Remembering Wilma Rudolph – an Olympian overcomer

Jun 23, 2019 Countryman

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By Dennis Nichols

A recent Facebook reference to one of Guyana’s former top female athletes, June Griffith, gave me the idea for today’s piece. Now it has nothing to do with our country, our divisive politics, or the recent CCJ ruling. Yet the real-life heroine featured may serve as a role model for young women everywhere.
In fact, that’s exactly what she was, particularly in the United States; more so for black girls. Her name was Wilma Glodean Rudolph, and she was born on this day, June 23, seventy-nine years ago. Were she a Guyanese like Griffith, who celebrated her 62nd birthday one week ago, she would most certainly have been featured in this newspaper as a ‘Special Person’ par excellence.
Before there was Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Flo Jo, or Shelly Ann Fraser-Pryce, there was Wilma Rudolph.
The 20th of 22 children on her father’s side, she was born in Saint Bethlehem, Tennessee, USA, in 1940, a few years before the start of the civil rights movement. US history tells us that although the state was one of those less tolerant of slavery’s abominations, it had its share of racial animosities, and indeed was the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan. It was certainly not the best of places for a poor, African-American child to grow up in.
Wilma Rudolph was not your typical carefree child. At her premature birth she weighed less than five pounds. By the age of five, according to her biography, she had suffered from a number of early childhood diseases including pneumonia, scarlet fever, and infantile paralysis (polio) which nearly crippled her.
Because she was black, medical care was not as readily available as it was for whites, so her parents had to take her to a historically black medical college 50 miles away in Nashville. This they did for two years while the young girl was forced to wear a leg brace and orthopedic shoe. Following the hospital treatment, Wilma received at-home treatment in Clarksville, from family members.
Wilma recalled being told by her doctor that she’d never walk again. “But my mother told me I would. I believed my mother,” she is quoted as saying. Her parents and siblings would remove the brace and take turns at massaging her weakened leg every day, four times a day. By the age of six, she could hop on one leg; by eight, she could move around without the brace, and by 11, she was playing basketball. In high school, she started her basketball career in the eighth grade, and in her sophomore year scored a record-breaking 803 points. They called her ‘Skeeter’ because of her speed. They should have called her ‘Overcomer’ too.
It was while playing there as a 14-year-old 10th grader that she was spotted by Tennessee’s state track and field coach. He saw a ‘natural athlete’ and although she’d had just minimal track and field experience, the coach invited her to join his summer track program at Tennessee State University. (TSU)
She had already competed at Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute, and although losing her first major event there, was determined to continue. She went on to win all nine events she entered at an Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) track meet in Pennsylvania. Then at sixteen, the girl who once heard she would never walk; and still a junior at high school, went to the 1956 US Olympic Track and Field team trials in Washington, and qualified to compete in the 200m individual event.
At 16, Wilma was the youngest member of the US Olympic team at the Summer Games in Melbourne, Australia. What must have been her relative inexperience showed when she was beaten in the 200m preliminary heat. However, she won a bronze medal as part of the US Women’s 4×100 relay team, and in the process equaled the world record of 44.9 seconds (The Australian team won the gold in 44.5 seconds, just half-a-second faster).
Back in Tennessee, she showed her high school classmates the medal, and vowed to return to ‘try and win a gold medal’ at the 1960 Olympic Games. She did, and more.
Before the 1960 Olympics however, Wilma became pregnant in high school and had a daughter in 1958, after which she enrolled at TSU. The young mother then participated in the Pan American Games in Chicago where she won silver in the 100m and gold in the 4x100m relay. She also won the AAU 100m title, and defended it four consecutive years. She then competed at the Olympic trials in Texas, qualified for the 100m dash and set a world record in the 200m. race. The “Overcomer” was overcoming big time.
Then came the watershed 1960 Olympic Games in Rome, Italy – the first to be televised worldwide. (The US team included a brash young boxer named Cassius Clay; remember him?) Wilma competed in three events – the 100m and 200m sprints, and the 4x100m relay, and won the gold medal in each. She set a new Olympic record of 23.2 seconds in the 200m, a new world record, with her teammates, of 44.2 seconds in the 4×100 relay, and would have had a world record in the 100m (11 seconds) had it not been wind-aided.
She dedicated her Olympic victories to Jesse Owens, her inspiration, and before the Games were over was dubbed ‘the fastest woman in history’ as her popularity spread worldwide. The French called her La Perle noire (The Black Pearl) and the Italians ‘La Gazzellanera. (The Black Gazelle) She was also called ‘Flash’ and ‘The tornado’. And she became the first American woman to win three gold medals at an Olympiad. The media hailed her accomplishments, beauty, and poise, and ‘cast her as America’s athletic leading lady, and queen’ according to a Wikipedia post.
Following the 1960 Games, Wilma returned to a hero’s welcome in Clarksville, Tennessee, with a parade and banquet in her honour. The city had however planned separate activities for Whites and Blacks, but the honoree refused to participate, thereby forcing the planners to stage that city’s first fully-integrated municipal event. As her fame spread, she began travelling all over the United States, and around the world, while competing in several indoor track events where thousands would come to watch her run. Her last races, and victories, were at a US-Soviet track meet in 1962 where she won in the 100m and 4x100m relay. She retired that year as the world record-holder in the 100m, 200m, and the 4×100 relay. She also had seven AAU sprint titles to her name as well as the Women’s Indoor track record in the 60-yard dash at 6.9 seconds.
After retiring, Wilma returned to TSU to complete her education, earning a Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education in 1963. She married the father of her child before travelling to several West African countries as a US Goodwill Ambassador. She visited schools, made guest appearances on radio and television, and attended the premiere of a USIA documentary film highlighting her track career. Returning home, she took part in a civil rights protest to desegregate a restaurant following which the mayor announced the integration of the city’s public facilities.
There is much more to the Wilma Rudolph story than I have paraphrased here. Google her name and read. When she died in 1994 at the age of 54, she had been the recipient of numerous awards. Her image is on a commemorative US postage stamp, and her autobiography was adapted into a television docudrama. She taught and coached, and established the Wilma Rudolph Foundation which trains young athletes.
In an interview she gave after retiring from track, Wilma observed that her start had always been a problem (because of her height, 5’11”) but she came to realize that her finish was her forte. In a way it seemed to parallel her life story given the problems she had to overcome as a child. Pneumonia, scarlet fever, and Infantile paralysis can be fatal, but Wilma Rudolph was an ‘overcomer’. Not all children are that ‘lucky’.

P.S. This story is dedicated to the memory of Beyoncé Ross, the promising young female Guyanese cyclist who died last year after being diagnosed with a brain tumour.

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