinson entered the field in 1947. As the first black major league player, Robinson was a pioneer of the Civil Rights Movement and worked to gain equality for blacks in sports. Named Rookie of the Year in 1947 and MVP in 1949, Robinson led the Brooklyn Dodgers to win their only World Series title in 1955.
George Dixon (1870-1908)
At just 20 years old, George Dixon became the first black world boxing champion. Known as “Little Chocolate” because of his short stature and weight class divisions of bantamweight and featherweight, his boxing record includes a total of 163 fights. He won 73 of them, 36 by knock out. While fighting Jack Skelly, a white boxer, Dixon broke Skelly’s nose and knocked him out in round eight, inciting disgust in white fans. As a result, the New Orleans Olympia Club, where the fight took place, banned mixed-race fights. Nonetheless, Dixon was inducted into the Ring Magazine Hall of Fame in 1956 and the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990.
Marshall “Major” Taylor (1878-1932)
After Dixon won his world champion title, Major Taylor was the second black athlete to achieve a world championship for cycling the world one mile in 1899. He faced racism in the South, where he wasn’t allowed to race with whites, and several white racers worked to make sure he lost; during races, ice water was thrown at him, nails were scattered in front of his wheels, and other racers often boxed him in. Taylor combined breaking the color barrier with setting world records, which include the .25 miles, .33 miles, .5 miles, .66 miles, .75 miles, 1 mile and 2 mile, all of which accomplished in a six-week period in 1899. His mile record stood for 28 years.
John Baxter Taylor (1883-1908)
The London Olympics in 1908 were a landmark for black athletes as John Baxter Taylor was the first black gold medalist. Graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine and member of Sigma Pi Phi, the first black fraternity, Taylor won the gold medal for the 4 x 400 relay, in which he ran the third leg. A victim of typhoid fever at age 25, less than five months after the 1908 Olympic Games, he paved the way for black Olympic athletes, such as Jesse Owens, to continue winning gold medals.
Frederick Douglass “Fritz” Pollard (1894-1986)
Although George Taliaferro was the first black to be drafted to a National Football League team, he declined so he could play in the All-America Football Conference with the Los Angeles Dons, and in 1920, Fritz Pollard and Bobby Marshall became the first two black NFL players. A year after Pollard started playing, he led the Akron Pros to their first NFL championship in 1921, and a year later, became a player-coach for the Pros, becoming the first black NFL coach in history. His legacy includes the Fritz Pollard Alliance, a group that promotes the hiring of minorities in the NFL.
Willie O’Ree (1935-present)
Called the “Jackie Robinson of hockey,” Willie O’Ree became the first black National Hockey League player in 1958 as a right wing with the Boston Bruins. Before coming to the NHL, O’Ree, a native Canadian, played for the Quebec Aces, a minor league in Canada. After O’Ree left the NHL in 1961, there wasn’t another black player in the NHL until 1974, Mike Marson of the Washington Capitals. O’Ree faced racism ― remarks and slurs, even violence on the ice ― much worse than in Toronto and Montreal. He played through the discrimination, and, now, continues the fight to bring diversity to the NHL by directing youth development and diversity for the league at age 79.
Joe Louis (1914-1981)
Regarded as the first national hero of the U.S. as part of the momentum behind anti-Nazi sentiments during the World War II era, Joe Louis, heavyweight, held his championship title from 1937 to 1949. Louis fought German heavyweight Max Schmeling in two fights in 1936 and 1938, the first of which he lost. The rematch, one of the most famous fights of all time, lasted for two minutes and four seconds, and Schmeling had to be admitted to the hospital for what he claimed to be an illegal kidney punch. The Brown Bomber’s win was a victory for blacks across the country.
Charlie Sifford (1922-2015)
Charlie Sifford’s golf career began with tournaments organized by other black golfers, and ambition drove him to become the first black golfer on the PGA Tour in 1961. He attempted to qualify for the PGA Tour in the Phoenix Open, which he was invited to by boxer Joe Louis. While there, Sifford received death threats, but went on to win the Long Beach Open in 1957, the Puerto Rico Open in 1963, the Los Angeles Open in 1969 and the Greater Hartford in 1967. In 2004, Sifford was inducted to the World Golf Hall of Fame, and in 2014, President Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He died earlier this month on Feb. 3 at the age of 92.
Althea Gibson (1927-2003)
In a predominantly white sport, then and now, Althea Gibson was the first black female tennis player to compete on the women’s professional golf tour and in international tennis. She won a Grand Slam title in 1956 at the French Open and the Wimbledon and U.S. Nationals in 1957 and 1958. It wasn’t until 1971 that another black woman, Evonne Goolalong, would win a Grand Slam championship. Another athlete compared to Jackie Robinson for her color barrier-breaking accomplishments, Gibson has been an inspiration to today’s black tennis players, notably Venus Williams.
Wilma Rudolph (1940-1994)
Wilma Rudolph, born prematurely and handicapped by infantile paralysis, scarlet fever and polio until the age of 12, was considered the fastest woman in the world, a precursor to today’s Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce. Rudolph, called The Black Gazelle, The Tornado and The Black Pearl, competed in the Olympic Games of 1956 and 1960, and is the first black woman to win three gold medals for track and field at the 1960 Rome Olympic Games. In Clarksville, Tennessee, where Rudolph spent most of her life, a part of U.S. Route 79 is dedicated to her, named Wilma Rudolph Boulevard, and a bronze, life-sized statue of Rudolph stands at the end of the Cumberland River Park.
Bill Russell (1934-present)
William Felton “Bill” Russell, five-time MVP and 12-time All-Star, isn’t given enough credit when it comes to his coaching career. He led the U.S. basketball team in the 1956 Summer Olympics, and helped them win a gold medal against the Soviet Union. Besides being the center for the Boston Celtics from 1956 to 1969, the first black basketball superstar and one of the best basketball players of all time, Russell was also the first black head coach in sports history. Battling racism throughout his childhood and career, Russell is proud to have been able to coach during the time when blacks and whites started to play together peacefully.
