The Strength of Perseverance: Recognising the Determination of Black Athletes over the past century on Juneteenth

The annual celebration of Juneteenth takes place in the United States on 19 June.

Juneteenth - formed from June and nineteenth - commemorates the order issued by Major General Gordon Grainger on 19 June 1865 announcing the freedom of enslaved African-Americans in Texas where most slaveholders had migrated to following the Civil War.

While Juneteenth has been celebrated by Black Americans for several years, it was first observed as a national federal holiday in 2021.

To mark the occasion, Olympics.com takes a look at great Black athletes of the past in Olympic sports, as well as the current torchbearers for Black excellence on and off the field of play.

Jesse Owens

At London 1908, John Taylor became the first African-American to win Olympic gold as part of the USA men’s sprint relay team.

Sixteen years later in Paris, DeHart Hubbard won the long jump to claim the first individual Olympic title for a Black athlete.

And at Berlin 1936, Jesse Owens won gold in both of those events, plus the 100m-200m double, to etch his name into history.

Although he was later rewarded for his Olympic exploits by Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter in the 1970s, the man from Alabama became an important symbol in the battle for equality.

Owens died from lung cancer in March 1980. He was 66.

Jackie Robinson

Jackie Robinson became the first African-American to play in Major League Baseball when he started for the Brooklyn Dodgers on 15 April 1947.

Before World War II, Robinson had starred for the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) in basetball, basketball, American football and track and field.

He won the NCAA long jump title in 1940 and then played football semi-professionally, first with the Honolulu Bears and then the Los Angeles Bulldogs, before being drafted for the war.

Having flirted again with football and basketball, Robinson signed a professional baseball contract with the Kansas City Monarchs in the Negro leagues.

He tried out for the major leagues, first unsuccessfully at the Boston Red Sox where he was jeered along with other Black hopefuls, but was signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers in late 1945.

After over a year in the minor leagues, Robinson finally made his major league debut – being named Rookie of the Year in 1947 - with Larry Doby and superstar pitcher Satchel Paige soon following suit.

After Doby and Paige won the 1948 World Series with the Cleveland Indians, Robinson had his first of six consecutive All-Star selections in 1949 and claimed the National League batting title.

After playing himself in the film biography, The Jackie Robinson Story, he won his first World Series in 1955 and helped the Dodgers to a total of six National League crowns.

Having challenged bigots as a player, Robinson made headlines after retirement when he refused to leave a whites-only waiting room at Greenville Municipal Airport in South Carolina. The airport was desegregated months later.

Robinson was the first Black player named to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962, his first year of eligibility.

He died from a heart attack caused by complications from diabetes in October 1972. He was 53.

Bill Russell

At the University of San Francisco (USF), Bill Russell attracted attention with his almost unique ability to block shots.

The center – who saw basketball at USF as his way out of poverty in Oakland – was unable to escape racism with he and his Black teammates being barred from hotels during a tournament in Oklahoma City.

Having put up outstanding numbers in leading USF to the NCAA National Championship in 1955, he was overlooked for a Player of the Year award in Northern California.

He later told Voice of America, “That let me know that if I were to accept these as the final judges of my career, I would die a bitter old man.

“I made a conscious decision: ‘What I’ll do is, I will try my very best to win every game. And so, when my career is finished, it will be a historical fact I won these games and these championships. And there's no one’s opinion how good I am or how good other guys are or comparing things.’”

The former standout high jumper was true to his word, leading Team USA to Olympic gold at Melbourne 1956 before becoming, in the words of NBA commissioner Adam Silver, “the greatest champion in all of team sports”.

Under coach Red Auerbach, Russell won eight NBA titles with the Boston Celtics including seven consecutively from 1959-65.

After his fifth NBA Most Valuable Player award in 1965, and Auerbach’s retirement, Russell became the Celtics’ player-coach and the first Black head coach in NBA history.

The success continued with Russell claiming an eighth consecutive NBA title in 1966 and finishing with a record 11 championships in 13 years before leaving the Celtics. The NBA MVP Award was later named after him.

Russell was regularly subjected to racist abuse, sometimes from his team’s own supporters. He once called Boston "a flea market of racism".

He became one of American sport’s leading figures in the struggle for racial equality, sitting in the front row when Martin Luther King Jr gave his ‘I Have A Dream’ speech as well as attending the Cleveland Summit to support Muhammad Ali when he refused to be drafted for the Vietnam War.

Russell died in July 2022 aged 88.

Wilma Rudolph

Alice Coachman was the first Black woman to win Olympic gold in the high jump at London 1948.

Twelve years later, Wilma Rudolph won three golds in Rome and became the first Black female athlete to gain international stardom.

Rudolph suffered polio as a child had had to wear a leg brace until she was 12.

