Before Simone Biles soared or Serena Williams dominated, there was Alice Coachman, the trailblazing high jumper who leapt into history in 1948 and became the first Black woman to win Olympic gold for the United States.
Her name deserves to be as recognizable as any in the conversation about the greatest athletes of all time.
Born on November 9, 1923, in segregated Albany, Georgia, Coachman defied both racial and gender barriers long before it was acceptable to do so. Denied access to proper training facilities because she was Black and a girl, she trained barefoot on dirt roads and used makeshift equipment. But her natural talent couldn’t be ignored.
At just 16, she was offered a scholarship to the Tuskegee Institute. Even before attending her first class, she broke national high jump records in Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) competitions. Throughout the 1940s, she became a dominant force, winning multiple national titles in high jump, sprints, and relays—even as World War II forced the cancellation of two Olympic Games in 1940 and 1944.
Her long-awaited Olympic moment finally came at the 1948 Summer Games in London. Nursing a back injury, Coachman leapt 5 feet, 6 1/8 inches in the high jump finals, setting a new Olympic record and earning the gold medal. King George VI awarded her the medal himself.
“I didn’t know I’d won,” she later recalled. “I was on my way to receive the medal and I saw my name on the board.”
When she returned home, Coachman was honored with a parade—but in Jim Crow America, she was forced to enter the ceremony from the back and was not allowed to speak. Still, her legacy only grew. In 1952, she became the first African American athlete to receive a corporate endorsement when Coca-Cola named her a spokesperson.
Later, Coachman founded the Alice Coachman Track and Field Foundation, helping support young athletes and older Olympic veterans. She was honored at the 1996 Atlanta Games as one of the 100 greatest Olympians in history and was inducted into nine halls of fame, including the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame in 2004.
Alice Coachman died in 2014 at age 90, having spent her life breaking records and barriers. Her story is a reminder that Black women have long been at the forefront of athletic excellence, even when the world wasn’t ready to recognize them.
Let this be a moment to honor her name, uplift her story, and celebrate her place in sports history. If you know or are a Black woman, let Alice Coachman’s legacy make you proud. She didn’t just jump into history—she soared.
