Skip navigation! Story from Health Trends. We all remember the U. Open in September , when tennis champion Serena Williams received a series of code violations, including one for slamming her racket and receiving coaching, which ultimately cost her the match. When Williams tried to complain to the umpire, she was accused of having a "meltdown" and mocked for having a "tantrum.

Lindsey Bailey


From the WNBA to Track and Field — Here Are 36 Black Female Athletes You Need to Know
They are champions. They are so supreme in their sport -- a sport that had long not even imagined their brown-skinned existence -- that they have changed it forever. Serena and Venus Williams, Gabby Douglas and Simone Biles are the first African-American women to reach the pinnacles of tennis and gymnastics in the modern era. They are not only the best black athletes to take to the courts and to the mats; they are not only the best women athletes or even the best American athletes. All four know what it is to be the best in the world. It can be argued that Serena Williams and Simone Biles are the most dominant athletes in sport and the world's greatest athletes. For African-Americans, and especially for African-American women like me, they are more than athletes. They are us.
Althea Gibson
A number of African-American female athletes have emerged as trailblazers in their particular sports over the years, from track and field and tennis to figure skating and basketball. Three years later, Louise Stokes and Tidye Pickett qualified for the Olympics in track and field, but were not allowed to participate in the event held in Los Angeles because of their race. In Berlin in , Stokes and Pickett became the first African-American women to represent their country in the Olympics. Alice Coachman, a star track and field athlete at Tuskegee Institute, became the first black woman to win Olympic gold, setting records with her high jump at the Olympics in London.
Serena Williams won her 21st Grand Slam title at Wimbledon this month. This marks the 17th time in a row that she has defeated Maria Sharapova. Yet Williams, who has earned more prize money than any female player in tennis history, is continually overshadowed by the woman whom she consistently beats. They often reward the most presentable according to the Western cultural ideal of beauty. Misty Copeland just became the first African-American woman to be named principal dancer at the American Ballet Theatre. But when she was 13, she was rejected from a ballet academy for having the wrong body type. As an ad featuring Ms. Unfortunately, you have not been accepted.