Strides Toward Equality: The Portrayal of Black Female Athletes in Children’s Picturebooks

Dissertation

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

By

Rebekah May Bruce, M.A.

Graduate Program in Education: Teaching and Learning

The Ohio State University

2018

Dissertation Committee:

Michelle Ann Abate, Advisor

Patricia Enciso

Ruth Lowery

Alia Dietsch

Copyright by

Rebekah May Bruce

2018

Abstract

This dissertation examines nine narrative non-fiction picturebooks about Black American female athletes. Contextualized within the history of children’s literature and American sport as inequitable institutions, this project highlights texts that provide insights into the past and present dominant cultural perceptions of Black female athletes. I begin by discussing an eighteen-month ethnographic study conducted with racially minoritized middle school girls where participants analyzed picturebooks about Black female athletes. This chapter recognizes Black girls as readers and intellectuals, as well as highlights how this project serves as an example of a white scholar conducting crossover scholarship. Throughout the remaining chapters, I rely on cultural studies, critical race theory, visual theory, Black feminist theory, and Marxist theory to provide critical textual and visual analysis of the focal picturebooks. Applying these methodologies, I analyze the authors and illustrators’ representations of gender, race, and class. Chapter Two discusses the ways in which the portrayals of track star Wilma Rudolph in Wilma Unlimited and

The Quickest Kid in Clarksville demonstrate shifting cultural understandings of Black female athletes. Chapter Three argues that Nothing but Trouble and Playing to Win draw on stereotypes of Black Americans as “deviant” in order to construe tennis player Althea Gibson as a “wild child.” Chapter Four discusses the role of family support in the representations of Alice

Coachman in Queen of the Track and Touch the Sky. Chapter Five analyzes the ways in which

Black female ballerinas are speaking directly to Black girl readers through the use of peritext in

Firebird and Trailblazer, and Chapter Six examines the representation of a shared sisterhood in

The Golden Girls of Rio. Ultimately, I argue that picturebooks that feature Black women in sports offer both harmful stereotypes and positive possibilities for Black girl readers.

i

Dedication

Dedicated to the girls who shared with me their hopes and dreams of equality for female athletes.

ii Acknowledgments

To all of the women and girls who have faced discrimination as they enter the world of sports, I send you my love and appreciation for your tenacity. You have paved the way for me and so many others. Thank you to those who have helped me imagine possibilities for myself in staying active, healthy, and happy.

This project would not have been possible without the guidance and support of my advisor, Dr. Michelle Ann Abate. Thank you for your constant willingness to help me to think more critically and articulate my ideas more clearly. Your feedback has made this project what it is today, and your encouragement has helped me stay dedicated to advocating for equality.

Thank you to Dr. Patricia Enciso for mentoring me in learning to listen to the voices of marginalized children. Thank you to Dr. Ruth Lowery for guiding my growth in giving African

American children’s literature the respect that it deserves.

To my husband, better half, and adventure partner, Alexander Degener, I owe special thanks. Your love, support, and encouragement have meant the world to me. Thank you for believing in me and in this work. Thank you for always being willing to listen to and support my dreams. To my son, Callum Martin Degener, thank you for giving me the most compelling reason to advocate for a better world. I am indebted to many family members, friends, and colleagues who have given feedback and insights about the direction of this project. I have been so fortunate to learn from so many brilliant and passionate people.

iii

Vita

2010 ………………………….. B.A., Florida Atlantic University 2013 ………………………….. M.A., Hollins University 2014 to 2017 ...………………… Graduate Teaching Associate and University Supervisor, Department of Literature for Children and Young Adults, The Ohio State University

Publications

Degener, Rebekah May. “Title IX Story Club: Creating Possibilities for Racially Minoritized Middle School Girls in Physical Activity.” Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, vol. 62, no. 2, 2018, pp. 129-143.

Degener, Rebekah May. “Lacking Liberation in Language: African American Language in The Secret Life of Pets.” Children’s Literature in English Language Education, vol. 5, no. 2, 2017, pp. 1-17.

Degener, Rebekah May. “Dwellers of the Deep Darkness: The Transformation of Dwarves from Mythology to Current Children’s Literature.” Tracing the Footsteps of Dwarfs, edited by F. Cubucku and S. Planka, Königshausen u. Neumann, 2016.

Fields of Study

Education: Teaching and Learning

iv List of Figures

Figure 1. Wilma Unlimited Title Page ……………………………………………………… 335

Figure 2. Baby Wilma Rudolph with her family …………………………………………… 335

Figure 3. Rudolph racing …………………………………………………………………… 335

Figure 4. Relay race ………………………………………………………………………… 335

Figure 5. Close-up Image of Rudolph during relay race …………………………………… 335

Figure 6. Rudolph during Olympic medal ceremony ………………………………………. 335

Figure 7. Alta running ………………………………………………………………………. 336

Figure 8. Alta and friends looking up at sun ………………………………………………… 336

Figure 9. Alta and friends talk with Charmaine ……………………………………………... 336

Figure 10. Alta and friends look at Charmaine’s shoes ……………………………………… 336

Figure 11. Alta and Charmaine are talking ………………………………………………….. 337

Figure 12. Alta, Charmaine, and friends are at Rudolph’s parade …………………………… 337

Figure 13. Alta and Charmaine race …………………………………………………………. 337

Figure 14. Alta is celebrating ………………………………………………………………… 337

Figure 15. Althea Gibson is running through the street ……………………………………… 338

Figure 16. Photographs show Gibson getting in trouble …………………………………….. 338

Figure 17. Gibson is running away from family and police officer ………………………….. 338

Figure 18. Gibson is walking with a bat ……………………………………………………… 338

Figure 19. Gibson is playing multiple different sports ……………………………………….. 339

Figure 20. Buddy Walker is watching Gibson play …………………………………………... 339

Figure 21. Gibson is talking with Walker …………………………………………………….. 339

Figure 22. Gibson is playing tennis ………………………………………………………….. 339

v

Figure 23. Gibson is depicted in a fancy dress and singing ………………………………….. 340

Figure 24. Gibson is depicted being held by her mother and her father………………………. 340

Figure 25. Coachman is running through a forest …………………………………………….. 340

Figure 26. Coachman’s father is bent down talking to her …..……………………………….. 340

Figure 27. Coachman is playing basketball with a couple of other boys …………………….. 341

Figure 28. Coachman and her teacher are watching a high-jumping athlete …………………. 341

Figure 29. Coachman is jumping over a homemade crossbar ………………………………... 341

Figure 30. Coachman’s mother and a man talk as they watch her jumping ………………….. 341

Figure 31. Coachman is competing at a high jumping event …………………………………. 342

Figure 32. The coach is talking to Coachman’s father as she looks on ………………………. 342

Figure 33. Coachman is eating lunch with the other Tigerettes ……………………………… 342

Figure 34. Young Coachman is going for a walk with her grandmother …………………….. 342

Figure 35. Coachman is playing basketball with boys ……………………………………….. 343

Figure 36. Coachman is sitting on a windowsill looking outside …………………………….. 343

Figure 37. A young ballerina dances next to Copeland ………………………………………. 343

Figure 38. The young ballerina watches Copeland dance in the sky …………………………. 343

Figure 39. The young ballerina sits on the sidewalk …………………………………………. 344

Figure 40. Copeland kneels down to talk to the young ballerina …………………………….. 344

Figure 41. Copeland is dancing over multiple days ………………………………………….. 344

Figure 42. The young ballerina is practicing dance moves ………………………………….. 344

Figure 43. The young ballerina is dancing next to Copeland ……………………………….. 344

Figure 44. Copeland and the young ballerina dance a pas de deux …………………………. 344

vi Figure 45. Copeland watches the young ballerina before a performance ……………………. 345

Figure 46. Young children watch the young ballerina perform ………………………………. 345

Figure 47. Copeland and the young ballerina dance together ………………………………… 345

Figure 48. A young Wilkinson sits in a theatre next to her mother and father ……………….. 345

Figure 49. Wilkinson enters the dance studio ………………………………………………… 345

Figure 50. Wilkinson dances in the front of the dance studio ………………………………... 345

Figure 51. Madame Swoboda walks Wilkinson through a dance move ……………………… 346

Figure 52. Wilkinson is standing next to a bus with a suitcase ………………………………. 346

Figure 53. Wilkinson is sitting at the front of the bus ………………………………………... 346

Figure 54. Wilkinson is performing with the rest of the dance troop ………………………… 346

Figure 55. The Klu Klux Klan are depicted in front of flames ………………………………. 347

Figure 56. Wilkinson is powdering her face to whiten it …………………………………….. 347

Figure 57. Wilkinson is leaving a hotel as another ballerina tries to stop her ……………….. 347

Figure 58. Four ballerinas surround Wilkinson ……………………………………………… 347

Figure 59. Wilkinson sits at a table with Klu Klux Klan robes in the background ………….. 348

Figure 60. Wilkinson looks out the window at a burning cross ……………………………… 348

Figure 61. Wilkinson performs for a queen ………………………………………………….. 348

Figure 62. Copeland is dancing a pas de deux with a partner ……………………………….. 348

Figure 63. Wilkinson is presenting Copeland with flowers …………………………………. 349

Figure 64. The Rio female Olympic athletes stand in a line ………………………………… 349

Figure 65. The Olympians are holding each other up ……………………………………….. 349

Figure 66. Manuel and Ledecky are seen on side-by-side pages ……………………………. 349

Figure 67. Carter is looking at a picture with her father who holds a shot ………………….. 350

vii

Figure 68. A young Biles sees her future self competing ……………………………………. 350

Figure 69. A young Ledecky is swimming with her family …………………………………. 350

Figure 70. A young Manuel is diving and swimming with her family ……………………… 350

Figure 71. Biles and Hernandez wave at each other on the balance beam …………………… 350

Figure 72. Hernandez completes a flip ………………………………………………………. 350

Figure 73. Ledecky waves at Manuel ………………………………………………………… 351

Figure 74. Carter holds a shot and looks up at a tree …………………………………………. 351

Figure 75. Two female athletes hold up plates of gold ……………………………………….. 351

Figure 76. The backs of the female athletes as they are lined up watching the US flag ……... 351

Figure 77. Three female athletes’ crossed arms are seen …………………………………….. 351

Figure 78. The female athletes complete dives and flips ……………………………………... 351

Figure 79. Four female athletes give each other fist-bumps ………………………………….. 352

Figure 80. The image of the sky and the last sentence of the text ……………………………. 352

viii Table of Contents

Abstract ……………………………………………………………………………………… i

Dedication …………………………………………………………………………………… ii

Acknowledgments …………………………………………………………………………… iii

Vita …………………………………………………………………………………………… iv

List of Figures ………………………………………………………………………………… v

Introduction ………………………………………………………………………………….. 1

Chapter 1: In Their Own Voices: The Title IX Story Club …………………………………. 57

Chapter 2: Commemoration and Commodification: The Black Female Body and the “Ideal”

Athlete Identity in Wilma Unlimited and The Quickest Kid in Clarksville ...... 75

Chapter 3: “Dress[ing] up in White” to Play Tennis: The Racism, Sexism, and Classism of the

Representations of Althea Gibson in Nothing but Trouble and Playing to Win ……………... 114

Chapter 4: “The Hurdle of Family Support: Representations of Gender, Race, and Socio-

Economic Status of Alice Coachman in Queen of the Track and Touch the Sky” ………….. 157

Chapter 5: “To Match My Strength Is To Feel Your Own”: Peritext and Culturally Authentic

Mentorship in Trailblazer and Firebird …………………………………………………….. 202

Chapter 6: “Rising to Rio Together: Sport, Sisterhood, and Activism in The Golden Girls of Rio”

248

Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………………… 288

Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………………. 302

Appendix A: Chart of Picturebooks Analyzed ………………………………………………. 332

Appendix B: Picturebook Illustrations ……………………………………………………….. 334

ix Introduction

In the 2018 U.S. Open, the women’s singles match was rife with controversy. U.S. tennis player Serena Williams faced opponent Naomi Osaka. During the match, Williams’ coach,

Patrick Mouratoglou1, gestured advice to her, which is illegal during grand slams. Umpire Carlos

Ramos gave Williams a warning, resulting in a $4,000 penalty from the U.S. Tennis Association.

Williams did not see Mouratoglou’s signal to her and became perturbed at the seemingly unfair penalty. Even if she had noticed it, coaches often shout out feedback from the sidelines to tennis players without repercussions. In fact, as Mouratoglou pointed out afterward, Osaka’s coach was also doing so, and Osaka did not receive any warnings. Later in the match, Williams again became angered when she lost a game. She smashed her racket. Ramos took a point from her.

She yelled at Ramos, calling him a “thief” and telling him: “I don’t cheat to win” (Raggs &

Boren). Ramos docked Williams a game for these comments. The USTA fined her $3,000 for the broken racket and $10,000 for the “verbal abuse.” With the game taken away from Williams,

Osaka won and many in the crowd booed at this outcome. Echoed by many voices in the arena of tennis, Williams contends that she experienced sexist treatment from Ramos in this loss. “I've seen other men call other umpires several things,” she asserts, “I'm here fighting for women's rights and for women's equality and for all kinds of stuff. For me to say ‘thief’ and for him to take a game, it made me feel like it was a sexist remark. He’s never taken a game from a man because they said ‘thief.’” Williams was unwilling to let sexist treatment go unchallenged.

Women’s Tennis Association’s CEO Steve Simon released a statement the next day regarding the previous day’s match, asserting: “The WTA believes that there should be no

1 He admitted to having tried to give Williams a coaching signal in a post-match interview (Zaumzer). 1 difference in the standards of tolerance provided to the emotions expressed by men vs. women and is committed to working with the sport to ensure that all players are treated the same. We do not believe that this was done last night” (qtd. in Maine). Billie Jean King, retired tennis player and activist, immediately took to Twitter in the wake of the controversy. She writes: “When a woman is emotional, she’s ‘hysterical’ and she’s penalized for it. When a man does the same, he’s ‘outspoken’ and there are no repercussions” (qtd. in Lutz). American male tennis player

James Blake tweeted about the situation. Acknowledging a double-standard in Ramos’ penalizing of players, he asserts: “I will admit I have said worse and not gotten penalized. And

I’ve been given a ‘soft warning’ by the ump where they tell you knock it off or I will have to give you a violation. He should have at least given her that courtesy” (@JamesBlake). Another

U.S. male competitor, Andy Roddick, also tweeted in support of Williams’ claim of sexism. He referred to the umpire’s performance as the “worst referring I’ve ever seen….. the worst !!!” He added: “I’ve regrettably said worse and I’ve never gotten a game penalty” (@andyroddick).

Videos began to circulate of male athletes also engaging in verbal altercations with umpires, such as when Roger Federer yelled “Don’t [expletive] talk to me” at an umpire during the 2009

U.S. Open men’s final. Federer had received no penalty for his expression of frustration.

Pointing to a double-standard in penalties for female athletes, Williams’ coach also spoke out, asserting: “We have to stop this hypocritical thing” (Zaumzer).

Others, including the International Tennis Federation, defended Ramos’s treatment of

Williams. Many media outlets reported tennis players’ and organizers’ scandalized reactions to the event. The Telegraph shared the response of All England Club chairman Philip Brook, who called Williams’ behavior “not a good look for tennis” (Briggs). Likewise, The New York Post posted an article on the issue entitled “Serena Acted Like a Sore Loser” (Berman). As the title

2 suggests, the article lambasts Williams as a poor sport who had disgraced the tennis community.

According to The Times, umpires were considering boycotting Williams’ matches until she apologized to Ramos. Also adding his voice to the critics, British male tennis player Liam

Broady tweeted: “You shouldn’t talk to anybody in this way whether they’re an umpire or person on the street” (Press Association).

Both American and international news portrayed the event as an irrational woman who had lost control of her temper against an impartial ref. This message repeated past media representations of Williams. White Americans frequently construe her as an angry Black woman, who is overly-emotional and threatening to opponents and umpires alike. The response, in contrast to instances when male players engaged in arguments with umpires, kept this event a news highlight for weeks. Many of the articles condemning Williams, such as in The New York

Post and The Telegraph, were penned by white men who portrayed Williams as a hot-head. They offered her pedantic advice about learning self-control. These pieces were filled with more subtle racist and sexist condescension. Others made no efforts to cover the discrimination. For example, the Australian newspaper the Herald Sun published a cartoon of the tennis player created by artist Mark Knight. The degrading image depicted Williams as a baby throwing a temper tantrum, smashing her racket. As Withers of Slate reports, Knight’s illustration of the Black female competitor is “reminiscent of coon or mammy caricatures” and makes “her sharp aggression [seem] animalistic” (“Racist Serena Williams Cartoon”). It evokes centuries of dehumanizing depictions of Black Americans. Even though Osaka is a Japanese-Haitian woman, she is represented in the corner of the composition as a blonde-haired white woman. The umpire asks her: “Can’t you just let her win?” (Withers). Knight modifies both Williams’ and Osaka’s appearances. Williams’ features are exaggerated, and Osaka’s are completely whitewashed.

3 Through the illustration, Knight highlights what is so unacceptable about Williams. She does not fit norms of white, heterosexual femininity. Both men and white women, such as the one drawn in Knight’s illustration, stand aghast at Williams’ intense emotions.

The controversy over the U.S. Open match provides insight into the realities for Black women and girls in American sports – and the broader society. Few groups in America have faced as many injustices as Black women and girls. Black women scholars such as Virginia

Hamilton, Angela Davis, Kimberle Crenshaw, bell hooks, Audre Lorde, and many others have advocated for equality. As a result, American society has made some progress throughout the past 50 years in the dismantling of racial and ethnic stereotypes of Black women and girls. These scholars have analyzed the intersectional oppression that Black women face. Due to their immensely insightful work, many white Americans are more cognizant of the institutional racism and sexism that marginalize Black women. Nevertheless, white society still upholds many of these barriers. As is true of every type of oppression, an awareness does not equate to a willingness to dismantle systems of inequality. In sports specifically, Black female athletes continue to find themselves on the literal and metaphorical sidelines. Oppressed in society because their identity is marginalized by both gender and race, they are often pushed out of sports contexts.

Black women and girls are highly underrepresented in American sports. To be clear, this lack of inclusion does not stem from the inability to perform at the highest and most demanding levels of athleticism. Black female athletes have proven themselves highly capable. Especially during the past few decades of the 21st century, powerful Black women have been succeeding in some of the most popular American sports. In tennis, Serena and Venus Williams and Sloane

Stephens are currently some of the most accomplished female tennis players and overall athletes

4 in the world. Within gymnastics, Gabby Douglas and Simone Biles are well-known champions.

