Before Serena: 5 Sports Foremothers Who Broke the Color Lines and Expanded Access...

I often enjoy watching the ESPYs, sports broadcaster ESPN's version of the Academy Awards. They take place this year on the day before Major League Baseball's All-Star Game and just a few days before the FIFA World Cup final, so it's likely to be a moment when many people are hyped up on team and individual athletes. Even if I don't know many of the players (US football and hockey hold no thrall for me), it's fun to see the stars get fashionable and step out, and honestly, in these times of grimmer and grimmer headlines, it's a moment to celebrate life, skill, swag, happiness, and excellence. All of that is another form of resistance!

Sports Legacies: Celebrating the Women Who Opened the Door

Even if you are not a sports fan, I imagine you can appreciate the legacy of women who broke barriers and provided more access for today’s sports she-roes. This edition of #SistoryLessons honors five Foremothers whose contributions opened the doors for women and girls today: sports trailblazers Althea Gibson, Mamie "Peanut" Johnson, Tidye Pickett, and Victoria Manalo Draves, and a legislator who inscribed equality into federal law, Patsy Mink.

Althea Gibson: The First Black Grand Slam Champion

From Paddle Tennis to Wimbledon

Tennis wasn't even Althea Gibson's first sport. She was born on August 25, 1927, to a family of poor sharecroppers in Silver, South Carolina. Her family moved north to escape, but this did not shelter Althea from poverty and school struggles, and she was a restless, gifted student who left school early and tried her hand at boxing before paddle tennis came into the picture. Fortunately, she was an outstanding athlete from a young age, becoming New York City's paddle-tennis champion at age 12, and her 1939 New York title earned her a junior membership at Harlem's Cosmopolitan Tennis Club. This opened the door to a whole new world for her, and for the sport.

In 1946, two intrigued physicians and tennis patrons, Dr. Hubert Eaton and Dr. Robert Walter Johnson, approached the nineteen-year-old at an American Tennis Association final with a plan to condition and train her and have her integrate the all-white United States Lawn Tennis Association. Althea finished high school while living with the Eaton family in Wilmington, North Carolina, and went on to Florida A&M University, where she also picked up a golf club for the first time in a college class.

In July 1950, the white champion Alice Marble published an open letter in American Lawn Tennis magazine that shamed the sport's racial gatekeepers, and weeks later Gibson became the first Black player to compete in the U.S. Nationals. When she made her U.S. Nationals debut at Forest Hills in 1950, the crowd hurled racist slurs at her, and that very afternoon a bolt of lightning knocked a stone eagle clean off the top of the stadium and stopped play. To Althea and the people who believed in her, it felt like an omen: the old order was breaking wide open.

Breaking Tennis's Color Line, Twice

So it was. Althea broke Wimbledon's color line in 1951, then won the French Championships in 1956, becoming the first Black athlete, woman or man, to win a Grand Slam singles title. The following year she won Wimbledon outright, with Queen Elizabeth II herself placing the trophy in her hands; Althea took both Wimbledon and the U.S. crown again in 1958. Over the course of her career, she captured eleven Grand Slam titles, five in singles and six in doubles, six of those beside her Jewish British partner Angela Buxton, and became the first Black player ranked number one in the world.

A few words about her athleticism, tenacity, and swag. Althea's game was powerful, fearless, and ahead of its time, and so was her style. Unlike the other lady players of the era, she traded tailored tennis dress for shorts and a collared shirt, even though unsupportive crowds mocked her or called her a man. She also had to confront the bigotry and close-mindedness of the tennis establishment of private clubs and unspoken social codes built specifically to keep Black players out. Even when she was ranked first in the world, she was treated as an exception, a curiosity, a one-time event, never as the beginning of a new normal. I would say many players, from Zina Garrison to the Williams sisters, showed what the future normal would actually end up looking like.

But there was a second color line for her to break. In 1964, at thirty-six, Gibson became the first Black woman on the LPGA professional golf tour, though with meager lifetime earnings of around twenty-five thousand dollars. Beyond money, her riches lay in her legacy, as she opened a door for others. Renee Powell joined the LPGA in 1967, becoming the second Black woman on the tour and later the PGA of America's First Lady of Golf, but frustratingly, it took until 1995 for a third Black woman golfer, LaRee Sugg, to earn full Tour membership. Since then the lineage has continued through Shasta Averyhardt, Sadena Parks, and today, Mariah Stackhouse, currently the only full-time Black player on the LPGA Tour. In the seventy-plus years since the LPGA's founding, no Black woman has ever won a tour event. It will be a great honor to multi-athlete Althea Gibson when that happens, someday.

