Feb 18, 20213 min read

Wilma Rudolph

Updated: Jun 7, 2021

The Black Pearl

Who was Wilma G. Rudolph?

Wilma Glodean Rudolph was and American sprinter, and became a world record holding Olympic champion, and an international sports icon in track and field. She became a role model for black female athletes, and her Olympic successes helped elevate women’s track and field in the United States. During her childhood Rudolph suffered from several illnesses, including pneumonia, scarlet fever and contracted infantile paralysis (caused by the poliovirus) at the age of five. As stated by Women’s History, her Doctor told her she would never walk again, however her mother told her she would. Rudolph believed her mother who made weekly bus trips to Nashville (5o miles from where they lived) for treatments to help Rudolph regain the use of her leg. She also received at home massage treatments – four times a day – from family members and wore an orthopedic show to support her foot. She was physically disabled for most of her life, wearing a leg brace until she was twelve years old, however she eventually overcame polio and learned to walk without a leg brace or orthopedic shoe for support.

After being homeschooled, due to her frequent illnesses, in 1947, Rudolph attended second grade at Cobb Elementary School, in Clarksville. She went on to attend, Clarksville’s – all black – Burt High School, where she excelled in basketball and track. In her sophomore year, she scored 803 points, and set a new record for the high school girls’ basketball team. At the age of fourteen she attracted the attention of, Ed Temple: the women’s track coach at Tennessee State University (TSU). Temple then invited Rudolph to join his summer training program at Tennessee State. After attending the camp, Rudolph won all nine events she entered at an Amateur Athletic Union track meet. Under Temple’s guidance Rudolph continued to train regularly at Tennessee State University, while still a high school student. She raced at amateur athletic events with TSU’S women’s track team, known as the Tigerbelles.

In 1956, at the age of sixteen, Rudolph attended the United Stated Olympic track and field team trials in Seattle, Washington, and qualified to compete in the 200-meter individual event. Although she didn’t win the race, she had the opportunity to run third leg of the 4 x 100-meter relay, and the TSU Tigerbelles won the bronze medal, matching the world record time of 44.9 seconds.

Through out her career Rudolph won three gold medals and broke at least three world records. She became the first African American woman to win three gold medals in a single Olympiad. The first African American woman to win a gold medal in the 100-meter race (since Helen Stephen’s win in the 1936 Summer Olympics), and she set a new Olympic record of 23.2 seconds in the opening heat. She was recognized as the fastest woman in history, nicknamed “La Gazzella Nera” – The Black Gazelle – by the Italians, and “La Perle Noire” – The Black Pearl – by the French.

In 1962 Rudolph retired and went on to continue her education at Tennessee State, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in elementary education. According to Wikipedia, she taught as a second-grade teacher at Cobb Elementary School, coached track at Burt High School, and published an autobiography: Wilma: The Story of Wilma Rudolph.

In 1981, Rudolph established and led the Wilma Rudolph Foundation, joined DePauw University, went on to host a local television show in Indianapolis, was a publicist for Universal Studios, a television sports commentator for ABC sports during the 1984 Summer Olympics, and lit the cauldron to open the Pan American Games in Indianapolis.

In July 1994, Rudolph was diagnosed with brain and throat cancer.

On November 12, 1944, at the age of fifty-four, she passed away.