In track and field, Allyson Felix and Candace Hill are some of the fastest track runners in the world. Some of the top women in basketball right now are Maya Moore (playing for the

Minnesota Lynx) and Candace Parker (playing for the Los Angeles Sparks). All of these Black

American women serve as inspiring role models. In the field of children’s picturebooks, historically, authors and illustrators have rarely depicted that success. With a few notable exceptions, children’s literature has largely ignored the accomplishments of Black women in sports. When Black female athletes are represented, very rarely do the text creators’ portrayals construe them positively or accurately. Complex representations that depict the factors preventing past and present Black women’s athletic participation are almost completely absent.

The stereotyping of Black women in picturebooks reflects the distortion of identities that they historically have experienced in America — and continue to experience.

This project is an analysis of nine picturebooks published between the years 1996 and

2017 that tell the stories of highly successful historical Black female athletes. Utilizing an interdisciplinary approach, I draw on scholarship from cultural studies, critical race theory, Black feminist theory, and Marxism to analyze how the Black female athletes featured in the texts are portrayed in terms of their gender, race, and socio-economic status. Throughout this analysis, I consider the social, historical, and economic contexts of the Black female athletes’ lives and the times in which the texts about them were published. Ultimately, I work to demonstrate the need for texts about Black female athletes, critically examine the texts that do exist, and discuss how creators of children’s texts are currently working to support the needs of young Black girls in seeing possibilities for themselves represented in literature.

5 Researcher Positionality

As a white scholar who is researching about Black women and girls in children’s literature, it is critical for me to be aware of my positionality. Frequently, when a disconnect exists between a scholar’s identity and those about whom they write, the resulting scholarship merely points to inequities. It often does so without making substantial connections to the real needs of that group. Gloria Ladson-Billings argues that theories that may have the potential to liberate minority students also have the possibility of remaining abstract ideas (19). In her analysis of historical African American children’s literature, Augusta Baker asserts that many children’s texts were filled with inaccurate representations of Black children because “Most authors were white, with little knowledge about black life, and yet they wrote as if they were authorities” (“The Changing Image”). This observation also applies to how many white scholars have engaged with learning and writing about the lived experiences of Black children, a tendency that I worked to be highly aware of in my own scholarship. Researching about a marginalized group to which I do not belong has required me to engage in self-reflection. Not only have I been able to better understand individuals different from myself. I have also been able to understand my own position in the world and the ways in which I too participate in structural inequities. Many of these inequities uphold the discrepancies in how I, as a white woman, experience sports and how Black women and girls experience them.

I undertake this project with the recognition that, as a part of a majority group that has been the creators and upholders of inequities, I have a responsibility to confront institutional and personal racism. I recognize that White Americans have created and sustained these inequities, and the full burden of dismantling them should not fall on marginalized groups. Black American philosopher George Yancy penned an open letter entitled Dear White America, in which he calls 6 for white Americans to reflect on how they participate in inequities. He describes this piece as a

“gift” of love to White Americans (Yancy). Yancy quotes James Baldwin who asserted that

“[l]ove takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within”

(qtd. in Yancy). In this letter, Yancy exhorts white Americans thus: “I ask that you don’t run to seek shelter from your own racism. Don’t hide from your responsibility. Rather, begin, right now, to practice being vulnerable” (Yancy). In my efforts to engage in antiracist scholarship, I do not view my own voice as being the one to determine how oppressions should be challenged and how inequitable systems should be dismantled. I work to follow the lead of Black adult scholars and Black children to identify areas in which I can advocate for equality, which begins by first examining how I am participating in upholding racism. My aim is to listen to a diversity of Black feminist writers and scholars, acknowledging that their insights into the direction of antiracist work are not monolithic. This dissertation stems from an acknowledgment of my responsibility to address inequities that I have perpetuated and upheld. It is my aim, through this project, to work alongside—not in front of— Black women in order to confront the centuries of institutional racism that they have faced in sports.

Michelle Martin in her article “Brown Girl Dreaming of a New ChLA” argues for a set of criteria for scholars of children’s literature. Martin is addressing the debate surrounding the issue of cultural authenticity in children’s books and specifically discussing the “authenticity” of children’s literature scholarship. She offers the term “crossover scholarship” to describe when a writer “cross[es] racial, ethnic, geographic, socioeconomic, gender, and other identity boundaries to write about people who live and look differently than the scholar does” (98). Martin’s definition of crossover scholarship describes the type of research that I am conducting in examining the portrayal of the experiences of Black women and girls in sports. As a white 7 woman who participates in sports, I am able to more easily empathize with certain aspects of

Black women and girls’ realities in sports than if I were a male researcher. I am familiar with experiencing gender bias and discrimination within sports and other contexts of fitness. Other aspects of taking part in sports, such as encountering resistance or challenges based on how others view my racial identity or socio-economic status, are not my own lived experiences. As such, I view this dissertation as a work of crossover scholarship. I connect with the studied marginalized group here in terms of my gender identity, yet I recognize that intersectionality means that I cannot equate my experiences to theirs.

Martin calls for research to be relationship-based when scholars are engaged in this type of crossover scholarship. As an important aspect of the research for this dissertation, I am relying on an eighteen-month ethnographic study that I completed with 3-82 racially minoritized middle school girls in an urban setting to help inform my analysis of the picturebooks discussed here

(“The Title IX Story Club” 2018). I conducted this study under the direction of Dr. Patricia

Enciso in the context of a long-term school-based story club (Enciso, Volz, Price-Dennis, &

Durriyah “Story Club and Configurations” 2010; Enciso “Stories Lost and Found” 2017). This project informed my literary analysis of children’s texts by listening to the lived experience of racially minoritized girls. Much of the analysis of the texts found within this dissertation have been informed by the relationships and dialogue with the middle school girls in this ethnographic study. In many ways, although this project is a literary analysis, it is grounded in not just my own analysis of these texts, but the ways in which the girls in my ethnographic study read, interpreted, and connected (or did not connect) with the texts. In this way, I view this dissertation as a piece of crossover scholarship that attempts to answer Martin’s call to ground my literary

2 The number of participants began at 8 but was 3 toward the end of the study. 8 analysis in relationships with those whom the study researches. I will begin the dissertation by a discussion in Chapter One of this research study and the ways in which the stories and insights from the girls in the Title IX Story Club shaped the direction of this project and my own understanding of the topic. My hope is that this project provides insight into previously under- studied picturebooks for a topic much worthy of notice and scholarly attention. This project works to rely not simply on my own interpretation of the issues of equity in sports but also is ultimately grounded in consideration of what actual children — who in many ways identify with the same identity as the subjects of the stories — think of them, as well.

One additional note about my positionality in my research about Black female athletes as a white female researcher pertains to how I refer to the ethnicity of the Black female athletes – or more broadly to Black Americans. I use the term “Black” versus “African American” not to erase or minimize Black American’s connection to their African heritage, but to acknowledge shared experiences as Black people that extend to beyond just those who are both Black and

American, such as Black British citizens. I use the term “Black” because of arguments such as

Aisha Harris’ in her Slate article entitled “Where I’m From.” In this article, she explains her identification as Black.

I don’t see my preference for being called a black American as a way of denying

or distancing myself from my genetic African heritage. Rather, I believe it

acknowledges the similarities that do extend to all black people—in spite of our

differences—as black people: the prejudices we can face from nonblacks (from

police brutality to skewed standards of beauty) to the cultural influences we share

with one another, like the aesthetic notion of “black cool,” traced to West Africa

and translated more recently into black American art. (Harris)

9 I follow the lead of Black authors such as Harris in referring to Black Americans in order to acknowledge that many Black Americans also identify with a more universal Black culture because of shared African and/or African diaspora heritage. In many instances throughout this dissertation, I alternate between African American and Black American. I do so as a result of working to follow the lead of how I find that the athletes have referred to themselves. For example, Serena Williams generally refers to herself as “Black,” while more historical figures such as Althea Gibson referred to themselves as “African American.” Throughout the dissertation, I include notes pertaining to where I found that they have referred to their racial identities. In this decision, I aim to respect the right of individuals to identify themselves as they see fit.

Theoretical Framework

Cultural Studies

Within this project, I draw on cultural studies scholarship to analyze societal factors impacting the representation of Black female athletes in children’s literature. Cultural studies is a literary theory that helps scholars to understand contemporary issues in society through an interdisciplinary approach. As defined by Chris Barker in The Sage Dictionary of Cultural

Studies, it is an “interdisciplinary or post-disciplinary field of inquiry that explores the production and inculcation of culture or maps of meaning” (42). This mode of analysis focuses on how aspects of culture are formed and then upheld. For this project, cultural studies scholarship allows for an analysis of how a cultural marginalization of Black female athletes has historically been created by white people and institutions centered around whiteness — and continues to be upheld. Nelson, Treichler, and Grossberg assert that the field “holds special

10 intellectual promise because it explicitly attempts to cut across diverse social and political interests and address many of the struggles within the current scene” (Cultural Studies 1).

Scholars of cultural studies traditionally have refused to prioritize singular political interests or academic disciplines in their study. “Cultural studies is not merely interdisciplinary,” Nelson,

Treichler, and Grossberg contend, “It is often… actively and aggressively anti-disciplinary” (1).

As such, scholars of cultural studies do not apply one particular methodology of study. They remain flexible in their methodologic use, dependent on the subject under study. Whatever approach is adopted, “it necessarily interrogates the mutual determination of popular belief and other discursive formations” (Nelson, Treichler, and Grossberg 11). While one might never be able to ever fully examine all aspects of a cultural production, cultural studies attempts to analyze a subject from many different angles within the same scope of study. Scholars often assert the benefits of adopting this mode because other fields require too narrow of a lens.

Cultural studies analyzes the media and artifacts that a society produces. It notes the impact of the culture upon those productions and the impact of the productions on the culture.

According to Jessica Evans and Stuart Hall in Visual Culture: The Reader, “… cultural studies rests on the achievement of semiotics as a whole and stakes its distinctiveness upon the analysis of the symbolic, classificatory and, in short, meaning-making practices that are at the heart of all cultural production and consumption.” (3). Cultural studies works to understand how meanings, including constructions of race, gender, and class, are created, reinforced, or refuted. The meanings that are created by a consumer may be intended by the creator or completely unintentional, but scholars of cultural studies note the importance of studying not just a cultural product’s intended meaning, but also the received meaning. Additionally, a key tenet of this methodology includes breaking down a historical distinction between “high” and “low” culture.

11 Nelson, Treichler, and Grossberg assert that cultural studies “rejects the exclusive equation of culture with high culture and argues that all forms of cultural production need to be studied in relation to other cultural practices and to social and historical structures” (4). Cultural studies refuses simplistic categories of some products as better or worse than others. Instead, the focus is on understanding cultural products in relation to products created before, contemporary to, and after them.

In spite of its attempts to adopt many different viewpoints in analysis, cultural studies has traditionally prioritized a hegemonic understanding of meaning making. Mani points out that cultural studies frequently “sets up problematic chains of equivalences, between, say, women, people of color in the U.S., people from the third world, lesbians, gay men. The thrust of this story about contemporary theory glosses over real differences” (“Cultural Theory, Colonial

Texts,” Lata 393). As a result, she notes: “This effectively banishes to the margins people whose collective hopes and struggles have ruptured hitherto dominant fictions” (393). It is important for scholars of cultural studies to reflect on the possible perpetuation of hegemony by conceptualizing culture through a dominant lens that centers whiteness. Although this issue is certainly a shortcoming that many scholars would acknowledge, cultural studies as a field has the potential to analyze issues of culture, power, gender, race, sexuality, etc. in powerful ways through interdisciplinary approaches.

Cultural studies can provide children’s literature scholars specifically with multiple lenses to understand how culture is conceptualized in texts for young readers. Henry Giroux argues: “Rather than holding knowledge in some kind of correspondence with a self-enclosed objective reality, a critical cultural studies views the production of knowledge in the context of power” (“Resisting Difference” 202). This type of critical cultural studies can help children’s

12 literature scholars question representations of power, identity, and politics, and how hegemonic views of these have traditionally shaped children’s books, while analyzing how contemporary children’s books may be reinforcing or refuting these ideologies. The scholarship of cultural studies in conjunction with a lens of Black feminist scholarship, critical race scholarship, and

Marxist scholarship allows for a more complex extrapolation of how structures of power have formed inequities in relation to being the minority in the U.S. against Black female athletes. This analysis can shed light on how these systems are continuing to hold Black women back from equitable treatment in sports.

Critical Race Theory

Critical race theory (CRT) focuses on the institutional forms of racism that have historically oppressed and continue to oppress Black people. It arose out of racially minoritized scholars’ examination of power in critical legal studies and, specifically, how race impacts how citizens experience the legal system. The scholarship within this field of study is important for this project as I am examining not just how individuals have discriminated against Black female athletes, but how systems within American society have been set up in order to exclude the full humanity of Black female athletes. White Americans continue to uphold these systems through ignorance at best and indifference and intentional discrimination at worst, meaning that Black female athletes are continually fighting against structures that work to marginalize them and keep them on the sidelines in many aspects of society, including sports.

Critical race theory scholarship is particularly pertinent to this project because CRT is

“grounded in a sense of reality that reflects the distinctive experiences of people of color”

(Taylor 8). CRT centers the experiences of minoritized groups and examines the different ways

13 that institutions, in particular, have been used to uphold racial hierarchy. Louis Knowles and

Kenneth Prewitt define institutions as “fairly stable social arrangements and practices through which collective actions are taken” (Institutional Racism in America 5). Institutions are more than just individuals, but the powers that have been established by dominant groups in these social organizations. Systemic racism is spread by more than simply a few individuals. It is inherent to the institutions.

Audre Lorde defines racism as “the belief in the inherent superiority of one race over all others and thereby the right to dominance” (qtd. in Solórzano & Yosso 132). Institutional racism is the perpetuation of an ideology of a racial hierarchy, and resulting racial oppression, through the uses of these social arrangements and practices. Many white Americans argue that we live in a post-racial society where many, if not most, people are colorblind. In the 1896 case Plessy v.

Ferguson, Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan asserted the need for a “colorblind” society. As educational scholar Terry Husband defines a colorblind society, it is “one in which

Americans make no distinctions among people based on racial group membership” (“Ignorance

Is Not Bliss” 4). Husband problematizes this belief, arguing: “[P]roponents of the colorblind ideology largely deny and ignore the existence and devastating impact of racial injustice in various institutions in the societies of today and yesteryear” (4). An analysis of institutional racism in America through CRT shows a notion of the possibility of a colorblind society to be a flawed assumption. If an expulsion of racism depends only upon certain people changing their points of view, proponents of CRT argue, racial inequities would be more challenged in today’s society. Institutions allow for people who may or may not claim the ideology of racism to subscribe to and benefit from racial oppression. Thus, the status quo of racism frequently goes

14 unchallenged by many white Americans. Scholars of CRT attempt to point out and challenge this status quo.

CRT first became an approach through its adoption by Black legal scholars. Taylor notes that “Derrick A. Bell, the first African American to be tenured at Harvard’s School of Law, did pioneering work in establishing a scholarly agenda that placed race, racism, and colonialism squarely at the center of intellectual legal dialogue” (2). This emphasis on racism in law refuses ahistoricality. It remains focused on the effects of racism on current legal theories and practices.

While CRT emerged out of the legal field, it has many implications in other fields of study, as well, including in the social sciences. Akin to how scholars such as Bell adopted it in the legal field, scholars in social sciences also center an understanding of race and how minoritized people’s experiences in America are shaped based on their historical and current racial categorization.

CRT theorists also examine the physical and emotional effects that institutional racism has on minoritized populations. In her text In the Wake: On Blackness and Being, Christine

Sharpe examines the effects of a historical and current pattern of abuse of Black bodies in

America from enslavement to the enforcement of Jim Crow laws to modern police brutality and incarceration. She focuses on the cultural memory of oppression – mental, physical, emotional – that live with Black Americans today from the centuries of trauma that they have experienced from white America – trauma that is still experienced on a daily basis. Sharpe questions what it means to be, as she terms it, “living in the wake” of this oppression and posits the best methods for “encountering a past that is not a past” (13). Pervasive racism has impacted Black Americans not just in the past but with far-reaching implications for contemporary times.

15 CRT traces the effects of institutional racism on Black American communities, including how the country’s education system does or does not serve the needs of Black American children. It is not simply individual educators or administrators who might display racist perceptions of Black students, CRT asserts. The institution of education has been created in a way to privilege white middle-class American students. Schools were organized with the needs of these students in mind, not the needs of Black students. Solórzano and Yosso note the contradictory possibilities of educational institutions for Black American children in that it both has the potential to “oppress and marginalize” and “emancipate and empower” (“Critical Race

Methodology” 133). While public schools are able to shape opportunities for children, many adopt oppressive practices, which marginalize Black American students. Knowles and Prewitt argue that most schools “confront black children with a curriculum and a set of learning conditions which do not relate to the students’ life outside school” (32). Black children are expected to learn about topics and material which are rarely connected to their own lived experiences. The institution of education, in this way, marginalizes Black children within classrooms.

CRT also points out the role of institutions in determining who is considered fully human and who is not, as well as who is considered to be fully a child and who is not. Societal conceptions of white children often views them as innocent and in need of adults’ protection.

Black American children, no matter how young they are or what stage of childhood development they occupy, are frequently not believed to be fully children. White Americans construe Black children as mischievous, deviant, and evil. Refuting earlier conceptions of children as inherently sinful, the mid-nineteenth century brought about a new cultural understanding of children as innocent. Analyzing the racialization of perceptions of childhood innocence, Robin Bernstein

16 argues that “By the mid-nineteenth century, sentimental culture had woven childhood and innocence together wholly. Childhood was then understood not as innocent but as innocence itself” (Racial Innocence 4). She also notes that “this innocence was raced white” (4), and Black children are not afforded this innocence. As a result, they are not offered the same protections as white youth. This construction of Black children has many effects on how they are treated by society and how they are able to participate in it. As Sharpe asserts, “[B]ecause Black children are not seen as children and the corral of ‘urban youth’ holds them outside of the category of the child, they are offered more trauma by the state and state actors” (89). They are not seen as vulnerable to having their innocence stripped from them.

In addition to understanding how institutional racism is affecting today’s children, CRT has also influenced the field of children’s literature. The field of children’s book publishing is an institution that has historically perpetuated racism through exclusion and stereotyping of Black

Americans in texts for children. Because of this history, CRT scholarship is much needed in children’s literature in order to highlight the ways that the institution of publishing needs to change to meet the needs of all child readers, not just those of the white middle-class that have traditionally been for whom children’s books are written and published. In 2015, the publisher

Lee and Low Books conducted a survey, the Diversity Baseline Survey, on the diversity in publishing. They found that “just under 80 percent of publishing staff and review journal staff are white” and “78.2 percent” are women (“Where Is the Diversity in Publishing?”). The white and female-driven publishing industry has yet to substantially address the lack of equitable racial representation in children’s literature, although there has been a growing societal awareness of this lack of diversity. With the limited racial diversity in this workforce, white women continue to be the ones deciding the directions for the publishing industry. The survey’s numbers, “while

17 not exact, are proportional to how the majority of books look nowadays—predominately white”

(“Where Is the Diversity in Publishing?”). Lee and Low’s efforts to diversify the publishing industry in order to diversify the representation found in children’s books exemplifies the approach that CRT takes. CRT emphasizes that systems, such as the publishing industry, are built on inequities and that those systemic issues must be addressed in order to advocate for equity on a more individual level, as well.