Two cerebral hemorrhages in the late 1980s and a stroke in 1992 wiped out her finances, and it was Angela Buxton who alerted the tennis world and helped raise close to a million dollars to keep her afloat. Gibson died on September 28, 2003, in East Orange, New Jersey. In 2019, a statue of her went up at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, the home of the U.S. Open, just a few meters away from Arthur Ashe's own statue and commemorative garden. He, of course, was the iconic player who, a decade after Althea, became the first Black man to win a Grand Slam title.

Reflection: Who gets credited in your community, and who gets erased?

Mamie "Peanut" Johnson: A Woman Pitcher in the Negro Leagues

When Major League Baseball finally folded the Negro Leagues into its official record books in 2020, it recognized three women who had shattered what many call the glass diamond: second base“men” Toni Stone, Connie Morgan, and the one pitcher: Mamie "Peanut" Johnson. we will learn about her life and times here.

Tree Branches, Taped Rocks, and Pie-Plate Bases

Mamie Belton was born on September 27, 1935, in Ridgeway, South Carolina, and after her parents separated she grew up on her grandmother's farm, where she taught herself the game of baseball with tree-branch bats, taped rocks, and pie plates for bases. Like many female athletes of the early 20th century, she did not have the advantage of money or resources, but her love for the game was bigger than what she lacked. In 1945 the family moved to Long Branch, New Jersey, where at age eleven she made an all-white boys' Police Athletic League team as the only Black player and the only girl on the roster, and though the boys teased her, her pitching led them to two division titles, shutting them up.

(Fun fact, I played "baseball" with the boys in my Manhattan neighborhood as a kid—the only girl, the only Black kid—and they wanted to encourage me to join Little League, which had just opened its ranks to girls in 1974, after a protracted struggle. We played with plastic wiffle-balls, tennis balls covered in tape to dull their velocity, and shared gloves among us. When you love a thing, you make it work.)

Joining the Indianapolis Clowns

Back to Mamie. In Washington, D.C., she sharpened her arm on semi-pro men's sandlot squads, and in 1953 she and a friend rode to Alexandria, Virginia, to try out for the all-white women's professional league, only to be turned away by the gates of segregation. But as luck would have it, that same year a scout for the Indianapolis Clowns signed the young talent, bringing her strong right arm and sharp baseball acumen to the Negro Leagues. It was not a league-wide policy to include women, but some owners, eyeing the rising popularity of women's baseball, thought bringing in some women would be an attractive novelty. It was a vindication for Johnson, because the year before she signed with the Clowns, the all-white women's professional league had refused her even a tryout, simply because of the color line.

She not only called this possible humiliation a blessing in disguise because she came to love playing alongside the men, it allowed her to show off her skills on a bigger stage, which she did. From 1953 to 1955 Johnson posted a 33–8 record over forty-one games, which is an .805 winning percentage. If you don't know baseball statistics, these are Hall of Fame numbers. While she has not officially been inducted into Cooperstown, she and the two second base players were collectively honored with a spot in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Her nickname came from an opposing batter who scoffed at the diminutive woman who he said was "no bigger than a peanut." She shut him up by whiffing him at the plate. Her team spirit was boosted by dugout mate Hank Aaron, who would go on to become baseball's home run king, and Negro League legend Satchel Paige, who helped her hone her curveball. (If you're unfamiliar with Satchel Paige, he was one of the greatest pitchers the game has ever seen—his fastball and showmanship made him a star for decades before Major League Baseball would let him pitch in it. He became the oldest rookie in MLB history when he finally got the chance at around age 42—he was always coy about sharing his real age).

Once Mamie retired from baseball in 1955, at the tender age of nineteen, she went to earn a nursing degree from North Carolina A&T State University while raising a son, and served as a nurse for thirty years at Sibley Hospital in Washington, D.C. In her later years she managed the Negro Leagues Baseball memorabilia shop in Prince George's County, Maryland, telling her story to anyone who came through the door. Mamie "Peanut" Johnson died on December 18, 2017. Three years later, in 2020, Major League Baseball folded the Negro Leagues into its official records and recognized her, Toni Stone, and Connie Morgan among the players it had shut out for generations.

Reflection: Where have you shut up the "haters" with your amazing skills?