The Clarksville native starred in basketball at high school but was spotted by Tennessee State athletics coach Ed Temple and invited to join their summer training programme.

While only 16 and still at high school, Rudolph qualified for the 200m at the Melbourne 1956 Games and won bronze as part of the 4x100m relay team.

Two years later, Rudolph had her first child but was soon back in training and won 100m silver and 4x100m gold at the 1959 Pan American Games.

Inspired by Jesse Owens, she went on to win 100m, 200m and sprint relay golds at Rome 1960 and was one of the first role models for Black women in sport.

Her star status also persuaded previously men-only meets like the Millrose Games to hold women’s events.

In 1962, Rudolph retired from the track aged 22 explaining that she wanted to go out while still at her peak. She went on a goodwill trip for the U.S. State Department to West Africa the following year before joining protests to successfully desegregate a restaurant in Clarksville and starting the Wilma Rudolph Foundation to train young athletes.

Rudolph was diagnosed with brain cancer in July 1994 and died that November aged 54.

Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali remains one of the most famous sportspeople in history having become the first boxer win the world heavyweight title on three separate occasions.

Born Cassius Clay in Louisville, Kentucky, he won Olympic light-heavyweight gold at Rome 1960 before stunning Sonny Liston to become heavyweight world champion in 1964 aged just 22.

That year, he converted to Islam and changed his name before refusing to be drafted to fight in the Vietnam War.

He was stripped of his belts, and Ali – who had already become renowned for his charisma and wit - spent his time out of the ring visiting colleges across the country where he would speak about Black pride and opposition to the Vietnam War.

After three years, Ali returned to the ring but then suffered his first professional defeat – on points to Joe Frazier – in his first bid to reclaim the title.

In 1974, he famously defeated George Foreman in the 'Rumble in the Jungle' to reclaim the world heavyweight title at the age of 32, and then beat Frazier for a second time in the 'Thriller in Manila'.

After retiring for the first time in 1976, Ali returned to win the world title for a third time as he avenged a previous defeat to Leon Spinks. He was then easily beaten by Larry Holmes before losing his final bout to Trevor Berbick in December 1981 with his powers having clearly betrayed him.

Despite suffering from Parkinson’s disease, Ali was known for his humanitarian acts especially in Africa. He also provided one of the most enduring images in the history of the Olympic Games when he lit the flame at Atlanta 1996.

Ali died in June 2016 after being admitted to hospital with a respiratory illness. He was 74.

Debi Thomas

Figure skating Debi Thomas became the first Black athlete to win a Winter Olympic medal at Calgary 1998.

Having learned her craft at the Los Angeles Figure Skating Club, Thomas became U.S. national champion in 1986 before claiming the world title in Geneva. All this while studying at Stanford University.

Despite suffering with ankle problems, she took silver at the 1987 World Championships behind Katarina Witt.

The pair would face off again in Calgary in the ‘Battle of the Carmens’ as both women skated to music from Bizet’s opera in the long program, and it was Witt who prevailed once more with Thomas having to settle for bronze.

Thomas retired from amateur skating soon after and studied medicine before qualifying as an orthopaedic surgeon.

Mental health issues and bankruptcy have affected her adversely in recent years although, last February, she was the guest of honour at an ice show in Lake Placid where she put on her skates for the first time in 12 years.

Florence Griffith-Joyner

In 1988, Florence Griffith-Joyner rewrote the record books in spectacular fashion.

With her trademark long fingernails and flashy outfits, ‘Flo-Jo’ surged to stardom in 1988.

Griffith-Joyner – a 200m silver medallist in her hometown of Los Angeles in 1984 - ran 10.49 in the quarter-finals at the U.S. Olympic Trials, taking 0.27 off the previous world record held by Evelyn Ashford.

That record stands to this day although subsequent analysis suggests there may have been a significant tailwind. The next day, she ran a legal 10.61 which was not matched until Elaine Thompson-Herah’s gold-winning run at Tokyo 2020.

Having won the 200m in a new American record, the 28-year-old arrived in Seoul as the hot favourite for both sprints and duly obliged.

With husband Al Joyner - the 1984 Olympic triple jump champion - now her full-time coach, ‘Flo-Jo’ beat Ashford by three-tenths of a second to take 100m gold.

The best was yet to come. In the 200m semi-finals, she ran 21.56 to break Marita Koch’s world record by 0.15. And in the final, she clocked 21.34 for a record which still stands.

Griffith-Joyner also won sprint relay gold and silver in the 4x400m before retiring from athletics the following February.

After injury thwarted an attempted comeback in 1996, Griffith-Joyner died in September 1998 from suffocation following a severe epileptic seizure. She was 38.