Black Feminist Theory/Womanist Theory

In many ways, the work of Black feminist scholars has informed the work of critical race theorists. Black feminist scholars similarly center race to analyze inequities. They prioritize race as it intersects with gender and sexuality. Their focus is on the experiences of Black women as distinct from every other group in American society. This field of study arose out of a dire need for a societal acknowledgment of the needs, and historical ignorance of the needs, of Black women in America. Intersectionality serves as a key concept in many different feminist approaches, particularly in Black feminism. Intersectionality recognizes that Black American women live within a realm of multiple spheres of experiences, such as economic status, nationhood, and educational status, which shape their identities, due to both their gender and race. In her analysis of social politics for Black American females in “Mapping the Margins:

Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color,” Kimberle Crenshaw coined the term “intersectionality.” She discusses a possible reason why scholars of all racial identities have tended to overlook the unique discriminations that Black American women face.

Attributing this lack of notice of stereotypes and injustices to women’s intersectionality, she points out the fact that they belong to two different minority groups: Black Americans and

18 women (1244). Crenshaw claims: “... race and gender converge so that the concerns of minority women fall into the void between concerns about women’s issues and concerns about racism”

(1282). Black women’s particular needs frequently go unaddressed in society. Institutions have trained all of us to ignore them. In her text Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism, bell hooks argues:

American women, irrespective of their education, economic status, or racial

identification, have undergone years of sexist and racist socialization that has

taught us to blindly trust our knowledge of history and its effect on present reality,

even though that knowledge has been formed and shaped by an oppressive

system. (374)

Oppressive institutional systems, hooks asserts, continue to shape how white Americans view historical oppression and its effects on society today. This lack to significantly challenge institutions on many fronts is, in part, why racist and sexist ideologies permeate American society.

A historical view of feminism as a whole demonstrates the dire need for Black feminism, distinct from other scholarship. During the second wave of the feminist movement, Alice Walker coined the term “womanist” in her book In Search of Our Mother’s Garden: Womanist Prose.

“Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender,” Walker said (qtd. in Napikoski). “Womanism is revolutionary,” Stacey M. Floyd-Thomas argues, “Womanism is a paradigm shift wherein

Black women no longer look to others for their liberation, but instead look to themselves” (1).

Akin to Black feminist theorists, womanist scholars refuse to allow white women to dictate the terms of equality for Black women. Floyd-Thomas asserts that womanism “liberates theory from its captivity to the intellectual frames and cultural values of those which cause and perpetuate the

19 marginalization of Black women in the first place” (2). Black feminism and womanism shed light on the reality that much of the feminist movement has prioritized white women’s experiences. Many white women fail to acknowledge that, in many ways, they are as culpable as white men in holding equality back from Black women. Womanism/Black feminism refuses to overlook this history and the continuing problem of feminism. hooks contends: “Negative attitudes toward black women were the result of prevailing racist sexist stereotypes that portrayed black women as morally impure. Many white women felt that their status as ladies would be undermined were they to associate with black women” (379). Noting white women’s role in Black women’s oppression, she asserts: “it can be argued that even though white men institutionalized slavery, white women were its most immediate beneficiaries. Slavery in no way altered the hierarchical social status of the white male but it created a new status for the white female” (386). Throughout the history of the movement, when Black women have supported white feminists, they have still been marginalized by white women. This lack of alignment of priorities between many white feminists and feminists of color still permeates discussions of gender in equality in today’s societal issues.

During the 2016 presidential election in which the GOP candidate had clearly championed racist and sexist policies, many white women overlooked now-President Trump’s language and stated policies. They chose a candidate who had been accused of sexually assaulting many women, frequently denigrated women in his public dialogue, and promised to create harsh restrictions on women’s healthcare. According to statistics in The Undefeated, 94% of Black women and 69% of Latinas voted for the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton

(O’Neal). In contrast, 53% white women voted for Trump (O’Neal). The Undefeated refers to these statistics as representing the “53 percent problem in American feminism” (O’Neal). The

20 issues of equity that made it impossible for many Black women to vote for Trump were not compelling enough issues for white women to follow suit. For many white women, even those who consider themselves feminists, maintaining the racial hierarchy was more important than gaining gender equality. Similarly, within the children’s literature publishing industry, demands for equality has meant that white women have more representation in children’s books, while the statistics for Black characters in children’s literature show equality in representation to be still highly lacking3. As Lee and Low’s diversity survey highlighted within the publishing industry, although oppressed themselves by their gender, not all white women are dedicated to dismantling systems of racial marginalization.

Black feminist theory/womanist theory and CRT are important lenses through which to view the societal treatment of Black female athletes. It centers their experiences as being different both from white women and different from Black men. Their unique situation has been frequently overlooked in society, including in scholarship that examines power and inequities in sports. When critical scholarship discusses the racism found in the perpetuation of stereotypes of athletes in literature, it is predominately the male athletes who are considered the victims. When the scholarship addresses the sexist exclusion, it is mainly white women who are viewed as the neglected figures. Scant scholarship has unpacked the unique gap in representation of Black female athletes. In the few instances of representation of Black women in sports, the creators and publishers of children’s literature continue to either propagate stereotypes about them or forget to include them altogether. A Black feminist lens allows for this project to examine Black female athletes’ experiences as decidedly unique from any other’s — and allows for an understanding of

3 As the Cooperative Children’s Book Center found, out of 3,700 children’s books analyzed in 2015, only 340 of them included Black characters (“Publishing Statistics on Children’s Books”). 21 how their intersectional position in society has meant that they are marginalized on many different counts. Recognizing this oppression requires an acknowledgment that Black female athletes gaining equity will demand a dismantling of societal systems on many different levels, including, as a white woman myself, reflecting on how I am participating in upholding these oppressive systems.

Visual Theory

Picturebooks are the focus of this particular project; therefore, the visuals of the texts will be one of the central point of analysis of this dissertation. More specifically, I explore how Black female athletes are represented, not just through the textual narratives, but also through the visual narratives. One way that scholars can analyze how culture is being conceptualized in a text is through an analysis of its visual elements. Scholars of visual theory refer to the aspects of culture that are expressed through visual elements as visual culture. Lisa Sturken and Marita Cartwright, in their seminal text on visual theory, Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture, define visual culture as “shared practices of a group, community, or society through which meanings are made out of the visual, aural, and textual world of representations and the ways that looking practices are engaged in symbolic and communicative activities” (3). That visuals work to convey meanings is universal to all cultures. What those meanings are and how those visuals convey the meanings are culturally specific. Visual studies, then, is the exploration of visual culture and the unique meanings that images have in culturally specific ways.

In her article “Theorizing Visual Representation in Children’s Literature,” Peggy Albers highlights the importance of visual modes in many different cultures. “[I]mage, as well as other visual modes is fast becoming the source through which many read, experience, and build beliefs

22 about the world,” she contends (165). Images have been and continue to be a vital part of how we communicate the ways in which we see our world. Albers notes: “An art perspective encourages viewers to respond to the function and value of art, both as an aesthetic object and as an object created from social practices” (166). An interpretation of an image requires that viewers not only think about the visual’s aesthetic elements, but also what the picture tells us about the social practices that influence how, when, and why it was created. The aesthetic elements and the social practices involved in creating the text frequently cannot be separated in an analysis, as an understanding or interpretation of one requires an interpretation of the other.

As Gillian Rose asserts, images “are never transparent windows on to the world. They interpret the world; they display it in very particular ways” (Visual Methodologies 6). We cannot use an analysis of images to fully understand the world; however, they can help us to interpret the world and interpret how others perceive the world, particularly the creators of the visuals and those who are the intended audience of the visuals.

Scholars of visual culture also argue that images cannot be analyzed in isolation. No matter when an image was created, ideas and other visuals influence that creation. Comics scholarship, for example, relies heavily on the theories of iconography in visual theory, which studies how images are socially constructed to be thought of as almost universal. When one views an image, they see not just that one particular image but also its associations. They rely on what they assume readers already know about those visual elements from their previous experiences with them. Images are considered to be discursive. Viewers bring to images many different previous experiences and use those previous experiences to interpret a meaning from that image. For example, the image of Serena Williams created by the illustrator Mark Knight conjures up a history of dehumanizing caricatures of Black people for those familiar with the

23 utilization of those type of racist cartoons. David Lewis explains that pictures “always have a discursive component – they do often seem to be telling us something – but some are more discursive than others” (“Showing and Telling” 95). Not all images cause viewers to think critically in interpretation, but all visuals have the potential to do so.

Visual theory is an important approach in children’s literature scholarship. This approach is especially useful considering that many children’s texts, such as picturebooks, illustrated novels, comics, and graphic novels, rely on images to convey a story as much – or sometimes even more – than words. Specifically about picturebooks, Lawrence Sipe argues that “[t]his intricate dance between words and visual images is, according to many scholars, the unique contribution of children’s literature to the whole of literary endeavor” (“Art of the Picturebook”

238). Children’s picturebooks are a well-known site to analyze how images and texts can work together in complex, sometimes seemingly contradictory ways, to narrate a story. Patrick Fuery and Nick Mansfield point out: “One of the key features of visual cultures as a critical movement is its argument that the image has taken over the word as the primary source of information, and therefore analysis” (Cultural Studies and Critical Theory 88). Visual culture theorists frequently argue that pictures are more meaningful in our society today than are words. As a result, many scholars argue for the importance of critiquing the visuals that are found in books for child readers. As Jacque Roethler in her article “Reading in Color: Children’s Book Illustrations and

Identity Formation for Black Children in the United States” explains, “The illustrations children encounter in their early literature, as sensory experience, can become important parts of this schemata, part of the building blocks of their thinking, something to which they will refer in their actions as they grow up” (95). Because illustrations significantly influence children’s schema

24 development, she asserts, many scholars focus on how the visuals in children’s literature represent different aspects of culture to child readers.

Visuals have the power to influence a society by inviting viewers to understand the world in new and deeper ways. Sipe argues: “Art both reflects current cultures, identities, and ideologies, while at the same time challenging them, pushing their assumptions and proposing a deep ‘seeing’ and intellectual engagement that leads to new ways of conceiving of ourselves and the world” (246). Images provide insight into the present state of a culture, as well as suggest new possibilities for it. “If children’s literature is to be a transformative force for society,” Sipe contends, “publishers should continue to press for the broadest possible range of representations of the increasing diversity of the populations that constitute their audience” (244). As Suzanna

Danuta Walters in Material Girls: Making Sense of Feminist Cultural Theory explains, the ways in which representations affect different groups in society is full of complexities.

We must reckon with the complicated and contradictory nature of images in our

culture. It is too simplistic to state that there are ‘bad’ images that produce ‘bad’

attitudes and behaviors; unfortunately, the situation is more complex than that.

Different audiences may interpret the same images in various ways. One group’s

‘negative’ image may be another’s source of empowerment.” (2)

Specifically, in relation to understanding stereotypes about women, “it is important to ask more complex questions about how, exactly, we come to recognize certain images and representations as stereotypes” (Walters 43). Walters’ argument is in terms of feminist readings of images. This assertion also applies to when one is looking at how images represent different racial, ethnic, or national groups. As a white scholar studying African American children’s literature, for example,

I must keep in mind that my experiences with images differ from many Black child readers’

25 experiences. Because my positionality in society has not required me to critically engage with racist images of myself, such as caricatures, I have different experiences with visual stereotypes.

Nicholas Mirzoeff, in An Introduction to Visual Culture, explains that it is difficult, if not impossible, to separate cultural studies from visual studies. “The rush to condemn culture as a frame of reference for visual studies relies on it being possible to distinguish between the products of culture and those of art,” he posits. “Art is culture both in the sense of high culture and in the anthropological sense of human artifact. There is no outside to culture” (23). It is problematic to think of visual elements as unaffected by – or not influencing – culture. As Perry

Nodelman in Words about Pictures: The Narrative Art of Children’s Picture Books notes, some critics tend to view texts’ visuals as offering only aesthetic qualities. He articulates the problem this way: “It is unfortunately true that most discussion of children’s picture books has either ignored their visual elements altogether or else treated the pictures as objects of a traditional sort of art appreciation that focus on matters like balance and composition rather than on narrative elements” (ix). Viewing the images this way is a simplistic method of understanding children’s picturebooks, Nodelman argues. Visual theory pushes scholars to consider the illustrations’ aesthetic elements and think more complexly about images. Through this lens, critics consider the many, varied meanings that each visual may hold. In this project, I relied on visual theory scholarship to analyze the complex visual depictions of Black female athletes within the picturebooks examined and critiquing my own assumptions as a white female scholar by drawing on Black girls’ interpretations.

26 Marxism

Adopting an intersectional and interdisciplinary approach to analyze the representation of

Black female athletes requires a consideration of their gender, race, and socio-economic status.

Marxism can be a helpful lens to consider the power inherent in different social classes that exist within America that impact how Black women are viewed as athletes. Marxism, grounded in the work of social theorist Karl Marx, explores the interplay of socioeconomic class and materialism. According to Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan in Literary Theory: An Anthology,

“[F]or Marxists, literature is an active agent in its social and cultural world. It can work to expose wrongs in a society, or it can paper over troubling fissures and make a class-divided society seem unified and content” (644). They assert: “One major assumption of Marxists is that culture, including literature, functions to reproduce the class structure of society” (Rivkin &

Ryan 644). Marxist scholars contend that, while literature may have the potential to be an agent of change in breaking down barriers in society that have been put in place to keep different classes separate, it can also work to bolster these barriers. Texts will often portray class differences within a society as natural and normal, without critically portraying how the differences have been socially constructed and upheld. When examining a text from a Marxist lens, then, it is important to consider the text’s “historical, social, and economic contexts”

(Rivkin & Ryan 644).

In one of his foundational pieces, “Gruedrlsse,” Marx argues that we cannot simply consider one culture’s population as a whole, as population is an abstract idea that needs to be broken down more to consider differences. He posits: “Population is an abstraction, if we leave out for example the classes of which it consists. These classes, again, are but an empty word unless we know what are the elements on which they are based, such as wage-labor, capital, etc.

27 These imply, in their turn, exchange, division of labor, prices, etc.” (Marx 650). Determining who might possess capital in society requires a consideration of the power in possessing that capital, how that capital was determined to be valuable, and who has and has not been historically allowed to possess it. In order to understand why, for example, Black Americans often do not hold as much capital in society, one must explore the history of the enslavement and oppression of Black Americans in society. Equating socio-economic status with one’s racial identity in America is problematic. It assumes that, if you are white, you are wealthy, and if you are racially minoritized, you are not. Centuries of social inequities have meant, though, that racially minoritized groups have also been placed in a position of social and economic disadvantage. For the analysis of representation of Black female athletes, I utilized a Marxist lens in relation to CRT, which is also informed by Marxist theory, to consider the wider socio- economic contexts of the focal texts and will be noting how the creators of the children’s texts either work to reproduce or to criticize the social classes that have been created within American society.

A Brief History of African American Children’s Literature

The history of African American children’s literature is long, rich, and complex. It has grown from a small sub-section of children’s literature to its own distinct genre with widespread artistic and literary acclaim. 200 years ago, a Black American child reader might not have been able to look to literature to see many, if any, positive representations of themselves. Today’s literature contains beautiful and complex stories of the lives, struggles, challenges, and successes of past and present Black Americans. Many authors and illustrators have provided child readers with representations that could connect them to their past, while also offering stories to them,

28 through both words and illustrations, that show the diversity of what it means to be a Black

American in a contemporary world. The genre presents children and adult readers with options for how they might grapple with issues of oppression or discrimination, learning from those who have fought for equality in the past. It connects them to more contemporary voices who continue to advocate for the right to be known and valued in American society.

African American children’s literature scholar Sims Bishop argues: “The seeds for an

African American children’s literature were sown in the soil of Black people’s struggles for liberation, literacy, and survival” (Free within Ourselves 1). Before the emergence of books written specifically for Black children, literature for readers of all ages was almost exclusively infiltrated with negative portrayals of Black Americans and was very rarely created with Black child readers in mind. During the slavery era in America, texts that featured Black characters frequently depicted them as lazy, morally and socially inept, and cognitively incompetent.

Dorothy Broderick in The Image of the Black in Children’s Fiction explains that white authors created these representations as a rationale for why white America needed dominance over the

Black race, thus that slavery was justified (13). Likewise, DonnaRae MacCann in White

Supremacy in Children’s Literature argues: “Legal emancipation was neutralized in public consciousness by racist tale-telling” (xiii). White Americans felt little compunction to free

African Americans with a view that the status-quo was both justified and necessary.

Postbellum authors, whether Northerners or Southerners, much like their predecessors in the antebellum era, frequently continued to justify social inequities against African Americans by stereotyping them in all forms of media as morally, emotionally, and cognitively deficient.

Pseudoscientists during the mid 19th century claimed the existence of a biological difference that cemented white people as superior. Utilizing unreliable methods of analysis, the researchers

29 alleged a difference in size of brains. Black Americans, they argued, had smaller brains than white Americans and, as a result, less thought capacity. Steven Jay Gould quotes German anthropologist E. Hushke who argued that “[t]he Negro brain possesses a spinal cord of the type found in children . . . and beyond this, approaches the type of brain found in higher apes” (qtd. in

Gould 135). As Gould writes, the hierarchy that scientists promoted was “whites on top, Indians in the middle, and blacks at the bottom” (59). MacCann cites President Lincoln’s hesitancy to fully integrate America after the Civil War as an example of the widespread belief in biological superiority. These perceptions were characteristic of Northerners and Southerners alike before and after the Civil War (125). As a whole, Broderick argues, the depiction of Black characters particularly in children’s texts at this time “represent[ed] clearly what the white establishment wished white children to know about Black people” (6). The message in most texts was that

Black Americans were less cognitively capable. Creators of children’s books suggested that continued domination, whether in the form of slavery or oppression outside of the context of slavery, was needed because of this perceived racial hierarchy.