Tidye Pickett: First Black Female Olympian

Tidye Ann Pickett was born on November 3, 1914, and raised in Chicago's working-class Englewood neighborhood, the daughter of a foundry foreman and a factory clerk. She started running as a schoolgirl, competing in local park district meets, and came up through the city's parks and playgrounds, where University of Chicago long jumper John W. Brooks spotted her talent and became her coach; he would later go on to become a legend in the sport as an athlete. She had prodigal talent, and by January 1932, at age 17, had tied the U.S. indoor record in the 60-yard dash. That spring, at the Olympic trials, she and fellow Black track and field talent Louise Stokes became the first Black women named to a U.S. Olympic team, qualifying for the 400-meter relay pool.

Discrimination on the Way to the 1932 Games

This should have constituted a happy ending, but this was 1930s Jim Crow America, and the 1932 Games lived up to that reputation of cruelty. As they prepared for the Los Angeles Games, the two athletes faced disgusting discrimination from teammates and officials alike. On the train to Los Angeles for training camp, they were forced into separate and inferior accommodations, excluded from a team banquet (their meals were sent to their room), and in one well-documented bullying event, white teammate Babe Didrikson poured a pitcher of ice water on Pickett and Stokes while they slept in their segregated train berth. It's horrendous to imagine a teammate doing such a thing, but so were the times. The final insult: Pickett and Stokes were left off the final relay roster and replaced by white runners.

Making It to Berlin in 1936

Undeterred, Tidye kept competing through the 1930s, enrolling at Illinois State University to study health and physical education, and four years after that first team rejection, she returned for the 1936 Berlin Olympics and became the first Black woman to actually compete in the Games, running the 80-meter hurdles. She clipped a hurdle in the semifinal and broke her foot, ending her run, but she'd made it onto the track itself—the course that officials had tried two times to bar her from. Although she lost the chance to medal, her very presence at the "Hitler Olympics"—alongside Jesse Owens, who shattered Hitler's myth of Aryan supremacy by winning four gold medals on the same track—is a significant historical moment we should not overlook.

Another interesting side note: Mack Robinson, Jackie Robinson's older brother, won silver in the 200m that same Games. It is said his example gave Jackie the courage to take on integrating Major League Baseball in 1947 (one year before Satchel Paige made his "elder" debut).

After her competitive career, she barnstormed with the Chocolate Co-Eds, an all-Black women's basketball team that toured the Midwest playing local men's teams (think lady version of the Harlem Globetrotters). Billed as the "fastest girl runner in the world," Tidye would give sprint demonstrations at halftime. She later earned her health and physical education degree from Illinois State in 1941 and became a teacher at Cottage Grove Elementary in East Chicago Heights, then served as principal of Woodlawn Elementary for twenty-three years until her retirement in 1980; the district later renamed the school the Tidye A. Pickett School in her honor. She died on November 17, 1986, in Chicago Heights at age 72.

The Tigerbelles: A Legacy Shaped by Necessity

Pickett's exclusion demonstrated what happened when Black people couldn't count on the Olympic pipeline—they went out and built their own. HBCU Tuskegee University's program, already home to the first nationally dominant Black women's track team, trained future superstar Alice Coachman. Tennessee State went even further: under coach Ed Temple, its team—nicknamed the Tigerbelles—sent 40 athletes to the Olympics over four decades, winning 23 medals and producing legends like Wilma Rudolph, Willye White, and Wyomia Tyus. That lineage continued through Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Florence Griffith Joyner ("Flo-Jo"), and Allyson Felix, among others.

Reflection: What victory do you hold close, even if no one applauded?

Victoria Manalo Draves: First Asian American Olympic Gold Medalist

More Olympiad lore, this time London, and the year is 1948. A young American named Victoria Manalo climbs the platform, and later the springboard, executing gold-winning dives on both. No American woman had ever swept the two diving events at a single Games before, and until this day, no Asian American had ever won Olympic gold at all. She did both in the span of a few days, at age twenty-three. Here's a bit of her story.

Growing Up Filipino in San Francisco's Segregated Pools

Victoria Manalo was born on December 31, 1924, in San Francisco's working-class South of Market neighborhood, one of twin daughters of Teofilo Manalo, a Filipino cook and musician who had immigrated from the Philippines, and Gertrude Taylor, an English-born housemaid. She grew up poor, in a city where anti-Filipino prejudice was openly displayed in its elite-loving pools and clubs, and she did not begin diving until she was sixteen, when another young diver, Jack Lavery, spotted her and sent her to coach Phil Patterson at San Francisco's Fairmont Hotel's swimming club.