Michael Jordan

If Bill Russell was basketball’s greatest champion, Michael Jordan was arguably its greatest player.

After being picked third by the Chicago Bulls in the 1984 NBA Draft, Jordan was named Rookie of the Year and led the franchise through some memorable battles with the Detroit Pistons and NBA titles in 1991, 1992 and 1993.

Three months after the murder of his father in July 1993, Jordan stunned the world by retiring from basketball. He signed a minor league baseball contract and even had his famous ‘23’ jersey retired by the Bulls.

In March 1995, Jordan quit baseball and announced his return to the NBA. Having worn his baseball number of 45 on his jersey initially, he soon reverted to 23 but could not stop the Bulls exiting the playoffs to the Orlando Magic.

The following season saw Jordan and Chicago back at their peak as they regained the NBA title and then won two more on the back of superb performances from ‘His Airness’.

He retired again after winning his sixth NBA ring – and a record sixth NBA Finals MVP award – although came back for a less successful spell with the Washington Wizards.

On the international stage, Jordan – while at the University of North Carolina - was part of the USA team which won gold at Los Angeles 1984.

At Barcelona 1992, he was the face of the Dream Team when NBA players were permitted to compete at the Olympic Games for the first time.

Playing alongside the likes of Magic Johnson, Charles Barkley and Larry Bird, Jordan showed off his full repertoire of dunks and tricks as the USA cruised to gold. It made him a worldwide icon with his Air Jordan line of Nike trainers becoming ultra-popular to this day.

Maya Moore

Maya Moore is one woman determined to leave a bigger legacy away from sports than in them.

A two-time Olympic champion, Moore was called “the greatest winner in the history of women’s basketball” by Sports Illustrated in 2017.

After leading the University of Connecticut to consecutive national collegiate championships in 2010, Moore was selected first in the 2011 WNBA Draft by the Minnesota Lynx.

She helped the Lynx to their first WNBA title that year and won the Rookie of the Year award.

Moore and Seimone Augustus provided the foundation for years of Lynx supremacy as the team made six WNBA Finals in seven years, winning championships in 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2017.

The small forward was also outstanding abroad, securing EuroLeague glory crowns with Ros Casares Valencia (2012) and UMMC Ekaterinburg (2018) as well as three Chinese league titles from 2013-15.

But in 2018, Moore took a break from basketball to focus on advocating for reform of the criminal justice system through her 'Win With Justice' project.

Her main cause was securing the release of Jonathan Irons who was 16 when he was wrongfully convicted of burglary and assault.

After serving 22 years of a 50-year sentence, Irons was released in July 2020 and the pair married shortly after with Moore giving birth to a son last year.

In January, Moore – a practising Christian - announced her retirement from basketball as she concentrates on family life and 'Win With Justice'.

Serena Williams

Althea Gibson and Arthur Ashe may have blazed the trail for Black American tennis players, but the Williams sisters changed the face of the sport forever.

Taught to play by father Richard just south of Los Angeles in Compton – a city notorious for gang violence – Serena and older sister Venus went to Rick Macci’s tennis academy in Florida and avoided junior tournaments following racial abuse from other parents.

In 1995, Richard took full control over coaching again just after Venus had made her professional debut.

Despite Venus being three years older, and reaching her first Grand Slam final at the 1997 US Open, it was Serena who won the family’s first Slam title at the 1999 US Open.

She beat Martina Hingis who had defeated Venus two years previously.

Venus then started to get going with consecutive Wimbledon and US Open triumphs in 2000 and 2001, before Serena beat her elder sibling in the French Open final.

That was the start of her first ‘Serena Slam’ with victory at the 2003 Australian Open seeing her hold all four Slam titles at the same time.

Fourteen years later, they met again in the final of the Australian Open when Serena, who was expecting her first child, claimed her 23rd Slam title.

Serena returned from childbirth to reach four Slam finals but lost in all of them and played her last match at the 2022 US Open.

Only Venus (five – four gold, one silver) has more Olympic tennis medals than Serena who won two golds in singles and two in doubles with her sister.

With her powerful serve and groundstrokes, as well as her longevity and never-say-die attitude on court, Serena Williams inspired a new generation of Black children to pick up a racket.

Tiger Woods

What Serena Williams did for tennis, Tiger Woods did for golf.

In another sport previously dominated by white people, Woods became arguably the greatest player in history with 15 major title victories and 82 PGA Tour wins.

In an era where golf grew ever more lucrative and competitive, Woods became the only man to win all four major titles consecutively as he completed the ‘Tiger Slam’ in 2000-01.

The man from Orange County, California has been named PGA Tour Player of the Year a record 11 times and made a record 142 cuts on the tour from 1998-2005.

Allowing for inflation, he has the highest career earnings on the PGA Tour and spent more time on top of the world golf rankings than anyone else.