Frequently viewed as texts that provided precedent for African American children’s literature, two stories in the mid to late 19th century are known for their portrayal of African

American characters in stories that would have been frequently shared with children: Heinrich

Hoffmann’s “The Story of the Inky Boys” from Struwwelpeter (1845) and Helen Bannerman’s

The Story of Little Black Sambo (1899). Highly controversial texts, they were both penned by white authors. The stories include Black characters that have become widely known as racist icons that continue to permeate literature and other forms of media: that of the Black-a-moor – from Struwwelpeter – and the Sambo – from Little Black Sambo. Both figures significantly impacted the portrayals of Black characters that followed. Michelle Martin in Brown Gold:

30 Milestones of African-American Children’s Picture Books, 1845-2002, argues that these stories both negatively and positively impacted the trajectory of portrayals of African Americans in writing for children, particularly in children’s picture books. Both Hoffman and Bannerman were

“ahead of their time” (14). “They wrote about minority characters,” Martin argues, “at a time when minorities in society and especially in literature were marginalized to the point of invisibility” (14). She also notes that, although a highly problematic narrative, Bannerman’s

Sambo was, in many ways, an improvement on the earlier portrayal of Black characters in

Hoffman’s Inky Boys. While these stories were precursors to African American children’s literature, they still represented what white authors wanted white children to know about Black characters. Because of ignorance and inaccurate perceptions of Black Americans, white authors’ and illustrators’ portrayals of Black characters were mainly characterized by stereotypes.

As a response to the exclusion and pervasive misconstruing, Black authors began writing directly to a Black child audience. Violet Harris, in her article “African American Children’s

Literature: The First 100 Years” notes that multiple societal changes had to happen for the emergence of African American children’s literature:

The expansion of the new literary tradition awaited the development of an

educated African American middle class which demanded culturally authentic

literature for African American children. Enhancement of the new tradition also

necessitated the emergence of an educated group of persons interested in writing

as a vocation or avocation. It also depended on the further development of African

American publishers and changes in attitudes among White publishers. These

necessary pre-conditions emerged during the early 1900s. (545)

31 Some of the earliest pioneers of writing for Black youth were creators of children’s magazines.

In the first half of the twentieth century, W.E.B. DuBois’s children’s issues of the Crisis magazine and the children’s magazine The Brownies’ Book contributed significantly to challenging a stereotypical image of Black Americans. Sims Bishop notes: “DuBois resolutely demanded excellence in education for Black children, including a strong foundation in reading, writing, and especially thinking” (Free Within Ourselves 22). Harris notes:

Under the direction of DuBois and literary editor Jesse R. Fauset, The Brownies’

Book became a beacon of hope, featuring fiction, folktales, biographies, poetry,

drama, news pieces, and five monthly columns, designed to inform, educate, and

politicize children and their parents and to showcase the achievements of people

of color. (546)

DuBois’ mission, Harris asserts, was to impart to child readers “an ideology that was quite radical in children’s literature” (547). Katherine Capshaw Smith argues that the magazine sprang from “DuBois’s respect for children’s capabilities, for their potential and obligation to lead the race, and also paradoxically from his desire to shield children from certain dimensions of civil rights activism” (3).

These magazines laid the groundwork for African American children’s literature. Still, representations of Black characters in children’s books into the mid-twentieth century remained rare. In 1932, Langston Hughes published an article in which he contended for the importance of positive portrayals of Black Americans. “Faced too often by the segregation and scorn of a surrounding White world,” he writes, “America’s Negro children are in pressing need of books that will give them back their own souls. They do not know the beauty they possess” (qtd. in

32 Sims Bishop Free Within Ourselves 67). Likewise, Sims4 asserts: “As recently as 1965, Black children exploring the world of children’s books found themselves looking into a kind of distorted fun-house mirror that resisted sending back reflections at all, or sent out only laughable or unrecognizable images” (Shadow and Substance vii). Building off of the progress gained by the Black children’s magazines, many authors and illustrators continued to reimagine Black children as different from how they had been historically stereotyped. As Cynthia Tyson and

Barbara Kiefer in Charlotte Huck’s an Introduction to Children’s Literature: A Brief Guide point out, “[T]he political and social activism of the 1960s contributed to an awareness of racism in children’s books” (207) for white Americans. Gains in equality from broader social activism in

America had trickle-down effects to children’s literature with an ever-growing consciousness of the needs of Black American children and how they wanted to see themselves and wanted to be portrayed to a white readership – essentially as humans, deserving of equality, who had a unique, complex history and varied experiences and possibilities in their future.

In 1965, white scholar Nancy Larrick penned an article entitled “The All-White World of

Children’s Books” that pointed out the lack of diversity in children’s literature. She examined over 5,000 texts published for children between 1962 and 1964. She found that only 6.4% of them included one or more Black characters. In that number, she also notes, are included portrayals that stereotype and are harmful portrayals. The number of positive representations would be even more dismal. Ebony Elizabeth Thomas asserts that, although Larrick’s article is often credited as the first scholarly piece specifically analyzing the depictions of race in children’s literature, “African American parents, educators, and clergy were noting and writing

4 Her first text was published under Rudine Sims, while the rest of her works referred to here were published under the name Sims Bishop. 33 about problematic representations of Black people in children’s books as early as the mid- nineteenth century” (“Stories Still Matter” 114). While this revelation of exclusion from literature was nothing new to Black communities, within academia, Larrick’s article is often viewed as a hallmark piece of scholarship that sparked further scholarly attention to the lack of diversity in publishing.

A focus on Black children’s needs led to what is known as the Golden Age of African

American children’s literature. Martin asserts: “The evolution of African-American children’s picture books has mirrored the nineteenth century ‘Golden Age,’ which moved the focus of children’s literature ‘from instruction to delight’ – but this form of instruction was firmly grounded in concerns about race” (19). This era in particular helped to cement African American children’s literature as its own unique genre of children’s literature, worthy of literary acclaim and scholarly attention. The books of early 20th century worked to validate Black children’s lived experiences. In the late 20th century and early 21st century, during the Golden Age of African

American children’s literature, authors “take as a given the celebration and acceptance of blackness and seek to build bridges both among and between people” (Martin 72). They created stories from an assumption that Black lives had value, while their predecessors were working to convince white Americans of that fact. African American children’s literature emerged as a way to proclaim and validate the worth of Black children’s lives, and the creation of African

American children’s texts today continues to do this through the work of authors and illustrators such as Jacquelyn Woodson, Jason Reynolds, Christopher Myers, Carole Boston Weatherford, and Nikki Grimes.

In the late twentieth century, children’s literature scholar Rudine Sims Bishop’s prolific research on African American children’s literature cemented the genre as a significant point of

34 critical interest. With the publications such as Shadow and Substance: Afro-American

Experience in Contemporary Children’s Fiction and Free Within Ourselves: The Development of

African American Children’s Literature, Sims Bishop argued for the importance of representation for Black children in literature. Many other children’s literature scholars since

Sims Bishop, such as Michelle Martin, Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, Diane Johnson-Feelings, Robin

Bernstein, Violet Harris, Jonda McNair, Wanda Brooks, and Katherine Capshaw Smith, have continued this critical work. Their scholarship has explored both historical origins and the current affairs of African American children’s literature.

Although Larrick’s piece in 1965 is often considered ground-breaking, children’s literature has not substantially improved in the publication of diverse texts. According to the

Cooperative Children’s Book Center, out of 3,700 children’s books analyzed in 2015, only 340 of them included Black characters (“Publishing Statistics on Children’s Books”). The CCBC contends that these statistics highlight the fact that “publishing for children and teens has a long way to go before reflecting the rich diversity of perspectives and experiences within and across race and culture” (CCBC). When only a limited number of African American children’s literature are published each year, it is difficult for children’s literature to offer diverse texts for many different children to connect. Black child readers relate differently to representations of the past and present based on many factors, such as how long their ancestors or they themselves have been in America, their socio-economic status, gender, sexuality, and many other differences in lived experiences. Limited publications makes it difficult for authors and illustrators to offer a multitude of stories where Black children with diverse identities and realities can find themselves being represented. The contributions of Black authors and illustrators have greatly improved the

35 quality and diversity of African American children’s literature. Yet, with the gatekeepers of a mostly-white publishing industry, the quantity of texts with Black characters remains dismal.

When only a few texts are responsible for sharing certain lived experiences, it is easy for there to become what Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie refers to as a “single story”

(“The Danger of a Single Story”). Adichie explains: “The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story” (87). In light of the danger of creating one dominant narrative,

Adichie discusses the need for many stories in the world. “Stories matter,” she asserts, “Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity” (87). As African American children’s literature continues to grow, it will continue to tell more stories that share the complexity and diversity of Black Americans’ lived experiences.

Stereotypes of Gender Roles in Society for Black Women

One of the main factors impacting how dominant American society views Black women in terms of their participation in sports is expectations of them based on their identities as women. James Blake in Ways of Grace: Stories of Adversity, Activism, and How Sports Can

Bring Us Together notes: “Sports began as a curriculum that was exclusively for boys and men.

It was seen as an outlet for energetic boys and a way to create a masculine environment to bond, nurture sportsmanship, and create friendships” (118). Historically, women have not been welcome in this arena. Sports were created for men, not women. Women have often been viewed as intruders in realm of society that was meant for men. Blake contends: “Sports, and its

36 evolution, have had historic and existing biases, and also a sports culture that nurtures and sustains them” (118). Much progress has been made for women and girls in athletics. At the same time, a culture in sports centered around upholding “masculinity” has meant that changes have long been (and continue to be) met with resistance. With the passage of Title IX in 1972, women saw many more opportunities open up for them in regard to athletic participation, as the bill stated that “institutions could not discriminate on the basis of gender, in any program receiving federal funds, including athletics” (Hill 51). While women are given more legal equality in the number of opportunities to compete, sexism and racism still permeates sports. The law also was a racially blind law, as it did not specifically address the ways in which women belonging to marginalized racial groups were especially being excluded from sports. Women, and Black women in particular, are often fighting an uphill battle in order to be treated equally once they are given the opportunity to compete.

In some ways, Black Americans are still fighting the battle that DuBois fought in his children’s magazine publications in the early 20th century. They are working to break away from the vocational expectations that white America has for Black American children. The limited opportunities for Black Americans are still frequently present in children’s literature. Both adult and children’s literature still consistently cast Black characters in secondary and even subservient roles, whether in historical fiction or non-fiction as slaves or as a fictional character that only serves the function of assisting the main (usually white) protagonist. For example, minstrelsy in children’s literature is a trope that has historically been utilized and continues to appear.

Michelle Martin explains that “blackface minstrelsy developed as a political art, often glamorizing slave life and thereby undermining the theme of slave emancipation” (“Dis House

Done Gone Creezeh” 255). Minstrelsy has been utilized in representing characters, but

37 portraying them as inferior and less worthy of having their own stories told. Ignoring the past, especially in historical fiction and non-fiction, by pretending that Black Americans did not previously serve enslaved and subservient roles in American society should not be an option.

African American children’s literature has the potential to be an avenue for accurate representation of real, current lives. It also can work to suggest new possibilities for roles that

Black Americans can play in society by highlighting stories where Black Americans do not serve stereotypical roles in the “real” world or by showing stories of fiction where they do not simply fulfill the purpose of obliging others’ needs. This issue of limited casting still influences how

Black women and girls, in particular, are allowed to express themselves, both in and out of the story world. Female athletes such as Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova, and the Williams

Sisters have continually debunked myths in American society about the perceived inferiority of women in sports. However, as Blake notes, “[female athletes] continue to struggle for balance, and at times acceptance, within a sport model founded on the outmoded and antiquated characterization of women as the weaker sex, and of strong competitive women as unfeminine and unattractively masculine” (122). These beliefs are biases that all women and girls, no matter their racial identities, sexual orientation, or socio-economic status encounter.

Black women experience these biases in a unique way. An expectation from white

Americans about what roles Black women and girls can play inside and outside of texts has led to continued gendered representations of opportunities for Black Americans. White Americans expected Black American men and women to fulfill distinct roles—and marginalized them when they did not. These expectations influence what career opportunities are portrayed within literature as available to and acceptable for Black children. While written almost fifty years ago,

Broderick’s argument applies to contemporary children’s texts. The opportunities for Black 38 American youth are portrayed as limited and gendered. Barbara Stoodt, Linda Amspaugh, and

Jane Hunt note: “The majority of African American biographies are of sports figures”

(Children’s Literature 394). Most of these biographical texts focus on Black male athletes, where their expressions of physical athleticism conform more to gender expectations for men.

Black women are portrayed as being narrowly qualified to participate in society, almost always in secondary and even subservient roles to both white characters and Black men.

Many of the most highly-acclaimed African American children’s books that feature female protagonists represent women and girls who find their agency through their ability to write their own narratives. Jacquelyn Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming (2014) and Nikki

Grimes’ Words with Wings (2013) demonstrate this trend. While beautiful and empowering stories, the acclaim of these texts sheds light on how Black girls are being encouraged to find their agency. The limited representation of Black girls and women in sports literature reflects the difficulties that they face in finding empowerment through athletic participation in contemporary

America. One only has to look at examples such as Serena Williams to understand what a transgression of Eurocentric gender roles brings. While empowerment within sports may be difficult for many Black women to attain, African American children’s literature has the power to show new possibilities, possibilities for what it might look like for Black women to be treated as equals in sports.

Stereotypes of Black Women

Scholarship has asserted that Black children are viewed as not fully human in American society. The intersectional effects of such beliefs about Black girls needs further analysis. The research that has focused on Black girls has been compelling and has highlighted the need for

39 more extensive focus on this demographic group. In a study conducted by Georgetown Law’s

Center on Poverty and Inequality, they find that “adults view Black girls as less innocent and more adult-like than their white peers” (Epstein, Blake & Gonzalez 1). The researchers report that Black girls are “interpreted as ‘loud,’ are imbued with adult-like aspirations, and perceived, in turn, as a threat” (Epstein, Blake & Gonzalez 5). Not only does systems of education and children’s literature publishing deny them innocence as children, they also often interpret judge their motives as harshly as they might those of an adult. They point out that, in schools, Black girls “bear the brunt of a double bind: viewed as more adult than their white peers, they may be more likely to be disciplined for their actions, and yet they are also more vulnerable to the discretionary authority of teachers and law enforcement than their adult counterparts” (Epstein,

Blake & Gonzalez 14). These stereotypes affect how Black girls perceive themselves, as well. As

Epstein, Blake, and Gonzalez note, the consequences that come with being disciplined as one might discipline an adult last a long time for many Black girls, from harsh criticisms to suspensions to even incarceration. While much of the conversation surrounding police brutality and incarceration discusses the impact on Black men, fewer conservations discuss the effects of these systems on Black women. The historical lack of focus on the needs and distinct experiences of Black women has led to movements such as #SayHerName, which raises awareness to the reality that Black women encounter inequalities as much as Black men.

In Shifting: The Double Lives of African American Women, Charisse Jones and Kumea

Shorter-Gooden outline some of the main types of stereotypes that African American women face. These stereotypes, they argue, are perpetuated frequently through both literature and media, and the cultural products of books and other sources of media continue to reify single stories about Black women. They identify the three main stereotypes to be “the emasculating Sapphire,

40 the desexualized Mammy, and the scheming temptress Jezebel” (Jones & Shorter-Gooden 3).

These perceptions tend to be the dominant ways that white Americans view Black women’s personalities. They are viewed as either hyper-masculine, having no sexual desires, or trying to seduce men. None of them are positive portrayals. Jones and Shorter-Gooden highlight the gravity of these stereotypes as “such warped ideas take an immeasurable toll on the psyche Black women, who in their desire to be seen as lady-like... may affect a way of talking or behaving that does not truly reflect who they are” (22). Originating during slavery-era, these stereotypes continue to plague how Black women are categorized in contemporary American literature and media.

Black feminist scholarship also examines the ways that biases work to shame and stifle

Black American women’s view of their own potential. The ubiquity of stereotypes of Black women in society has led to a situation where today’s Black American women tend to view themselves through a skewed perspective. In Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black

Women in America, Melissa Harris-Perry calls this situation trying “to stand up straight in a crooked room” (29). Black women are trying to find their balance and orientation in society due to the crooked nature of how others view them. “Bombarded with warped images of their humanity,” Harris-Perry argues, “some black women tilt and bend themselves to fit the distortion” (29). While she points out the stereotype of the Jezebel, Mammy, and Sapphire,

Harris-Perry posits that the resulting self-construction has been the Strong Black Woman. The

Strong Black Woman, according to the stereotype, possesses superhuman strength, autonomy, and indestructability. As she notes, “What begins as an empowering self-definition can quickly become a prison” (185) as many white people continue to misunderstand Black American women. An attempt to be viewed as independent and strong can “[set] up new possibilities for 41 being misrecognized” (Harris-Perry 185) as white Americans throws upon them the stereotype of not only being strong, but also invincible. Treva B. Lindsey asserts: “Possessing super-strength is not in and of itself damaging, but the positioning of Black women and girls as non- and super- human as it pertains to their emotional well-being contributes to an erasure of the fullness of

Black women’s and girl’s humanity” (“Why You So Angry?” 47). While an understanding of oneself as strong and independent can help in coping with negative stereotypes, white Americans are frequently misunderstanding Black American women’s self-perceptions and judging them by an impossible standards.

Stereotypes about Black Athletes

The critical study of sports is also dominated by stereotypes and an exclusion of Black female athletes. Lori Latrice Martin contends in Out of Bounds: Racism and the Black Athlete:

“[T]here is a great deal of research on race and sports. However, the research on race and sports is missing, in my view, a unified theory for understanding how sports participation, performance, observance, and media representations are differentiated based on one’s socially constructed racial classification” (11-12). More scholarship is needed to unpack the ways in which racial socialization affects how athletes are perceived in sports. “The issue is that the literature on race and sports tends to ignore socialization,” Martin points out, “and the literature on socialization tends to ignore issues of race and sports” (12). As she argues, it is important to consider many different aspects of one’s identity, the effects on sports’ participation, and the ways in which society constructs that involvement.

42 The scholarship that has addressed the representation of Black athletes in media and literature has most frequently discussed the portrayals of Black male athletes. In his analysis of children’s picturebook biographies about Black male football players, Ken Winograd points out:

The books tend to convey the stereotype of the black male as athletic and

endowed with god-given, natural ability. None of the books make explicit... how

they had gone about working systematically over the years to achieve exceptional

success as athletes. (341)

The texts about Black male athletes tend to ignore the men’s racial identities, Winograd found, except for attributing parts of their athletic prowess to their assumed innate abilities as African

Americans.

Ideology about Black Americans and their “God-given” talents has become engrained in

American society. In Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We’re Afraid to Talk about It, Jon Entine relies on a pseudoscience of biological difference to explain Black athletes’ success. He argues that the prowess of Black American athletes is attributable to their African roots. “African-descended athletes have the capacity to do better with their raw skills than whites,” he claims (Entine 267). While Entine acknowledges Black Americans’ abilities in the realm of sports, his argument is fundamentally infused with a racist assumption. He posits that biological differences can account for the accomplishments that have been achieved by hard work. Views with such racist underpinnings still remain rampant in society and are frequently reinforced by media and literature representations of Black American athletes. These notions contradict a societal belief that we are living in a post-racial society, where race is no longer a factor in American society and Americans no longer treat one another differently because of their racial identities.

