With Black History Month coming to an end, we as African Americans must not forget what the great ones before us did. Instead of just celebrating our heroes in the shortest month of the year, we should continue the celebration all year long. Some of the staples in our black history such as Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Frederick Douglass, Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Jesse Owens, Jackie Robinson, and many others have been recognized and celebrated for a number of years.
Black women particularly have had a long struggle, especially dating back to the 1960s when it was uncommon for a female to have a job.
In the present day, the average black woman is making just as much money as black men and in some cases more money.
Oprah Winfrey, arguably the most successful and richest talk show host ever, has become not only an icon in the black community, but also to the entire world. But the struggle that was the toughest for black women was no doubt in the sports world. Decades ago sports weren’t allowed to even be in a woman’s vocabulary.
Years ago sports were thought to be particularly for men. It took a lot of years to get the barrier broken between women and sports. When the barrier was finally broken female athletes began getting recognized left and right. One of the most recognized female athletes of all-time is no other than Jackie Joyner-Kersee.
Joyner-Kersee, one of the most outstanding female track and field athletes of all-time, was born on March 3, 1962 in East St. Louis, Illinois.
Joyner-Kersee was a very versatile athlete earning a basketball scholarship from the University of California, Los Angeles, coming out of high school.
At UCLA, Jackie would meet her coach and future husband Bob Kersee, who guided her all the way to the top throughout her entire career. She then got her national debut in the 1983 World Championships in Helsinki, Finland, where her older brother, Al Joyner, also competed.
The very next year Jackie along with her brother Al achieved excellence on the highest level at the 1984 Olympic games in Los Angeles, California. Joyner-Kersee won the silver medal in the heptathlon, arguably the toughest event in track and field where athletes compete in as many as seven to eight events in just two days of competition.
Her brother Al captured the gold medal in the triple jump. In 1986 Joyner-Kersee gave up basketball to concentrate totally on track and field. At the 1988 Olympic games in Seoul, South Korea she set an American, Olympic, and world record in the heptathlon scoring 7,291 points.
Joyner-Kersee repeated as champion in the Heptathlon in the 1992 Olympic games in Barcelona, Spain, and came in third in the Long Jump.
In her final Olympic games in 1996 in Atlanta, Georgia, Joyner-Kersee completed her illustrious career by capturing a bronze medal in the Long Jump.
Jackie Joyner-Kersee won many awards during her career including the 1985 Broderick Cup Award (Outstanding Collegiate woman Athlete), James E. Sullivan Award in 1986, Jesse Owens Award (1986, 1987), Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year (1987), and became the first woman to win Sporting News Woman of the Year Award in 1988.