She came to diving late, and while she loved the sport, she faced the same hurdle that every Filipino athlete of her generation knew: racism. The clubs that controlled the better pools and the stronger coaching staff restricted who could compete under their name, when they didn't outright exclude them from entering the facility. Patterson was willing to train her but only under certain restrictions—he set up a separate school in name only and suggested she compete under her mother's English maiden name, as "Vicki Taylor." She had no choice but to accept the condition. She must have known inside how incredible she'd be at the sport.

Victoria Manalo Draves Dives for the Gold

Incredibleness propelled when she met Lyle Draves, a white coach who'd already walked away from a Bay Area club in disgust at its racism and set off to build his own alternative program. He not only sharpened the young diver into a champion, he proved himself fiercely loyal to his inclusive values. There was a time when organizers at a meet told him his team could compete except for "Manalo," without giving any reason, and so he pulled his entire team out in protest. Vicki and Lyle's relationship blossomed in ways beyond the pool, and when Lyle had to relocate for work, she packed up and followed him across the state rather than lose her coach. In 1946 they became a married couple, and she began competing as Victoria Manalo Draves, name fully intact. Her friend Sammy Lee, a Korean American doctor who had been barred from many of the same pools, stood as best man at their wedding.

Two Golds at the 1948 London Olympics

At the 1948 London Olympics, Victoria, who had reclaimed her full name, won gold in both the 3-meter springboard and the 10-meter platform, becoming the first American woman to take two diving golds at a single Games and the first Asian American to win Olympic gold of any kind. Sammy Lee, by then a doctor, also won the men's platform that same week, the two of them breaking a color line in the same pool.

The International Swimming Hall of Fame inducted her in 1969, and she spent the rest of her life busy in many pursuits: touring the world in professional water shows, raising four sons with Lyle—all divers, by the way—and running a diving school of their own. In the 1960s, she became an advocate for the Filipino Education Center, lending her name to the very heritage she'd once been told to hide. She and Lyle eventually settled into a quiet retirement in Palm Springs, where she died on April 11, 2010, at age eighty-five. In 2006, San Francisco had already given her a lasting marker, naming Victoria Manalo Draves Park in the neighborhood where she was born, the first city park named for a Filipino American and the first named for a woman.

Reflection: When have you had to hide or compromise who you are just to access opportunity?

Patsy Mink: The Architect of Title IX

Patsy Mink never threw a pitch, smashed an ace, cleared a hurdle, nor dove off a platform, and yet she may have done more for women in sport than any athlete on this list because she wrote the dang law, y'all. Title IX.

Rejected by Every Medical School, She Became a Lawyer Instead

Patsy Matsu Takemoto was born on December 6, 1927, at the sugar plantation camp of Hāmākua Poko, near Pā'ia, on the island of Maui. Her father, Suematsu Takemoto, was the first Japanese American to graduate from the University of Hawai'i with a degree in civil engineering—for years he was the only Japanese American engineer at the Maui plantation, and a man who was frustratingly passed over for the top job again and again in favor of white colleagues. Her mother, Mitama, ran the household.

That her father had climbed that far at all, in an economy and society built to keep Japanese immigrants and their children in the fields, is a mark of stubborn resilience and belief in self. These are the same attributes Patsy would leverage throughout her life: she tested into a better school at age four, demanded a seat in her brother's first-grade classroom before she was old enough to even enroll, and in 1944, at age 17, graduated valedictorian of Maui High School. She attained all these achievements while coming of age in the shadow of Pearl Harbor, when the United States moved to incarcerate Japanese Americans on the mainland en masse.

She planned to become a doctor, but every one of the roughly twenty medical schools she applied to turned her away, several of them saying bluntly that they would not admit a woman. So she turned to law instead, drawing on her own experience of discrimination as fuel. Her college path was circuitous—shaped by wartime upheaval and mainland racism, it took her through Wilson College and the University of Nebraska before she came home to finish at the University of Hawai'i. At Nebraska, she'd been housed in a segregated dormitory reserved for students of color and international students. In 1947, she wrote to the campus paper, built a coalition of students, parents, alumni, and faculty, and pressured the university into ending the policy within a year. Already, she was emerging as a woman of action.