43 Black Female Athletes in Real-World Sports Contexts

Even some of the most successful contemporary Black women face discrimination in sports. They are often framed as “athletic intruders” (Peretto Stratta 105). Pamela Denise Lewis reports the findings of her ethnographic study, including interviews with nine Black women in a college sports setting. She noted that six out of the nine participants “reported that Black male athletes received better treatment in terms of exposure, recognition, support, and respect” (“Self-

Perceptions” 69). Likewise, Terese M. Peretto Stratta’s research about Black female athletes at a predominately white institution found that the women found few opportunities to express their own culture. She explains:

[N]ot only are African American women predisposed to feeling unusual isolation

and seclusion on predominantly white campuses, but as participants in a sports

context that has been traditionally dominated by white males, African American

female athletes are also least likely to find opportunities to express their culture.

(“Cultural Expressions of African American” 79)

In a both male and white-dominated realm, Black women frequently find that there is scant space for them to express themselves. Their identities are not fully accepted or valued. In her research with African American female student athletes in Phenomenal Women: A Qualitative Study of

Silencing, Stereotypes, Socialization, and Strategies for Change in the Sport Participation of

African American Female Student-Athletes, Jennifer E. Bruening explains: “It is crucial to the development of young athletes to see people who look like them participating and succeeding at sports in order for those young athletes to have a source of inspiration both from an athletic perspective and a societal perspective” (47). Because of their marginalization in athletics,

44 mentorship is an important factor in helping young Black female athletes to see themselves as having a future within sports.

In spite of pressures that often exclude them from sports, Black girls have invented new ways to be active. For example, in her text The Games Girls Play: Learning the Ropes from

Double-Dutch to Hip-Hop, Kyra Danielle Gaunt argues that double-dutch is an important form of physical activity that Black girls use to “embody the ideals of black music-making” (2).

Double-dutch, she finds, is “learned through oral-kinesthetic practices that not only teach an embodied discourse of black musical expression, but also inherently teach discourse about appropriate and transgressive gender and racial roles” (2). As Gaunt contends, double-dutch has been a significant way that Black girls have remained active. They have found ways of expressing their identities and engaging in discourses about what it means to be Black girl.

Centuries of exclusion from sports have forced Black girls to invent their own method of sport to try to stay active.

Black Female Athletes in Youth Sports Literature

Scholarship about Black female athletes in literature for children and young adults remains scarce. Much of the research which does exist has pointed to the limited portrayals of

Black girls and women in sports literature, as well as noting common stereotypes. David

Wiggins in Out of the Shadows: A Biographical History of African American Athletes, examines the history of African Americans in sports. He contrasts how society remembers Black male and female athletes. Many of the Black women, who might serve as important role models for Black girls with sports aspirations, are excluded from sports literature. For example, hailed as the first

Black American female athlete, Ora Washington played both tennis and basketball and

45 demonstrated immense athletic dedication and abilities. Her presence in both adult and children’s literature is virtually non-existent in spite of her significant role in sports. Explaining what is seemingly a phenomenon of exclusion, Wiggins contends that the lack of recognition of

Washington’s accomplishments in literature “reflect(s) unease with the degree to which her powerful strokes and forthright demeanor clashed with prevailing notions of femininity” (90).

Unpacking white America’s unease with Washington, he notes: “Although African American women often won support for athletic endeavors, this job always proved easier when they tempered their skill with the trappings of conventional ladyhood” (Wiggins 90). In comparison to her male and white female counterparts, Washington remains virtually invisible in literature, both for children and adults. Wiggins’ scholarship has pointed to the inequities of coverage in literature that Black female athletes such as Washington have encountered.

Dawn Heinecken analyzes the representation of Black female athletes in youth literature.

From her analysis of eight youth sports advice books, she finds that children’s and young adult texts “fail to create truly liberatory images of black female athleticism” (“African American

Girls” 96). She reveals that “[t]he majority of books reproduce hegemonic ideologies of race and/or gender, and while a few books challenge racism and others challenge sexism in sport, they rarely do both” (96). When the texts do work to empower Black girls based on their gender,

Heinecken asserts, “they often do so in ways that privilege girls’ gender over their racial identities” (86). At best, they minimize the ways the girls are racialized in society. At worst, they

“reinforce negative racial stereotypes” (86). Books that feature Black girls in sports often suggest that it is sexism, not racism or a combination of the two, that holds Black girls back in athletics.

In light of this reality, Heinecken urges children’s and young authors to adopt an intersectional approach that simultaneously considers racial and gender inequalities. Heinecken asserts that

46 these texts have the potential to “help readers see how the matrix of domination has ‘few pure victims or oppressors.’ They enable an understanding of the world as a ‘dynamic place,’ an awareness that in turn inspires activism and a sense of agency” (237).

In her article “Empowering Girls Through Sport: Sports Advice Books for Young Female

Readers,” Heinecken specifically examines the medium of sports advice books for young female readers. She argues that “the construction of female subjectivity within girls’ sports advice books operates to support ideologies that do more to limit, than liberate, girls” (327). She notes that one of the foremost messages in sports advice books is that “girls are taught not to display anger and couch criticism in constructive terms” (Heinecken 335). This directive is particularly harmful for

Black girls who are doubly pressured to hide their emotions and judged harshly when they do not, as exemplified by the Williams’ U.S. Open match. As one of only a few Black women in tennis, Williams is representing an entire racial identity in a way that white athletes do not have to. Her successes have implications for how all Black athletes, particularly Black female athletes, are seen by white Americans, a burden that white athletes do not carry. The strength myth held in communities of all racial identities about Black women being invincible also means that when women like Williams express anger or frustration, they find themselves sometimes harshly criticized for that display of emotion. Heinecken contends that the sports advice books do little to empower girls, particularly Black girls. “The construction of the liberated girl subject,” she notes, “erases the social and structural inequities that continue to constrain the experiences of many girls within the US” (Heinecken 339). Few children’s or young adult books exist that cater to female readers. Even fewer actually work to empower girls. Most only reinforce hegemonic values that continue to marginalize them.

47 In her recently published article, “Contesting Controlling Images: The Black Ballerina in

Children’s Picture Books,” Heinecken analyzes the representations of Black ballerinas in seven children’s picturebooks. She discusses how depictions of Black women in picturebooks are refuting what Patricia Hill Collins calls “controlling images” and are “asserting the beauty and competency of black girls” (3). In this way, she asserts that picturebooks about Black ballerinas

“embody the affirmative tradition of African American literature” (3). Both Wiggins’ and

Heinecken’s scholarship have found gross inequities in how Black female athletes are represented in literature. Heinecken’s scholarship has pointed to the fact that representations of

Black female athletes is a growing theme within children’s literature.

I work from the assumption that Black women and girls’ experiences in sports matter and that the children’s texts portraying Black female athletes are worthy of scholarly recognition and criticism. This project builds off of previous scholarship asserting the same belief. While

Heinecken discusses how portrayals of race in current publications about Black ballerinas are working to affirm the “beauty and competence” of Black girls, I examine both past and contemporary publications about Black female athletes have either accomplished this mission or have relied on stereotypes in working to do so within the picturebook genre. My discussion of the texts discussed here examines the intersections of race, gender, and class, and how historic marginalization on all three levels has impacted how Black female athletes and Black girls and women today experience sports. This project adds to conversation about Black female athletes in children’s literature by tracing the evolution of how Black women have been portrayed in sports picturebooks. I examine specifically how race, gender, and class all influence how authors and illustrators have asked child readers to see Black female athletes. The research included here reaffirms the importance of sports books that include Black female athletes’ stories, and my hope

48 is that continued scholarship on this topic will allow for authors, illustrators, and publishers to continue to create a diversity of stories encouraging Black girls’ participation and engagement in athletics.

Criteria for Texts Analyzed

For the purposes of this study, I examine nine different picturebooks that feature Black female athletes (See Appendix A for List of Books). Chapters Two through Five compare and contrast two different picturebooks about the same athlete. The sixth chapter focuses on one picturebook, The Golden Girls of Rio, which includes multiple of the female athletes who competed at the Rio Olympics. Chapter Six utilizes an analysis of this text as a way to spotlight one of the most recently published picturebooks about women in sports and discuss current trends in the representation of Black female athletes.

In beginning my research for this project, I looked broadly at as many children’s books possible that tell stories about Black female athletes. I found these books by utilizing internet searches and the examination of the database of a large Midwestern library system. Through this initial analysis, I noticed that, while there were some young adult, middle grade, or elementary texts about Black female athletes, the category of picturebooks was severely lacking in their representation of Black women in sports. While I found some examples of fictional picturebooks that tell narratives about Black girls and women in sports, such as Happy Like Soccer and JoJo’s

Flying Side Kick, I noted that most of the texts were biographical about historical or current

Black female athletes. Although they are non-fiction, the majority of these texts that I found are told in narrative form. The most common type of picturebook about Black female athletes were fictionalized biographies of Black female athletes, categorized as narrative non-fiction. Natasha

49 Wing of Write for Kids defines narrative non-fiction as “creative non-fiction” that is both “fact- based” and focused on “storytelling, not just presenting facts in a clever way” (“Narrative

Nonfiction”). The books examined here present facts about past Black female athletes, but they all do so through creative storytelling.

In order to determine which texts to include in this dissertation, I examined as many fictionalized biographies as I could obtain. For the most part, such as in Chapter Three, where I analyze texts about Althea Gibson, the two texts analyzed are the only ones which I could find that center around Gibson’s athletic career. In other cases, such as in Chapter One, I chose to exclude one additional picturebook, When Wilma Rudolph Played Basketball, which details

Wilma Rudolph’s love of basketball. I focus instead on two other texts, Wilma Unlimited and

The Quickest Kid in Clarksville, because they both specifically discuss Rudolph’s career as a track star. From my experience in education, I have seen these two books most frequently included in classroom libraries. I found that, in my own search, the two latter texts were more readily available when looking to obtain them from a large mid-western library system5. In some cases, I chose to use my best judgment to narrow the focus of my analysis to texts which I view as being more commonly available to child readers and are more likely to be read by young

Black girl readers.

In addition to these criteria, I chose to include texts that are written by individuals who are both cultural insiders and outsiders in writing African American children’s books (See

Appendix A). Some of the authors and illustrators identify as African American or as Black

American; others do not. The debate of cultural authenticity will be a crucial consideration of

5 I recognize that my experience with the accessibility of these text may not be universal and might change depending on others’ experiences and location. 50 this dissertation. Accordingly, I work to unpack how the identity of the examined texts’ creators affects how they conceptualize Black female athletes in the picturebooks. My goal is not to determine whether a text is “culturally authentic” or not or whether or not a text should be included within the genre of African American children’s literature. As an outsider to Black

American culture, I do not view myself as qualified to make this decision, nor would it be appropriate for me to attempt to do so. That scholarship does not fall in my realm of qualified research, and I deferred to Black American scholars to debate and determine those matters.

Instead, my goal is to examine throughout this dissertation how authors and illustrators’ racial and gender identities are related to how they conceptualize Black female athletes within the picturebooks.

Furthermore, I chose to examine texts that feature Black women involved in many different forms of physical activity. The forms of competitive physical activity considered here include track and field, tennis, swimming, gymnastics, sharp shooting, and ballet. Ballet, in particular, can be a controversial form of sport. Many both inside and outside of ballet staunchly locate it within the arena of athletics. As I discuss more thoroughly in Chapter Four, I choose to consider books about ballerinas within this project as an important athletic avenue. Ballet is also an art form. However, it is too complex an outlet of physical expression to be solely categorized as one or the other. Because it requires a similar level of physical commitment and exertion as the other sports considered here, I include ballet in my scope of focus.

Overview of Chapters

Chapter One, “In Their Own Voices: The Title IX Story Club” shares a narrative about the eighteen-month ethnographic research conducted under the guidance of Dr. Patricia Enciso in

51 the context of a larger story-club research project. My ethnographic study took place in a

Midwestern urban middle school with racially minoritized girls. I discuss how my interest in equity in sports led to the creation of this group, reflecting on my positionality as a white scholar approaching texts about Black women. I also share information about the context for this story club and details about the main participants. As the girls’ stories helped to shape my own thinking about the topic and the specific books analyzed within this dissertation, I include specific quotes from the girls’ dialogue. I discuss how their insights invited me to challenge stereotypical beliefs that I held in approaching the picturebooks and encouraged me to more complexly analyze the representations of gender, race, and class found in the books. This chapter aims to foreground the following chapters of textual analysis by affirming Black girls as intellectuals and scholars, as well as discussing how my relationships with them facilitated my engagement in this work of crossover scholarship.

Chapter Two, “Commemoration and Commodification: The Black Female Body and the

“Ideal Athlete Identity in Wilma Unlimited and The Quickest Kid in Clarksville analyzes one of the first picturebooks published which features a Black female athlete as the subject of the story.

This text, Wilma Unlimited, was published in 1996 and written by white author Kathleen Krull and illustrated by Latino artist David Diaz. Wilma Unlimited tells the story of Olympic gold- medalist track star Wilma Rudolph. I argue that the existence of the book signals progress within children’s literature and the larger society in acceptance of Black women in sports—and their stories in children’s literature. I rely on visual theory to discuss how, through both the visual and verbal narrative, Wilma Unlimited stereotypes Rudolph in ways that Black feminist theory scholars argue Black women have been being stereotyped for centuries. Grounded in an understanding of how white America media and literature commemorate Black athletes by

52 choosing to focus on only aspects of their journey in sports deemed less “controversial,” this chapter analyzes how illustrator Diaz whitewashes and masculinizes Rudolph’s identity. While the illustrations invite connections from readers to the history of the Olympics, they simultaneously uphold the Olympic tradition of valuing white, masculine bodies over others.

Although a groundbreaking text in representing Black female athletes, Wilma Unlimited represents contemporaneous cultural attitudes that still marginalized Black female athletes.

Following the analysis of Wilma Unlimited, I discuss more recently published picturebook The

Quickest Kid in Clarksville, arguing that this text, published two decades later, highlights progress both in an acceptance of Black women in sports and a focus on authentic depictions of

Black women in children’s literature. In this text, white author Pat Zietlow Miller and Black illustrator Frank Morrison commemorate Rudolph as being an inspiration to fictional girls from

Rudolph’s hometown. The two texts honor Rudolph in different ways and shed light on shifting dominant attitudes both about Black women in sports and about children’s literature.

Chapter Three, “‘Dress[ing] up in White’” to Play Tennis: The Racism, Sexism and

Classism of the Representations of Althea Gibson in Nothing But Trouble and Playing to Win,” focuses on two picturebooks about Black female tennis player Althea Gibson. I foreground my analysis of these books in the longstanding criminalization of Black Americans. Noting how these stereotypes emerged as a way to justify past and present atrocities against non-white people, I discuss how these views appear in the two picturebooks about Gibson. In the picturebook Nothing but Trouble, white author Sue Stauffacher and white illustrator Greg Couch make central to the story the fact that Gibson is “nothing but trouble.” Throughout both the written text and illustrations, they demonstrate a transformation that she must undergo in order to succeed in tennis. The text celebrates Gibson learning to whitewash her identity in order to fit

53 into white hegemonic notions of what it means to be a woman. I argue that this uncritical depiction of Gibson’s transformation is also found in Playing to Win, written by white author

Karen Deans and illustrated by Black illustrator Elbrite Brown. Deans and Brown attempt to more complexly depict Gibson’s wildness. While white author Deans’ explains through the text and illustrations that Gibson grew up in Harlem where no one should expect Gibson to be anything but wild, Brown illustrates Harlem as a place where children are being supported. I analyze how the interplay of the text and visuals offer a more complex picture of Gibson’s upbringing and context.

Chapter Four, “The Hurdle of Family Support: Representations of Gender, Race, and

Socio-Economic Status of Alice Coachman in Queen of the Track and Touch the Sky,” focuses on the representation of track athlete Alice Coachman. In the first picturebook, Queen of the

Track, white author Ann Malaspina and illustrator Afro-Puerto Rican artist Eric Velasquez tell the story of Coachman’s struggles and ultimate success as a track athlete. Within the text,

Malaspina and Velasquez frequently cast Coachman’s parents as the antagonists of the story; namely as holding their daughter back from achieving her goals. I contextualize my analysis of

Queen of the Track in an understanding of how families who are both Black and of low- socioeconomic status are often viewed. As I argue, this text perpetuates single stories about

Black families as being the ones who are refusing to provide their children, particularly their daughters, with the support that they need in order to succeed. On the other hand, in Touch the

Sky, white author Heather Lang and Black illustrator Floyd Cooper work to more complexly depict Coachman’s relationship with her family. They highlight the sacrifices they made in order for her to succeed. Instead of asking child readers to view Coachman’s family as a hurdle to

Coachman’s success, Lang and Cooper ask readers to empathize with both Coachman and her

54 family by acknowledging that the oppression Coachman felt as a young Black girl in sports was the true obstacle holding her back.

Chapter Five, “To Match My Strength Is To Feel Your Own”: Peritext and Culturally

Authentic Mentorship in Trailblazer and Firebird,” explores how current Black female ballet dancers are using the medium of picturebooks to offer culturally authentic mentorship to young

Black girls. The exclusion of Black women in sports has meant that Black girls have fewer models to look up to when setting athletic goals for themselves. Furthermore, even when educational systems offer Black girls mentorship, very infrequently are they given the opportunity of culturally authentic mentorship. Through both the peritext and narratives found within the text of Trailblazer and Firebird, ballet dancers Misty Copeland and Raven Wilkinson create stories that offer encouragement to young Black girls who may have athletic aspirations.

They utilize the space of the textual narrative to both affirm Black girls as agentic readers and to demonstrate how one Black woman can support another and, in turn, offer support to young

Black girls through the use of peritext. Both picturebooks demonstrate Black female athletes and artists’ acknowledgment of the need for young Black girls to be supported in their dreams and a way to provide them culturally authentic and cross-cultural mentorship.

Chapter Six, “Rising to Rio Together: Sport, Sisterhood, and Activism in The Golden

Girls of Rio,” concludes my project. It analyzes one of the most recently published picturebooks that includes Black female athletes. This chapter discusses how the picturebook The Golden

Girls of Rio, written and illustrated by Black author Nikkolas Smith, is an inspiring look at the success of the US female athletes, not just Black female athletes, who competed at the Rio

Olympics. I note how this text is groundbreaking, particularly for the way that it shows the female athletes as unequivocally supporting one another. Additionally, The Golden Girls of Rio

55 focalizes Black female athletes’ journey to the Olympics. Contrasted to how Black women’s stories have been historically placed in the background in children’s texts, Smith places the experiences of the Black female athletes of the Rio Olympics at the center of the text. I also problematize a representation of a universal sisterhood that assumes that female athletes of all racial identities have the same struggles in sports. However, I ultimately discuss The Golden

Girls of Rio as an example of progress in terms of representing Black female athletes in picturebooks.

