Run, Baby, Run

The arrival of a group of strong, beautiful, black female athletes in the nineties gave a young Alexis Okeowo a new way to be in the world.

It was 22 years ago, the last, sticky afternoons of summer break, right before I had to return to the dreariest parts of being an eleven-year old: homework, early bedtimes, rules about when I could see my friends. But, for that moment in early August, the Olympics were on television. And the games felt tantalizingly close; they were being held in Atlanta, a mere two-hour drive from my hometown of Montgomery, Alabama. If my family took a spontaneous trip there, our Southern version of New York City, I imagined I would probably run into at least a few athletes.

The TV would have to do. I had never been athletic, preferring to immerse myself in novels or play Super Mario with my brothers, but those Olympics, and the Winter Games that came a few years later, felt like the start of a new phase. In the most vital and captivating sports, young black women were dominating. In Atlanta, in 1996, Jackie Joyner-Kersee—lean, graceful, and powerful—won a bronze in the long jump, even with a leg injury. There were more like her in the other sports I was beginning to love: Dominique Dawes in gymnastics, Surya Bonaly in figure skating. They stood out to me like unicorns, brilliantly radiant athletes who, in the case of Dawes and Bonaly, were not much older than me but were crashing down the popular ideas of what a champion could look like. They had dark skin, thick hair, an intangible but real glamour, and the kind of ambition that had not usually been associated with black women. I was mesmerized. I wanted to do what they did, look like they looked, be them.