#Repost herstory_feminism ... Did you know the first Black woman to win Olympic gold trained barefoot because she wasn’t allowed on a track? Alice Coachman grew up in Albany, Georgia, in the segregated American South, where public sports facilities were reserved for white athletes. There were tracks in her city, but they were not available to her, so she trained wherever she could, running on dirt roads and practising her jumps in open fields. Training barefoot or with limited equipment was not a choice, but a consequence of what she was denied. She was eventually recruited to Tuskegee Institute, one of the few places that supported Black athletes at the time, where she developed into a dominant force. Between 1939 and 1948, she won ten consecutive national titles in the high jump, while also competing in sprint events. Her Olympic debut was delayed when the 1940 and 1944 Games were cancelled due to World War II, costing her key years at her peak. In 1948, at the London Olympics, sh...