Throughout each of these discussions, I work to shed light on a previously understudied area of children’s picturebooks, namely those that demonstrate the possibilities for Black girls and women in sports. Utilizing a multidisciplinary lens, this research discusses the complexity of representing Black female athletes in children’s picturebooks in a context where Black women and girls have historically been and continue to be marginalized in sports. Ultimately, I argue that examining these texts can tell us much about how creators of children’s texts – and the larger American society – view Black female athletes and the potential for young Black girls in sports.

56 Chapter 1: In Their Own Voices: The Title IX Story Club

The Story of the Research Question

My interest in this particular research topic arose from my involvement in different sports, such as running, cycling, and CrossFit. As a female participant in athletics, I frequently faced sexism. At the same time, I noticed how certain sports are highly lacking in racial diversity and the reality that sports have often been more accessible to me as a white woman than to racially minoritized women. I have participated in upholding a system that works to marginalize women who are not a part of the racial majority in America. Experiencing some resistance to my involvement in sports because of notions of what “femininity” is supposed to look like, I am, at the same time, culpable for participating in and not questioning an exclusionary system. In light of my own marginalization as a woman and the ways in which I have often failed to challenge this system, I possess both an insider and outsider perspective on sports equality.

Discussing the barriers that children face in sports and physical activity matters because of the benefits that can be reaped from participation. Physical activity can be a key piece in children and adults living healthy lives. According to the Center for Disease Control and

Prevention, an absence of physical activity is strongly correlated to chronic diseases (Center for

Disease Control and Prevention). In spite of the necessity for children’s physical activity, the US

Office of Health and Human Services has found that “levels of physical activity decline dramatically during adolescence” (1). Girls are leaving athletics at an alarming rate. Their engagement in overall physical activity is also dramatically decreasing somewhere between when they begin athletic participation as young children and their middle school years. Gender factors in here as this decline happens more rapidly for girls than for boys (Bolin & Granskog

2003; McDonagh & Pappano 2008; Robbins et al 2009; Robbins et al 2013). While this issue of

57 decreasing participation occurs for all girls, it happens at twice the rate for Black girls as they transition from elementary to middle school (Kimm et al). I began to question if athletics, like other realms of society for Black girls, was an arena where, as Kimberlé Crenshaw, Priscilla

Ocen, and Jyoti Nanda put it, Black girls are “pushed out, under-protected, and over-policed”

(“Black Girls Matter” 8).

As a scholar of children’s literature, I wondered whether children’s sports literature was telling the stories of Black female athletes and, if so, how those stories were being shared and by whom. From my previous exposure to sports literature, the Black female athlete characters I had seen in children’s texts had been few. Literature can influence what messages Black girls are receiving during that period right before they are often dropping out of sports. In light of this importance of children’s texts, I wanted to examine picturebooks to unpack what authors and illustrators were telling girls are the realities and possibilities for remaining physically active and engaged in sports. I viewed children’s texts as important and promising opportunities for Black girls to see possibilities for themselves. At the beginning of my research process, I sought out and analyzed as many children’s books as possible which featured Black female athletes. In my search, I noticed that one of the largest formats and genres representing Black female athletes was narrative non-fiction picturebooks. Examining this sub-genre, I became highly aware that I was frequently approaching the books from a dominant lens as a white scholar. Recognizing the default stance that I too often adopted, I saw this issue to be a result of belonging to the majority group and being socialized to not challenge oppressive systems and my own oppressive beliefs.

Although committed to arguing for equity in my scholarship, I still often made assumptions based on stereotypical beliefs about Black women and girls.

58 Because I was engaging in research that crossed the borders of my own lived experiences, I found it important and necessary to listen to the voices of children for whom my scholarship was working to advocate. Black girls have voices to be speaking and advocating for themselves, yet institutions in America are working to silence their voices. I wanted to be intentional in listening to racially minoritized girls in understanding how they saw themselves, the world around them, and their role in it. In order to focalize the voices of marginalized children in how I was thinking and researching about this topic, I became a participant researcher to the research project created and being conducted by Dr. Patricia Enciso with urban middle school students. This continuing research project aims to examine the role of storytelling in children’s lives by creating a story club space for students to share their narratives. Enciso found that, in this story club setting, “continuous opportunity to tell and interpret stories meant that almost every story had mobility – and therefore every story had meaning” (“Storytelling in

Critical Literacy Pedagogy” 38). The study is based on the premise that children have valuable lived experiences and that storytelling has the potential for them to reflect on and share those experiences. As Enciso explains, “In much the same way that literature introduces a new landscape and storyline for becoming a social actor in a possible world, storytelling as co- narration disrupts the everyday, releasing tellers from the here and now, so another world may come into view” (“Stories Lost and Found” 42). I created the Title IX Story Club within this larger research study as a way to allow Black girls to engage in storytelling in relation to their experiences in sports. The club also allowed me to connect my understanding of children’s books about Black female athletes to the realities of racially minoritized girls by listening to their stories (Degener “The Title IX Story Club”).

59 I began the research study by asking what the possibilities are for the discourses around middle school girls’ experiences in sports and physical activity contexts. I engaged in dialogue with the students during each of the sessions, reflecting on my positionality within the group and actively working to dismantle power structures found especially between white teachers/researchers and racially minoritized children. From the beginning of the research project, I emphasized to the participants that we were all there to share our stories and that I valued and was learning from their narratives. By sharing picturebooks that featured the stories of Black female athletes, I aimed to demonstrate that I recognized that the stories of the girls in the club were worthy of telling, as well as worthy being heard and accepted. Following Elizabeth

Dutro’s call for vulnerability from educators in storytelling, I also shared with the students my own experiences with sports—in particular the ways that I had been discriminated against as a woman. Acknowledging how I did not relate to racism that they faced, I also invited and facilitated conversations around how their experiences differed from my own and those of other white women and girls. These conversations allowed for me to listen to the stories of several girls who could identify with the characters found in the texts in different ways than I could.

Through the relationships I built with the participants, the Title IX Story Club ensured that this topic of equity in sports did not remain in the realm of theory in my own understanding of it.

The Context and Participants

The site for this research study was Valley High Middle School, an urban alternative middle school in a Midwestern school district. The school has a large population of racially minoritized students, particularly Black and Latinx. The school’s administration changed halfway through the Story Club, and major shifts occurred as a result, including the

60 implementation of stricter policies, such as in-school suspensions. At the beginning of the 2016-

2017 school year, the administration canceled three of the girls’ sports teams (basketball, volleyball, and field and track) because of late sports physicals, reflecting this more rigid school policy enforcement.

In this setting, I formed a small group of girls based on Enciso’s Story Club model that creates space for students to share their life experiences in narrative form and positions students as experts of their own lives, cultures, and communities (“Cultural Identity”.) The Title IX Story

Club included me, the researcher, as a participant and three racially minoritized middle school girls: two girls who are Black, Qurana and Denise, and one girl who is biracial

Hungarian/Vietnamese, Jennifer (the names are all pseudonyms.) Although the group initially fluctuated between six and eight girls, by the end of the eighteen months, only three girls remained in the group. The girls who did not remain in the club had different reasons for leaving, although, for a few of them, they were removed from the club by the school administration as a punishment for behavior6.

I initially selected the girls for the club with assistance from Dr. Enciso and from a teacher at the school. We recruited girls for the club who identified as racially minoritized and had some interest in sports. The girls were in the Story Club during their seventh and eighth- grade years. In the first year of the Story Club, Qurana competed on the track and basketball team, but was only able to participate in more informal sports because of the canceled teams during the second year. While interested in sports, Denise did not take part in any formal sports

6 This punishment served as another example of how the girls were over-policed in the school, including being withheld from opportunities for literacy support because of what was deemed misbehavior. 61 teams. Jennifer started the year not participating in any sports but began taking ice skating lessons half-way through the Story Club.

Methods

Enciso describes the space of the research project’s “story club” model to be happening

“in an ‘intraschool’ or liminal space between official and unofficial regulations of schooling”

(“Stories Lost and Found”). The Title IX Story Club met weekly for either an hour or a half hour in the school library during the students’ lunchtime. The conversations in the club happened as we all were sharing a meal together. I would often bring in my own lunch, and the girls brought their lunch from the cafeteria or brought in meals from their homes. Holding these conversations during a meal together did not break down the power dynamics in place between me as a white researcher and them as racially minoritized children. Yet, this context was what Enciso refers to as a “fracture in school time/space” where, unlike other contexts the girls engaged in at the school, the students’ stories mattered as much as my own. I aimed to create equitable relationships with students in order to engage in crossover scholarship that avoided what

Michelle Martin refers to as “‘drive-by’ scholarship” (101) where scholars are crossing into scholarship of cultures unfamiliar to the writer only to dabble, with no intention of research depth or commitment” (101). The relationships pushed me to not simply theorize about issues of equity but to listen to and engage with ideas of specific changes that need to happen in order for me to participate in dismantling oppressive systems.

I facilitated our discussions by bringing in picturebooks and other forms of media, such as video clips or articles, about Black female athletes. Functioning with the assumption that, as

Sims Bishop argues, African American children’s literature has the potential to “… function as

62 anchor, compass, and sail for African American children as they undertake their life journeys”

(249), I viewed children’s texts as being able to shape the students’ attitudes about female athletes, including themselves. I also saw the texts as being powerful opportunities for the girls to discuss their own experiences in relating (or not relating) to depictions in the picturebooks.

For our meetings in the Spring of 2016, the majority of our time was spent reading and discussing picturebooks and events related to the books that I had brought into the Story Club. In the Fall of 2016, this responsibility began to shift as the girls brought in resources that they wanted to talk about, usually other forms of media, such as news articles or social media posts.

Toward the end of the Story Club, in the Spring of 2017, the girls took initiative in projects, such as creating inspiration posters and writing their own picturebooks to tell their stories.

For data collection, I audio recorded and transcribed each of the Story Club sessions. I kept field notes for each session. These notes helped me to analyze the dialogue, as well as reflect on my own positionality within the group. I often analyzed, for example, instances where

I found myself spending too much of the club sharing my own thoughts and reflected on how I could shift more of the focus to the participants’ experiences. Toward the end of the Story Club meetings, I also conducted one-on-one interviews with each of the girls, which I recorded and transcribed, as well. When the girls created any products during the Story Club sessions, such as drawings, posters, or writing, I also collected images of those items.

To analyze the data, I began by following Matthew B. Miles, Michael Huberman, and

Johnny Saldaña’s coding method to organize all of my field notes and transcripts after each session by categories of focus by completing first and second cycle coding (Qualitative Data

Analysis). I focused on coding for the Spring of 2017 when the girls were taking more agency in the Story Club discussions. I began by looking for narratives that they identified from the texts,

63 drawing on their real-world experiences which affected how they (and the fictional characters we read about) participate in sports. In the second cycle of coding, I began coding for conversations about the students’ families and how they impacted students’ attitudes about physical activity and sports. I also began coding for ways that the girls encouraged each other in conversations about physical activity and noticed how these themes of family and affirmation were used to contribute to critical counter-storytelling. I coded the stories that were being told to identify when the girls were resisting stereotypes about gender and race, when they were themselves perpetuating these stereotypes, and when they were working to resist them but were actually seemingly embodying them.

While the girls frequently resisted narratives, there were also seemingly contradictory aspects of the data, such as conversations where students did not agree about the usefulness of feminism, despite acknowledging the daily gender inequities that they faced. In the dialogue, while arguing for a breakdown of gender norms, the girls would also frequently reinforce these norms, such as in conversations that joked about the perceived effeminacy of male students at the school. These conversations in the data highlighted the complexity of analyzing the girls’ critical counter-storytelling and demonstrated that, at many points, the girls’ dialogue worked to eschew gender stereotypes and at other times would perpetuate them.

Findings and Analysis

As the Story Club read books about Black female athletes, the texts sparked conversations about stereotypes that the girls felt hindered their sports participation. The girls collaboratively discussed the stereotypes that others held about their abilities and motivation in physical activity participation. Additionally, the Story Club created opportunities for the students

64 to use critical counter-storytelling to resist those stories. The stories shared within the group served more than just narratives that they wanted me and the other members of the club to know about their experiences; the stories were insights into the ways that the girls were making sense of and shaping their world.

Identifying Stereotypes

The two main narratives that they identified as the ones most frequently held by others about them were that of biological inferiority and lack of interest. The girls reported feeling the narrative of biological inferiority most acutely in physical education classes, where they often felt sidelined, yet were punished with poor participation grades. The girls identified that this narrative also influenced PE teachers’ policies such as allowing points scored by girls during games played in PE to count for more than boys’, the underlying assumption being that the girls were less capable of successfully scoring. Because of their position as women, racially minoritized women and girls frequently still face a sexist assumption about inferior abilities as women.

In addition, the girls identified that the narrative about a lack of interest in physical activity to often be more explicit. For example, as previously mentioned, the school cancelled three of the girls’ sports because too few students had been able to turn their sports physicals in on time. As Qurana told me, many of the teachers and school administration assumed that this reflected the girls’ lack of interest in sports. Qurana explained, though, that getting the sports physical was challenging. Although one local clinic offered free physicals, many did not, requiring the students’ parents to both pay for the physical and to take off time from work to take them to get the physical, requiring time and money that many low-income parents do not have.

65 In contrast, the boys’ teams—despite also frequently having students turn in documentation late—were not cancelled. Because of this assumption of girls’ lack of interest, the school administration offered fewer sports opportunities to the girls at the school.

Furthermore, two of the girls’ families advocated to the school for the girls—Qurana and

Denise—to be allowed to be taken out of the school’s PE class during the 2016-2017 school year because of the biases they encountered there. In an interview with Denise, I asked her specifically to explain this decision.

Denise: [T]he teachers, they didn’t, like, it was only, like… 12 guys and, like, about 5 girls, and whenever they would say “Pick a sport” or something, and all 5 of us girls would pick something. And I know it wouldn’t be even, but they wouldn’t even take it into consideration what we would say we would want to play. And, like, a friend got hurt. And the teacher said “Oh, you’ll be fine,” but it actually turned out to be something, and she had to go get it checked out. Me: Oh, no. Denise: Yeah, and they just don’t really care because they think we don’t really care, we’re not going to do anything. The five of us. But we actually want to participate. I didn’t think it was fair the way they treated us, so I made sure I didn’t have that class.

As Denise identified, the girls noticed PE educators acting on biases, despite the girls’ desire to participate, that the girls lacked commitment. These two narratives, which drew on both sexist and racist assumptions about the girls’ identities, influenced the girls’ self-esteem and willingness to participate in PE class and sports.

Inequities in Sports

The girls were aware that my realities in sports as a white woman differed from their own as racially minoritized girls. During one conversation during Spring 2016, I asked the participants if they thought my sports experiences differed from their own. Qurana affirmed that she believed so. She explained:

66 Yeah. Like the way that people look at people is different. Like, I play softball, and some of the other girls are smaller than me, and we practice sometimes with the boys, and the boys will be like “You play?” and the Caucasian girl, I think she feel some type of way. (Transcript)

Qurana identified that her sports participation included being stereotyped by male participants who sometimes did not believe her when she told them that she played sports, as well as feeling exclusion from a white girl. It was not just boys from whom Qurana felt stereotypes about her athletic abilities, and she identified that I, as a white woman, would not have felt the same resistance.

Qurana shared a specific example of how she felt that it was white girls who were particularly culpable for pushing her out of sports.

Qurana: Last time when I played basketball, this girl, I don’t think she was fully white but she was white-skinned. She played basketball like a maaan, like, y’all should have saw her. She was scary! She came runnin’ to me (Girls laughing) and I didn’t know what to do. So I just stopped. And she was like “What is she doing? Somebody get her.” I quit after that. Never played again. Rebekah: After that experience? Qurana: Uh-huh. Rebekah: So, what made you quit from that experience? Qurana: What she said. I was about to punch her so hard. Rebekah: Why’s that? Qurana: Because she was like “What’s she doing? She look like a fool. Somebody get her.” But if she didn’t know what she was doing, I wouldn’t have said that.

Qurana reflected on this experience where a girl that she identifies as white publicly made fun of her basketball skills. Qurana observes that she would never have treated another girl this way7. In her analysis of the girl’s race as “white,” or at least “passing” as white-skinned, she emphasizes this story as an example of racist treatment from another female participant.

7 This was also an example of where Qurana was perpetuating a stereotype of men as more capable athletes by describing an athletic girl as a “maaaan” in order to highlight her skill level. 67 My analysis throughout the following chapters works to more complexly understand the history and current oppression of Black women from white women. As the girls in the Title IX

Story Club identified, white girls were as culpable as boys for marginalizing them in sports.

Throughout my textual analysis, I aim to refrain from equating white and racially minoritized women’s position and history in athletics. While, as I argue in Chapter Six, a shared sisterhood and collective push for equality should be a goal to achieve, white women and other racially minoritized women do not share the same histories nor the same current positioning in society.

An erasure of those differences ignores the unique experiences of Black women. Through their storytelling, the Title IX Story Club participants called attention to how society’s racialization of them impacted their treatment in sports. Those lived experiences that they shared within the

Story Club pushed my thinking to a more intersectional approach in analyzing the positioning of

Black female athletes in society and in literature. It influenced how I point out the possible problematic nature of deemphasizing those differences in how one is positioned in society.

Family Support

Beginning the Story Club, I had, in many ways, a monolithic understanding of what family support looked like for racially minoritized girls. Parts of the girls’ conversations confirmed notions that they often felt resistance from their families because of societal norms of what is acceptable for girls. For example, during the Spring of 2016, Jennifer and Denise discussed how both of them had been explicitly prohibited by family members from engaging in sports.

Jennifer: I was playing American football outside with my brother, and my grandmother went outside and she saw me playing with them and she was like,

68 “No! It’s too dangerous for you.” And I was like “Why?” And she’s like, “You’re a girl.” Denise: My mom does that, too. She’ll get so mad, too. Jennifer: And I was like, “What about my brother? He can get hurt. I can throw the ball in his face and he could fall backwards” and then I got /like/ a long /pause/ lecture.

They recognized that their families’ expectations for them as girls sometimes meant that they faced resistance to their physical activities.

At the same time, the girls also were acutely aware of their families’ sacrifices to facilitate their participation in sports. In the Spring of 2017, I interviewed each of the participants. During the conversations, I asked each of the girls to draw a map that illustrated where they spent most of their time. They drew locations such as their homes, the homes of other family members, the school, parks, and the local community center. I then asked the girls to identify where they felt the most encouragement in terms of staying active and participating in sports. All of them identified their homes as the places where most of the support occurred, as well as naming the school as the place that held the least amount of support. While they had felt resistance to differing degrees at home, ultimately they felt that their families did expend effort

(as well as time and money) to facilitate their participation in athletics.