Writing the 37 Words That Changed School Sports Forever

Patsy earned her law degree from the University of Chicago in 1951, one of two women in her graduating class. Although around 36% of Hawai'i's population in 1950 was Japanese American—still the largest single ethnic group on the islands at that time—no local law firm would hire a young Japanese American mother. This indicates that gender discrimination was even more strongly at play than racial or ethnic animus. Faced with these obstacles, stubborn and resilient Patsy opened her own practice.

Politics became her route to recast a more just world. She won a seat in the Hawaii legislature in 1962, and in 1964 voters sent her to the U.S. House of Representatives, making her the first woman of color and the first Asian American woman in Congress. In 1972 she co-authored and drove through Title IX of the Education Amendments, signed into law on June 23 of that year, the thirty-seven-word law that barred sex discrimination in any school receiving federal money and remade school sports for girls and women across the country.

Every girl who has run, jumped, swum, or pitched in an American school and beyond owes Patsy Mink an enormous debt of gratitude. She served in Congress across two stretches, from 1965 to 1977 and again from 1990 until her death, and in 1972—the same year as Shirley Chisholm's run—she also became the first Asian American woman to seek the Democratic presidential nomination, entering the Oregon primary on an antiwar platform, with her name also appearing, without active campaigning, on ballots in Maryland and Wisconsin.

Patsy Mink died of viral pneumonia on September 28, 2002, in Honolulu. Weeks later Congress renamed Title IX the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act, and in 2014 President Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Title IX itself still stands, but right now a new fight has emerged from the far right, who want to strip its protections from transgender students, excluding them from girls' and women's sports. It's hard to imagine Patsy would be supportive of this stance.

Reflection: How do you relate the idea of "recognizing difference" to the practice of ending "colorblindness"?

Reflection and Action: Journal Prompts for Everyone

As you think about Althea Gibson, what would it feel like to be booed and jeered by the public? Where do you think she got her resolve from?

Celebrating the spirit of Mamie "Peanut" Johnson: how do you break barriers in spaces where you're not expected? Write about a time you were underestimated and how you answered it.

In honor of Tidye Pickett, think about: how have you been the first, the only, or the overlooked? Write about a time you broke through a barrier.

Remembering Victoria Manalo Draves: whose name has been left off a victory you know about, and how can you elevate her in your circles?

Considering Patsy Mink: who are some young sports she-roes you particularly admire?

HerStory / OurStory: Journal Prompts for Women of Color

Althea Gibson's story gives us a chance to share a story of a trailblazer from your background.

When you think of Mamie "Peanut" Johnson, reflect upon this: where have you created greatness with little fanfare? Name it. Celebrate it.

Inspired by Tidye Pickett: how do you respond to being excluded or overlooked, without shrinking yourself?

In commemoration of Victoria Manalo Draves: how do you honor all parts of your identity, even those others reject?

In the spirit of Patsy Mink: what other inclusion and access rights would you vote into law if you could?

Activated Allies: Prompts and Actions for White Friends

In honor of Althea Gibson, support youth sports programs for BIPOC girls.

Uplift stories of Black women athletes before Title IX. Learn about the Negro Leagues and share Mamie "Peanut" Johnson's story.

In gratitude to Tidye Pickett: learn about early Black women Olympians. Say their names in sports history. Support youth sports programs that serve BIPOC communities.

For Victoria Manalo Draves: highlight women of color Olympians, past and present, especially those who competed despite barriers.

For Patsy Mink: learn how Title IX, the law that now bears her name, transformed school sports for girls, and defend it in your own district.

What These Women Knew, and What We Must Remember

Althea Gibson won Grand Slam titles in a sport that built its clubs to keep her out, and Mamie "Peanut" Johnson pitched in a league that didn't think women belonged anywhere near the diamond. Tidye Pickett ran for a nation that had not yet learned how to honor its talented Black women, and Victoria Manalo Draves won two Olympic golds after reclaiming her own name, and heritage. Patsy Mink wrote the law that finally ensured equipment, training, and access were not hoarded by the boys alone.

We commemorate these women and their audacious refusal to accept rules built to exclude them. Their refusal opened a door that we all must continue to hold open.

Let their stories remind you: no one needs permission to be excellent. Or simply good. Or joyful. The awards are not always a medal or a statue, and there is probably no standing O and no red carpet. But. Each of us already has the power to help improve our communities, our world, in ways big and small. So for that, a hearty rah rah rah!