And after well-documented personal and physical struggles, Woods ended a major drought of 11 years at the 2019 Masters in one of the greatest comeback stories in sporting history.

LeBron James

Following Michael Jordan’s retirement, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James became legends in the NBA.

Bryant retired as a hero of the LA Lakers, helping the franchise to five NBA titles in his 21 years there before his tragic passing in January 2020.

While Bryant stayed loyal to one team, James is now at his third – the Lakers - but has achieved success wherever he has gone.

The man from Akron, Ohio started out at the Cleveland Cavaliers but – despite two NBA MVP awards – could not clinch an elusive championship before he joined the Miami Heat in 2010.

At the Heat, he won consecutive rings in 2012 and 2013 before rejoining his hometown club.

And ‘King James’ led Cleveland to NBA Finals glory in 2016, their one title in a run of four appearances from 2015-18 against the Golden State Warriors.

A move to the Lakers in 2018 failed to yield immediate success but, months after Bryant’s death, they won the 2020 title with James the first man to win NBA Finals MVP awards with three different franchises.

James was in the USA team which could only come home with bronze from Athens 2004, but won gold with the ‘Redeem Team’ at Beijing 2008 and at London 2012.

And on an individual note, in February 2023 he overtook Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to become the NBA’s all-time leading points-scorer.

But James has made as big an impact off the court through his LeBron James Family Foundation which includes the I Promise School and I Promise Village housing complex in Akron.

He has also partnered with the University of Akron to provide scholarships for hundreds of students.

James has been unafraid to make his views known on politics and social justice and led the boycott of the 2020 NBA playoffs following the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Wisconsin.

After consulting with former President Barack Obama, James and other players agreed to resume the season.

Simone Biles

Dominique Dawes was the first Black woman to win Olympic gold in artistic gymnastics at Atlanta 1996.

At London 2012, Gabby Douglas became the first Black woman to win an individual gold as she claimed the all-round title.

But four years later, Simone Biles set about rewriting the record books in no uncertain fashion.

Born in Columbus, Ohio but brought up by her grandparents near Houston, Texas, Biles made her senior international debut in 2013 and quickly made her presence felt.

After impressing at events in Italy and Germany, Biles won her first national all-around title while still 16 and earned selection for the World Championships in Antwerp, Belgium.

That October, she won the world all-around and floor titles as well as vault silver and balance beam bronze.

A year later in Nanning, China, Biles won four golds – team, all-around, beam and floor – and a silver on vault as she dominated the event.

And in 2015 in Glasgow, despite the return of London gold medallists Douglas and Aly Raisman, Biles repeated her four-gold haul, winning vault bronze this time, to enhance her reputation as the best gymnast on the planet.

At Rio 2016, Douglas was third in all-around qualification but missed out on the final with Biles and Raisman finishing ahead of her and only two athletes per nation permitted to progress.

In the final, Biles posted the best scores in three of the four apparatus to add the all-around title to her team gold.

Biles again won two apparatus golds – this time on vault and floor – and took bronze on the beam in a superb competition.

After that, Biles revealed her ADHD diagnosis and set about pushing the boundaries of her sport.

She has four elements named after her – one on vault, one on beam and two on floor – with her beam dismount controversially undervalued by the FIG over safety concerns.

After taking nearly two years out following the Rio Games, Biles dominated in 2018 again and won medals in all six disciplines at the Doha World Championships – four gold, a silver and a bronze - despite a hospital emergency room visit for a kidney stone.

And after she won five golds at the 2019 Worlds in Stuttgart, Larisa Latynina’s record of nine Olympic golds looked in danger at Tokyo 2020.

The postponement of the Games by a year affected her preparations, and Biles was not quite at her best in the Olympic Trials. While she won the all-around, Biles’ day two score was lower than Sunisa Lee with that fate last befalling the superstar in 2013.

At the rescheduled Tokyo Games, with extreme pressure on her shoulders, Biles made some rare mishaps in training and revealed she had been suffering from the ‘twisties’ which affected her in flight.

Her decision to pull out of the team event in order to prioritise her mental health attracted praise from across sport and beyond.

After withdrawing from a number of individual finals, Biles did compete in on balance beam and won bronze to take her level with Shannon Miller’s American record seven Olympic medals.

Biles has also used her position as the most famous gymnast in the world to speak out, saying USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee “failed to do their jobs” as she and other gymnasts were sexually abused by team doctor Larry Nassar.

She also slammed newly-installed USA Gymnastics president Mary Bono for criticising Nike over the company’s support of NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick who took a knee during the national anthem to protest racial inequality.

Bono was forced to step down, and Biles – after the police killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd - gave an interview to Vogue magazine saying, “We need change. We need justice for the Black community.”