As with any racial group, Black and other racially minoritized families do not all encourage their daughters to participate in sports. Yet, in the context of white Americans often suggesting that racial minoritized families do not support their children as adequately as white families in academic or extracurricular endeavors, the girls all identified their families as offering them vital support. Their narratives challenged single stories that I had held about how they felt about the resistance that they sometimes felt from their families. They acknowledged that they

69 did not always feel supported, yet also highlighted that their families made sacrifices for them to allow them to pursue their athletic goals.

In contrast to how the girls felt about their families, none of them talked about the school as being that place of support for them. In fact, two of them—Denise and Qurana— identified it as the place that held the most resistance. They all expressed that they felt that teachers and fellow students held beliefs about them that made them more self-conscious and less motivated to be physically active. When I asked Qurana why she had identified school as the place where she felt the most barriers to participating in sports, she explained it this way:

Qurana: It’s hard. It’s hard, not as in education-wise, it’s hard because the teachers and principal make it hard. Me: How so? Qurana: Like, they just… do too much. They do too much, but not enough.

As Qurana explained, the girls identified that many of the teachers might have wanted to support them, but that the type of support that the girls received was not what they needed, mainly because that encouragement was often tainted by stereotypes. As I will more thoroughly discuss in Chapter Four, Black parents in particular are often discussed by educators, administrators, and in more mainstream educational dialogue as being disengaged from helping their children to succeed. The theme of family support was a main theme of the Title IX Story Club participants’ conversations, refuting a single story about what support from Black families looks like and how

Black girls feel about that support.

Analysis of Picturebooks

In addition to general themes that arose in the girls’ conversations in relation to the picturebooks, there were a few instances during the story club where the girls’ own complex and

70 close analyses of the texts influenced how I approached the books. For example, I noted how certain texts seemed to invite connections in ways that helped the girls to challenge stereotypes and to build their self-esteem. In the Spring of 2016, I brought in the book Firebird: Ballerina

Misty Copeland Shows a Young Girl How to Dance Like a Firebird. After reading the text, I invited the girls’ analysis of the pictures. They each had a comment in response to the pictures.

Qurana: I have strong calves just like her. Denise: It makes me feel like I should have more confidence in myself. Jennifer: I feel like I should stop procrastinating and achieve whatever I want to achieve.

Engaging with positive and realistic depictions of a Black female ballerina inspired the girls to connect with the character, as well as to reflect on their own potential as athletes. For Qurana, the images encouraged her to connect to a character who had pronounced muscles on her legs, in the context of a culture that has historically encouraged women to only engage in sports or physical activities that allow them to become slim. For Denise and Jennifer, the pictures encouraged them to believe themselves and their abilities to succeed in sports. In this way, the picturebooks helped to open up conversations in naming stereotypes held about them, and texts like Firebird helped to build their self-esteem and confidence in the face of these identified stereotypes.

As I will discuss in Chapter Five, Firebird also includes powerful opportunities for Black ballerinas to speak directly to young Black female readers. When I shared the picturebook in the club, we read the peritextual notes that are included in the book. Qurana commented after reading Misty Copeland’s author’s note that “[i]t’s good that she had somebody help her and now she wants to help others.” Qurana’s reaction to the author’s note helped me to see peritextual notes, such as Copeland’s, as a place where Black authors can be “help[ing] others.”

71 Her analysis of it also affirmed to me that Black girl readers are not only engaged in reading, despite stereotypes that suggest otherwise, but they are also engaged in critical analysis of peritextual elements. Qurana’s observations helped me to view peritext as not just details that are added for the benefits of possibly critical adults, as I will discuss in Chapter Five, but as spaces that Black authors are utilizing to speak specifically to readers.

In contrast, shortly after sharing Firebird with the story club, I brought in Wilma

Unlimited to read with the girls, a text that I analyze in Chapter Two. I invited the girls to share their thoughts and connections to the picturebook, commenting that we could talk about anything that they wanted to discuss in relation to the text. Qurana began by critiquing the book: “The words are nice, but /like/ the pictures were not as good as the other one (referring to Firebird.)”

The girls then engaged in close visual analysis of the illustrations.

Rebekah: You mentioned that you didn’t think that the pictures were as good? What exactly did you think was not as good? Qurana: Like – Jennifer: The proportions Qurana: It’s like – how he drew it. Jennifer: It’s his art style. His art style is great but what I hate is that the proportions are off. Like, this. Points to cover image. For example, what is that? [. . .] Denise: Just the way he drew it was weird. Rebekah: Yeah? Did any particular picture strike you as being particularly weird? Qurana: The one – when she says she walking. Like that one where they say she’s jumping. Jennifer: It’s cute but would you really jump like that? Up into the air. I kind of feel concerned.

The girls identified that it was the proportions of Diaz’s images that they did not appreciate.

Jennifer complexly analyzed the illustrations, acknowledging the artistic qualities of Diaz’s unique art style, yet critiquing that the illustrations did not make her feel empowered as an athletic girl. While I had originally read Wilma Unlimited less complexly as a book that was

72 solely a positive representation of a Black female athlete, the girls’ disconnection from the illustrations helped me to question if the images could be seen as problematic depictions.

The girls continued to critique the illustrations, including utilizing other media by researching other images of Wilma Rudolph to compare to the text’s illustrations. They discussed how the illustrations seemed to make her look as if she possessed a different identity.

Qurana: She looks like a boy. Denise: They made her look like a boy. I mean, why couldn’t she have long hair or her eyes could be open? Qurana: Did she have long hair? Rebekah: We can look at the picture again. Do you think these pictures look like her? Denise: No. Jennifer: Similar. Qurana: Points to the illustrations. Her nose looks big. Jennifer: Every other person’s nose is wide like that. Let’s go back to the bus one. You can clearly see their noses. That looks… Everyone’s nose is that way. Rebekah: So, that is of her as a child but the cover image and some of the ones we’ll get to later are of her as an adult athlete. How do you think pictures like these compare to ones we saw of Misty Copeland in Firebird or Alice Coachman. Denise: Nobody else drew their lips that big. Qurana: Points to Firebird. They look more – Denise: Realistic

In this conversation, the girls and I were partnering in analyzing the text. The girls’ conversation helped me to think complexly about the images and, based on this discussion, I decided to conduct further investigation into the stylized illustration Diaz employs in the text. This research led to my analysis of how he had reimagined Rudolph as a male Greek athlete and my problematizing of a whitewashing and masculinizing of Rudolph’s identity in the text. It also again highlighted for me a refutation of stereotypes that racially minoritized girls are disengaged from literacy practices, stereotypes that overlook, mishear, and misconstrue racially minoritized girls’ reading experiences. The girls identified these illustrations as a specific style an artist might employ for creative reasons, yet they also reflected on how these images changed the

73 appearance of a woman whom the text was working to honor. This multifaceted discussion of the illustrations shaped how I also adopted a complex lens to examine an illustration style that minimizes Rudolph’s identity as a successful Black female athlete.

Conclusion

The girls of the Title IX Story Club do not speak for an entire identity group, and their stories do not mean that these experiences are universal for all Black girls. There was a diversity of experiences—and diversity of thought—even among the participants of this one focal group.

Their stories disrupt, though, notions of a single story of what it means to participate in sports and physical activity in the context of belonging to an identity group that has been marginalized on multiple levels by gender, race, and class. The lived experiences that they shared with me, along with their analyses and insights about the picturebooks we read together, shaped how I thought about the issues of equity in sports and specifically how I read some of the texts. The

Title IX Story Club offered the girls opportunities to see themselves as experts and powerful storytellers. Listening and valuing the stories shared in the story club helped me to challenge my own stereotypical—and oppressive—beliefs in analyzing the picturebooks discussed here and advocating for equity in sports. The chapters that follow are, in many ways, informed by the powerful and beautiful stories and insights of the girls of the Title IX Story Club.

74 Chapter 2: Commemoration and Commodification: The Black Female Body and the “Ideal”

Athlete Identity in Wilma Unlimited and The Quickest Kid in Clarksville

“Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in this notion:

The potential for greatness lives within each of us.” - Wilma Rudolph

The potential for greatness may, as Black female track athlete Wilma Rudolph aptly said, be alive within each of us. Yet, not everyone’s greatness has been acknowledged equally in

American society. Olympic gold medalist Wilma Rudolph broke many barriers for Black athletes through her achievements in track and field. In spite of the gravitas of her accomplishments,

American media did not offer her due respect during her years of participation in track that white athletes usually receive – nor has she been fully celebrated in children’s literature in more recent years. Born in 1940 during the height of the Jim Crow era, Rudolph had a journey to success which was riddled with oppression as a Black American, through the implementation of policies such as segregation. Segregation often kept Black athletes on the sidelines of sports. Wilma’s dreams to compete occurred in the context of legally mandated and enforced oppression of Black

Americans in every area of American society, including sports.

This chapter begins by examining the historical commemoration and commodification of

Black athletes in America, unpacking the ways in which white America has selectively remembered the identities of past Black athletes – the parts viewed as being the most marketable.

Using this foundation, I analyze the representation of Wilma Rudolph in two picturebooks,

Wilma Unlimited and The Quickest Kid in Clarksville. As one of the first published picturebooks to focus on the life of a past Black female athlete, Wilma Unlimited represents a change in the

75 way that Black female athletes were being viewed within sports, both inside and outside of literature, during the 1990s. Wilma Unlimited symbolizes progress for Black female athletes; yet, it exemplifies how a marginalization of Black women in sports was still a norm during the time when the text was published. In the written and illustrated narrative of Wilma Unlimited, with author Kathleen Krull and Latino illustrator David Diaz commemorate Rudolph. Through the reframing of Rudolph’s success, they leave only certain parts of her historical identity and journey intact. Thus, Wilma Unlimited asks readers to view Rudolph as worthy of remembrance, but only a whitewashed version of her.

While this chapter mainly focuses on Wilma Unlimited, I also analyze how Rudolph is depicted in a more recent picturebook: The Quickest Kid in Clarksville. White author Pat Zietlow

Miller and Black illustrator Frank Morrison portray Rudolph as an inspiring figure who, within the pages of the text, serves as a role model for young Black girls. Instead of downplaying or changing Rudolph’s identity, the text represents Rudolph as being especially qualified to inspire young Black girls because of the particular challenges she faced in sports as a Black woman.

Throughout the analysis of the textual and visual elements of the two picturebooks, I critically examine how the authors and illustrators either perpetuate or disrupt stereotypes of Black female athletes in their portrayal of Wilma Rudolph.

The Commemoration of Black Athletes in American Society

Children’s literature can serve as an important tool to commemorate historical figures.

Marita Sturken defines commemoration as “a narrative rather than a replica of an experience that can be retrieved and relived” (7). This technique, she adds, is “a form of interpretation” (7) of past events. In particular, the non-fiction genre uses commemoration to shape cultural

76 perceptions of history. Through both visual and textual elements, picturebooks are able to suggest which figures are worthy of remembrance – and which details about their lives are most important for contemporary readers. When authors exclude individuals from stories, the literature conversely deems them unworthy of remembrance. The specific ways in which authors and illustrators construct figures in children’s texts—and which details they choose to include in partial biographies of them—greatly influence how a society perceives them. Lori Latrice Martin in Out of Bounds: Racism and the Black Athlete asserts: “It would seem to follow, then, that forgetting is as important to public memory as remembering” (137). “Forgetting” (or choosing to leave out certain details) can be as significant in the storytelling process as the inclusion of details. “Any particular public memory is based on the choices that are made about how to construct it,” Martin contends, “and this is perhaps especially true with regard to public memories that concern race in America” (136). Sometimes authors are cognizant of what they are asking their audience to remember and to forget. Others make these choices without a conscious awareness. Whether or not the story creator is fully aware of their decisions, their choice impacts how audiences will view the subject of their narrative.

Frequently, storytellers in America reimagine historical racial oppression and discrimination by reframing narratives. The Eurocentric perspective on the history of the colonization of the Americas by Christopher Columbus and a “forgetting” of the atrocities committed by white European immigrants upon Native Americans serve as examples of these constructions of memory in American society. Dana Cloud, in “Hegemony or Concordance?:

The Rhetoric of Tokenism in ‘Oprah’ Winfrey’s Rags-to-Riches Biography, ” argues: “[B]ecause social systems and their prevailing ideological justifications. . . are always contested, social stability depends on the ability of the ideology to absorb and re-frame challenges” (118). Thus,

77 reframed details of a memory can help to commemorate events in a way that works to stabilize a singular perspective of that memory.

Certain details must be emphasized and others ignored in order to maintain one version of a narrative. As Cloud asserts, an emphasis on a unified story “is important if we are to guard against overplaying small moments of contradiction, rupture, or textual play in a social system and ideological frame that has been relatively effective at containing the impact of those moments” (119). Specifically, she argues that a silencing of moments of contradictions in both biographies and autobiographies of Black Americans, such as those about Oprah Winfrey’s success story, “acknowledges black voices, but redefines oppression as personal suffering and success as individual accomplishment” (119). Akin to Cloud’s argument, John Bodnar in

““Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration and Patriotism in the Twentieth

Century” explains that public memory reinforces “interpretations of past and present reality that reduce the power of competing interests that threaten the attainment of their goals” (13). The goal is to have society remember a certain version of a historical event. In order to produce this particular form of the narrative, the author of a commemoration decides which details to include and which to exclude—and how to reframe the included details. One reframed version becomes the accepted narrative, and multiple perspectives about that event have a more difficult time competing with each other.

Throughout history, white America has utilized this reimagining of historical events in order to depict the country’s past as much less problematic than it was in reality. Current dialogue in schools and educational curricula often tell events such as slavery and segregation from the perspective of the oppressors. Focusing on telling stories from this perspective has permeated how white America remembers Black athletes. As an example, Martin discusses a

78 2004 Jackie Robinson Day ceremony hosted by Major League Baseball. Martin analyzes the speech by Bud Selig, the MLB Commissioner. Selig’s public address exemplifies how white

Americans have frequently rewritten the histories of Black Americans, and specifically Black athletes. Selig’s presentation was an effort to “ensure that young people know who Jackie

Robinson was” (Martin 152). A focus specifically on young people’s ability to participate in the cultural memory is, in general, one of the main purposes for telling the stories of historical figures. They allow not just the present generation who lived through the time of the event or person to maintain a memory, but for the details of that event or person to be passed down from one generation to the next. Martin argues that, in Selig’s address, he carefully chose to retell only the parts of Robinson’s accomplishments with which white Americans can feel comfortable. She notes that this speech “incorporate[d] certain strategic choices that reflect[ed] a process that minimizes controversy, privilege[d] white America’s version of baseball integration, and invoke[d] a public amnesia about the social consequences Robinson’s historic inclusion had on

Negro Leagues and the black community in general” (137). The speech highlighted only

Robinson’s athletic feats as being worthy of remembering. Other aspects about Robinson’s life, such as his political activism and advocacy for racial equality in America, were simply forgotten

(Martin 150). Through this particular way of remembering Robinson, Martin notes, the

“mainstream narrative gain[ed] further traction [. . .] when the celebration construct[ed] a rosy image of baseball’s equal playing field, despite statistics and a few objections to the contrary”

(149). While Selig’s speech reframed the story of Robinson’s life, it was hailed as an honorable ceremony.

While Martin focuses on one particular instance, she suggests that this type of storytelling is rampant in how American society remembers Black athletes. The scholarship on the

79 commemoration of Black athletes, such as Martin’s, has frequently focused on how the stories about Black men are told. The remembering of Black women is even more complex. They have been oppressed both as Black Americans and as women. As a result, there are even more details of their journeys to success to reframe in order to maintain a narrative that asks society to empathize with oppressors. This chapter adds to the research on the commemoration of Black athletes by focusing specifically on how one Black female athlete, Wilma Rudolph, is remembered. In analyzing the focal texts, I viewed children’s literature as an important outlet for commemoration in American culture and specifically examined how Rudolph, a Black Olympic track star, is depicted in two picturebooks that include her in their narratives. This chapter demonstrates how the books remember and “forget” certain aspects of her identity to either maintain or fight a unified cultural memory of her.

The Commodification of Black Athletes

As Dawn Heinecken in “African American Girls in Children’s and YA Sports Fiction:

Encouraging Participation?” points out, “[C]hildren’s and young adult literature more often depicts the accomplishments of white and black male athletes, and the genre’s representation of how race shapes athletic experience varies” (83). Heinecken notes: “girls’ sports fiction has not only erased girls of color but tended to maintain male superiority in sport” (83). Before the publication of the picturebook Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the World’s

Fastest Woman in 1996, the presence of Black female athletes in this format for child readers is virtually non-existent. The creation of this text and the ones that shortly followed it may seem to signal changing cultural attitudes toward women in sports, particularly Black women in sports. It seemed to recognize life experiences that had historically been ignored in children’s literature.

80 The publication of the texts about successful Black female athletes also displays a commodification of Black women’s accomplishments. Karl Marx in Capital: A Critique of

Political Economy, defines a commodity as an “external object, a thing which through its qualities satisfies human needs of whatever kind” and is traded for something as an exchange

(125). Black people have long been viewed as commodities, exchanged as desired by white people for a profit, beginning with the enslavement and trading of their bodies for money.

Enslaved and traded, Black women endured physical, mental, and sexual abuse, for the profit of white Americans. Black women are no longer physically enslaved in American society. Yet,

David J. Leonard and C. Richard King argue in Commodified and Criminalized: New Racism and African Americans in Contemporary Sports: “[Although] Overt expressions of antiblack racism, once common and acceptable, have largely receded from an increasingly multicultural public culture, [. . .] it thrives in new forms, especially in all-white spaces” (13). White America has a history of commodifying Black bodies, and it continues to do so through a new form of racism. As Leonard and King assert, “New racism, although articulating dominant white narratives and stereotypes, is equally defined by the consumption and celebration of commodified blackness” (14). Persistent in society are white supremacist views of Black bodies as objects, as the “other,” to be used and exchanged as desired for profit.

The commodification of the bodies of Black male athletes, in particular, has been noted by many scholars. As William Rhoden in Forty Million Dollar Slaves: The Rise, Fall, and

Redemption of the Black Athlete asserts,

At a time when the number of black males attending colleges is increasing at a

slower rate than the numbers being incarcerated, young black men with stellar

athletic ability are still hotly pursued, coddled, and showered with gifts and

81 promises to attend major colleges and universities. Black faces and bodies are

used to sell everything from clothing to deodorant and soft drink. Their gestures,

colorful language, and overall style are used by Madison Avenue to project the

feel and fashion of inner-city America to an eager global marketplace. (1)

Works such as the film Two Days in April (2007) display how similar sports processes such as the NFL appear to be to more historical processes of buying and selling of Black bodies. In an interview with Sports Illustrated, Doug Baldwin, an NFL player for the Seattle Seahawks, likened the NFL draft to the practice of the slave-trade. “I don’t know how to put this,” Baldwin said, “But to some people the NFL is basically modern-day slavery” (Bishop & McNight). He added: “Don’t get me wrong, we get paid a lot of money. There’s a sense of ‘shut up and play,’ that is entertainment for other people” (Bishop & McNight). Images of Black men lining up to be picked by teams evokes memories of enslaved people historically being traded as commodities.