P.S.: Women of Color Mini Hall of Fame

Brave Sis Project celebrates Black, Brown, Asian, and Indigenous women, usually those from a historic lens, but there are so many leading BIPOC women in sports span basketball, track, gymnastics, soccer, tennis, and more that it felt right to share some names... for your awards consideration. Here's a brief hat tip to BIPOC women in sports 2026! All of these women follow in the footsteps of other great sports figures... have fun researching these lineages!

Basketball

In basketball, A'ja Wilson of the Las Vegas Aces stands out as a multiple-time WNBA MVP and the league's most dominant player, alongside Napheesa Collier of the Minnesota Lynx, known for her efficiency and two-way play.

Track & Field

On the track, Sha'Carri Richardson remains one of the sport's most dominant and charismatic sprinters, joined by Olympic 200m gold medalist Gabby Thomas and 400m hurdles world record holder Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. Add Janee' Kassanavoid to that list—a Comanche Nation hammer thrower and the first Native American woman to medal at a world track and field championship, now a Nike N7 ambassador using her platform to bring more Indigenous youth into the sport.

Gymnastics

In gymnastics, the great Simone Biles continues to compete at an elite level and is widely regarded as the greatest of all time, alongside Sunisa Lee, the first Hmong American Olympian, whose Tokyo gold made her a defining figure for Hmong and Asian American representation in the sport.

Soccer

Soccer's ranks include Sam Kerr, the Anglo-Indian Australian striker currently recovering from injury but still one of the position's most prolific scorers, and Marta, the Brazilian forward and six-time FIFA World Player of the Year often called the greatest in the women's game's history. Madison Hammond, who is Navajo and San Felipe Pueblo, made history as the first Native American to play in the National Women's Soccer League and continues to use her platform to advocate for Indigenous visibility in the sport.

Tennis

Tennis offers many great Black, Brown, and Asian she-roes. Coco Gauff has emerged as a Grand Slam champion and one of the sport's most prominent young stars, while Naomi Osaka, a four-time Grand Slam winner, continues working her way back toward top form. Madison Keys, the reigning Australian Open champion, has built her career on a powerful, aggressive baseline game that's made her one of the most dangerous hitters on tour. Sloane Stephens, the 2017 US Open champion, has been a steady presence on the WTA tour for over a decade, known for her counterpunching style and big-stage composure. Leylah Fernandez, of Ecuadorian and Filipino descent, broke through as a US Open finalist and has continued building her profile, including a memorable doubles run alongside Venus Williams last year. Taylor Townsend rounds out the group as one of the tour's most distinctive players, bringing an old-school serve-and-volley game along with a vocal presence on issues of body image and equity in the sport.

Winter Sports

Winter sports has its own roster of trailblazers, several of whom just made history at this year's Milan Cortina Games. Alysa Liu, a Chinese American woman and a UCLA student (who we were aware of as a child prodigy when we lived in Oakland), walked away from competitive skating at 16, then came back on her own terms—choosing her own coaches, music, and style—and won Olympic gold in women's singles this February, the first American woman to do so in 24 years, plus a second gold in the team event. There's also Eileen Gu, the Chinese-American freestyle skier, who became the youngest Olympic champion in her discipline back in 2022 and has continued to dominate while building a major presence in fashion and global sports culture. Chloe Kim, a Korean American athlete, became the youngest woman to win Olympic snowboarding gold at just 17 and has stayed at the top of halfpipe for nearly a decade, recently watching her own protégé, 17-year-old Gaon Choi, take gold at the 2026 Games. And Erin Jackson made history as the first Black American woman to win an individual Winter Olympic gold medal, in speed skating's 500m at Beijing 2022, then became the first Black woman to carry the U.S. flag at an Opening Ceremony this year in Milan.

The Williams Sisters

But… let's just get to it: the Williams Sisters! Venus turned 46 on June 17, 2026, just days before Wimbledon, and is now in her 30th year as a professional. Serena, widely considered the greatest female tennis pro of all time (thanks, Althea for opening the gates!), recently un-retired at age 44, and the sisters were set to play doubles together at Wimbledon at the end of last month (June) with a combined age of 90.

If there are others you think should be in this Hall of Fame, please let us know! It was fun to do this research, but I don't work for Sports Illustrated! #BRAVESPY

See you in two weeks!

Thanks for reading this edition of #SistoryLessons, a biweekly newsletter that uses the lessons from Foremothers who led the way as encouragement and guide for these times of resilience. The series is based on stories from my award-winning book, Our Brave Foremothers: Celebrating 100 Black, Brown, Asian, and Indigenous Women Who Changed the Course of History, and other, ongoing research.

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