As Baldwin notes, the comparisons do not end at the draft either. White sports enthusiasts expect athletes to provide entertainment without allowing them to express their thoughts or opinions.

Michael Eric Dyson points out the commodification of NBA star Michael Jordan, arguing:

“From the very beginning of his professional career, Jordan was consciously marketed by his agency Pro-Serv as a peripatetic vehicle of American fantasies of capital accumulation and material consumption” (70). Jordan, Dyson contends, has been intentionally marketed as a brand to sell to Americans the story that Black Americans can be whoever they want to be in society.

In part, the perception of Black athletes as marketable is a new (but age-old) form of racism that profits off of the commodification of Black bodies. Earlier times witnessed this process occur through the enslavement and selling and buying of Black bodies as dispensable.

One way that this new form of racism appears is by the capitalizing on the abilities of Black

82 athletes to sell products. Patricia Hill Collins in her article “New Commodities, New Consumers:

Selling Blackness in a Global Marketplace” notes: “Athletes and criminals alike are profitable, not for the vast majority of African American men, but for the people who own the teams, control the media, provide food, clothing, and telephone services, and who consume seemingly endless images of pimps, hustlers, rapists, and felons” (311).

Collins argues that a commodification of Black bodies is problematic especially when it attempts to sell an “essentialized black culture,” but also works to construct a particular understanding of what it means to be Black in America (298). This construction benefits white

Americans by allowing them to think of white supremacy as an aspect of America that is found only in its past. Both the criminalization and commodification shapes white Americans’ conceptualizations of Blackness. If Black Americans are incarcerated, it must be because of some inherent malevolence or deviance that is found only in their communities. When they succeed, it must be because of some supernatural abilities. Leonard and King explain, specifically about Black athletes, that “the commodification of black athletes is not simply about generating profit, but it also functions as an ideological and discursive commodity used to sell the American Dream and color blindness in a post-civil rights America” (15). White America profits from selling this ideology.

While the new form of commodification may seem to be a more positive view of Black

Americans — as they, too, can sometimes profit from the commodification of themselves as a brand — it is simply a repackaged way to pit Black Americans as the “other.” Bill Yousman points out, this new form of racism “allows Whites to contain their fears and animosities toward

Blacks through rituals not of ridicule, as in previous eras, but of adoration” (“Blackophilia and

Blackophobia” 369). The adoration of Black athletes works to continue to construe Black

83 athletes as the “other” and allow white Americans to profit off of the branding of them as such.

Therefore, the commodification of Black athletes in children’s literature must be viewed critically to determine who is profiting from Black athletes’ success and what view of Blackness is being constructed in the narrative. While the commodification of Black male athletes is an important area for scholarship, research about the commodification of Black female athletes is still lacking. This chapter adds to the important scholarship already conducted on commodification of Black athletes by focusing specifically on how one Black female athlete,

Wilma Rudolph, has been commodified in the industry of children’s literature.

Wilma Rudolph: From Sickly Child to Olympic Athlete

Born in 1940 in St. Bethlehem, Tennessee, Wilma Rudolph was the sixth of eight children. Her father, Ed Rudolph, also had fourteen children from a previous marriage, making her one of twenty-two total children in her extended family. As a result of a premature birth,

Rudolph was a very sickly child—constantly ill and needing significant extra care and attention from her parents and older siblings. According to Kathleen McElroy in “Track and Field:

Somewhere to Run,” “By the time [Rudolph] was four she had contracted measles, mumps, and chicken pox and then almost died from pneumonia and scarlet fever” (15). She was also diagnosed with polio, which meant that she had to wear a brace on her legs for a good portion of her childhood, limiting her ability to engage in many activities, far less more vigorous sports.

Detailing her recovery, Wayne Wilson in “Wilma Rudolph: The Making of an Olympic

Icon” explains: “Eventually, Rudolph learned to walk around the house without the brace” (208).

By nine and a half, she was able to occasionally walk outside without the brace. Her first public appearance without the brace took place during a trip to church. Rudolph still required the use of

84 the brace at times and needed to wear a shoe specially created for her needs (Wilson 208). Upon entering high school, Rudolph was healed enough to participate in sports. Her first sport was basketball, and she ran track mainly as a way to stay in shape for basketball season.

A momentous event for Rudolph was attending a camp for Black American track runners.

There, she was coached by the Tennessee State University’s head coach, Ed Temple. In 1956,

Temple chose Rudolph to compete with the track team in Philadelphia for the national championship. At this venue, Rudolph proved herself to be a skilled runner, competing and placing in either second or first place in several events (Wilson 210). The national championship was also where Rudolph met Jackie Robinson for the first time. As Rudolph later recalled, “[It was] [t]he first time in my life I had a black person I could look up to as a real hero” (qtd in

Wilson 210).

Shortly after winning at nationals, Rudolph traveled with the track team to compete at the

Olympics, which were being held in Melbourne, Australia. As Wilson notes, while the travel abroad for the first time was exciting for Rudolph, she also was acutely aware of “the obstacles of race and class” as she both faced discrimination as a Black athlete and observed disparities in the equipment available to her versus women on the Australian track team (210). In particular,

Rudolph noticed a disparity in the quality of running shoes between the teams. Betty Cuthbert, a member of the Australian track team, offered to take Rudolph to buy new shoes before she competed, but “Rudolph had to decline the offer knowing neither she nor her parents could afford the thirty-dollar price tag” (Wilson 211).

At these Olympics, while Rudolph did not qualify in the opening round for the individual

200-meter race, she and her teammates earned a bronze medal in the 4x100-meter relay. She returned home to her high school having already won an Olympic medal. The following year, her

85 basketball team won the state championship. In her last year of high school in 1958, she had committed to run on the Tennessee State University track team. Rudolph became pregnant unexpectedly, which she worried would jeopardize her position on the team. Rudolph later explained: “[My boyfriend and I] were both innocent about sex, didn’t know anything about birth control or about contraceptives, but neither of us ever thought it would result in this” (qtd. in McElroy 18). Temple, under whose coaching she had won both the national championship and qualified for the Olympics, did not allow female athletes to compete if they became pregnant. In spite of her circumstances, Rudolph managed to stay on track to graduate from high school. Her future coach made an exception and allowed Rudolph to still run on the track team at TSU.

The climax of Rudolph’s career occurred during her participation in the 1960 Rome

Olympic Games, where she matched the world record for the women’s 100-meter, set the

Olympic record for the 200-meter, and helped her team overcome a mishandled baton exchange to take gold in the 4x100-meter relay race. She was the first American woman to win 3 medals in a sport at the Olympics. As a result, Rudolph catapulted into fame virtually overnight. Wilson notes that many factors contributed to the immense world-wide attention her athletic career drew.

He explains that these factors “include[ed] her visibility as the first female African American

Olympic star, her role as symbol of American athletic success during the cold war, the influence of television, and a remarkable personal story of overcoming adversity” (207). The nation was paying attention to Rudolph, the woman who was succeeding in spite of overwhelming odds.

According to McElroy, Rudolph “became the first African-American superstar and an inspiration to a nation in the throes of the civil rights era” (4). She was a figure who embodied Black success in an era when Black Americans’ careers and livelihoods were often stifled by oppression.

86 Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the World’s Fastest Woman

Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the World's Fastest Woman was published in 1996. Upon examination of the breadth of texts about Black female athletes, it appears to have been one of the first children’s picturebooks to solely focus on the story of a

Black woman in sports. Books celebrating the accomplishments of Black Americans in sports had paved the way for Krull and Diaz’s publication. In 1992, Peter Golenbock and Paul Bacon’s picturebook Teammates was released, telling the story of Jackie Robinson, the African American baseball player. David Adler and Robert Casilla’s 1992 text A Picture Book of Jesse Owens and their 1994 text A Picture Book of Jackie Robinson also focused on Robinson’s journey to break down barriers in sports for Black athletes. During the 1990s, these stories were groundbreaking in the fact that children’s literature, where most texts featured white characters, was celebrating the accomplishments of Black athletes. Krull and Diaz’s creation of Wilma Unlimited and its public and critical reception signified progress specifically in a societal acknowledgment of

Black female athletes’ stories as worthy of being told to child readers.

Wilma Unlimited details Wilma Rudolph’s athletic feats and her life story that led up to these accomplishments. The book’s textual and illustration narrative show efforts from both author Kathleen Krull and illustrator David Diaz to honor the spectacular accomplishments of protagonist Rudolph to young readers. This focus on celebrating Rudolph is especially obvious in the context in which they created the text: an almost complete absence of representations of

Black female athletes in children’s literature. At the same time, Wilma Unlimited can also be viewed as a perpetuation of stereotypes about Black female athletes. Krull and Diaz’s construction of Rudolph draws on mainstream cultural perceptions of Rudolph both when she was participating in sports in the 1960s and even into the 1990s.

87 The book sketches out for readers the challenges that Rudolph faced as an athlete, who was breaking racial, gender, and class boundaries during the 1950s and 60s. At the same time, it implies a stereotypical highlighting of Rudolph’s presumed natural ability while de-emphasizing the effort and dedication that would have undoubtedly accompanied her talent. Furthermore, through the illustrations, the book erases Rudolph’s racial and gender identity and reframes her identity as a Eurocentric version of an “ideal” athlete.

Kathleen Krull, a white American author, has written many biographical texts to honor historical and current figures’ accomplishments. For example, she has written an entire series, geared toward older readers, entitled Women Who Broke the Rules. The series highlights stories of women such as Sacajawea, Coretta Scott King, and Sonia Sotomayor. Krull has penned texts about white women, but she has also written many stories about figures who belong to different identity groups than her own, such as Starstruck: The Cosmic Journey of Neil DeGrasee Tyson, a picturebook about the Black American male scientist, and Harvesting Hope: The Story of Cesar

Chávez, a picturebook about the Latino civil rights activist. Krull’s publications demonstrate a commitment to tell stories that had yet to be seen as valuable within the field of children’s literature. Because Wilma Unlimited is written by a white woman and illustrated by a Latino man, neither of the creators’ racial identities match with Wilma Unlimited’s subject-of-story.

Thus, Krull and Diaz are both conducting cross-writing by writing outside of their own experiences.

Textual Focus on Innate Physical Ability

Many narrative biographies for children begin with a documentation of the figure’s childhood. Wilma Unlimited follows this pattern and focuses on Rudolph’s childhood, including

88 details such as her birthplace, family information, and a description of obstacles she faced in her youth. In particular, Krull highlights Rudolph’s challenges as a young person—and the low expectations that others had for her—with the first line of the text: “No one expected such a tiny girl to have a first birthday” (Krull). Krull simultaneously positions Rudolph as having an innate disposition toward athletics: “... [E]veryone noticed that as soon as this girl could walk, she ran or jumped instead” (Krull).

As a child, Rudolph faced many health challenges with a diagnosis of polio. In fact, doctors gave her a prognosis of not being able to walk again. The text shows that Rudolph experiences life-changing event during a church service where “... she moved one foot in front of the other, her knees trembling” (13). Just like that, “Wilma Rudolph was walking” (Krull). The illustrations show a young Rudolph, in her Sunday best, walking down the aisle toward the front of the church. The congregation watches this seemingly miraculous event. People had assumed that “Wilma, that lively girl, would never walk again.” In spite of these doubts, Rudolph regains her strength enough to regain her ability to walk, a recovery that had seemed nigh impossible.

The context for her recovery, that of a predominately Black church, is a setting to which some

Black children may find relatable as a culturally authentic representation. The text does acknowledge that Rudolph spent time recovering and relearning to walk, but Krull mainly attributes her revival to a supernatural cause. Rudolph’s dedication and time spent practicing were not the most important contributing factors.

Wilson points out that the real-life Rudolph often “cited the taunts she endured from other children as a motivating factor in her drive to excel in sports” (208). He describes these experiences as “psychologically devastating” (208) to her. This “miraculous” healing sprang more from a desperation from the discrimination she faced from others around her than from a

89 supernatural event of recovery. In reflection of this time in her life, Rudolph explains: “The only thing I ever really wanted when I was a child was to be normal… To be able to run, jump, play, and do all the things the other kids did in my neighborhood” (qtd. in Goudsouzian, 308). The scene at the church documents the first time that Rudolph walked without support in public since her diagnosis. At the same time, the text does not discuss that she had been tirelessly practicing walking at home (Wilson 208). As she identified, Rudolph felt desperation that stemmed from realizing that her world had no sympathy for her condition, for her ailments. Already marginalized by race, gender, and class, Rudolph recognized that, with a lingering physical disability, she would be further marginalized.

Every author and illustrator of a partial biography must choose which details to include and exclude. Especially in the case of a biographical picturebook, the creators must be even more discerning in details to include because of the format’s limited space for text. The portrayal of a higher power’s influence on Rudolph’s healing matches her family’s religious values. The inclusion of the moment where she walks in church also might invite many Black American children to make connections to the text from their own lived experiences. Yet, in this case, Krull and Diaz choose to focus on an uplifting version of Rudolph’s journey to renewed health, a version that did not match how the athlete herself viewed the recovery process. They commodify her story by choosing to focus on a religious interpretation for her healing and leaving out the less uplifting details about how her marginalization as a Black woman spurred her to push herself towards a physical recovery. Their decisions reflect the field of children’s literature’s cultural acknowledgement of the historical oppression of Black Americans but also a resistance to complexly depict the permeation of racism through all facets of American society.

90 Although Krull details the threats to Rudolph’s success throughout the beginning of the narrative, she portrays Rudolph’s talents as innate. Many athletes of all racial and gender identities are discussed as having “natural” talents in sports. At the same time, these descriptions are particularly problematic in the context of stereotypical beliefs of athletic talent being genetically race-based. Scientific racism has permeated American culture for centuries. In their analysis of the intersection of science and racism in Race, Racism, and Science: Social Impact and Interaction, John P. Jackson, Jr. and Nadine M. Weidman suggest that scientific racism has long existed in white American though. It became hardened during the early twentieth century with the emergence of Darwin’s ideas of natural selection. Jackson and Weidman trace the origins of a renewed belief about genetic racial differences in America to “two lines of scientific thought merging” (97). They find these two lines of thought to be: “First, new ideas about heredity provided an explanation of the way traits could be held stable for generation after generation. Second, ideas flowered about the supremacy of the north European races—what was called Aryanism or Teutonicism in the nineteenth century and Nordicism in the twentieth” (97).

Several factors, such as the increased inclusion of racial minorities and women into the sciences and a greater understanding of the complexity of the “nature vs. nurture” debate, led many to refute scientific racism. Yet, the ideas of biological racial differences continue to permeate white

American culture, spilling over into how white America views Black athletes.

A perception of Black athletes as biologically more gifted at athletics as a result of racial difference is certainly not uncommon. Scientific racism has long been used to explain the athletic feats of Black American athletes. The pseudoscience suggests that the athletes have genetic talent that makes sports easier. These racist beliefs about biological differences are exemplified in instances such as Jimmy Snyder’s comments on CBS about how Black athletes have been

91 “bred” to have “high thighs and big thighs that go up into his back. And they can jump higher and run faster because of their bigger thighs” (qtd. in Lewis). As a result of the permeation of scientific racism in America, Black female athletes often face a lack of acknowledgement of their efforts. Their success is only attributed to having an athletic advantage because of their race.

In the text, Krull emphasizes Wilma’s physical build as contributing greatly to her success. Multiple times, Krull refers to Wilma’s long legs, one time narrating: “Her long, long legs would propel her across the court” (Krull), another time explaining “Wilma’s long legs and years of hard work carried her thousands of miles from Clarksville, Tennessee” (Krull).

Although the text mentions Rudolph’s dedication, her efforts are also portrayed as equivalent to her genetic superiority. Krull’s portrayal follows a historical pattern of viewing Black athletes’ bodies, as Jimmy Snyder suggested, as having been “bred” to have more athletic prowess by white slave owners. The text’s attributing of Rudolph’s talent to her physical build is problematic in the context of the pseudoscience that has historically suggested that Black people are more athletically talented because of biological differences.

Krull’s focus on Rudolph’s body also follows a sexist trend in both the historical and contemporary media’s coverage of female athletes. Frequently, newscasters’ and journalists’ reports centralize women’s physical appearance more than their athletic accomplishments. As

Aimee Lamourex explains, “When male athletes receive media attention, such coverage is primarily focused on their skills and performance. When female athletes receive media attention, the media is much more likely to focus on their physical attractiveness or non-sport-related activities” (“Media Portrays Female Athletes”). Krull’s perception of Rudolph and portrayal of

92 her in this text rely on both racist and sexist assumptions that were rampant both during the period of Rudolph’s career and the period of the text’s creation.

Whitewashing through Iconic Illustrations

Illustrator Diaz also problematically depicts Rudolph’s success. Picturebooks have the potential to not only challenge stereotypes, but to offer children realistic and positive portrayals through images of what it means to be Black American. As Rudine Sims Bishop in Free Within

Ourselves: The Development of African American Children’s Literature argues, “one major impetus for the development of an African American children’s literature was to contradict the plantation and minstrel-like visual representations of Black people that had become entrenched in popular culture and had spilled over into children’s books” (115). The genre of picturebooks is able to contradict negative understandings of Black Americans and offer beautiful and accurate portrayals to a child readership. Picturebooks have the advantage of not only being able to speak back to stereotypes through a textual narrative but through a visual narrative as well.

The illustrations do not confront or refute racist depictions of Black women. David Diaz, an acclaimed children’s illustrator of over 50 books, is perhaps best known for his Caldecott- medal-winning illustrations in Smoky Night (Bunting, 1994). He has also won the Pura Belpré award for his illustrations of Martín de Porres: The Rose in the Desert. In his work on Wilma

Unlimited, Diaz is illustrating as an outsider of both Black American culture and as a man.

In Wilma Unlimited, Diaz utilizes an artistic style similar to some of his previous texts, such as Smoky Night and The Inner City Mother Goose. He created the illustrations, according to an end note, with “acrylics, watercolor, and gouache on Arches watercolor paper” (end note).

The background of all of the images were collaboratively created by Diaz and Cecelia Zieba-

93 Diaz. In the illustration style, all of the characters are depicted in a Grecian fashion. The entire text has a Grecian flair to it, as is evident from viewing the peritext of the book. Even the supplementary text works to create this tone to the book. Surrounded by newspaper articles in the background to give the story an authentic feel, the cover page shows the title (See Figure 1). The words are written in characters that the end page says is an “Ariel” font, which has been modified by Diaz (end page). The text type has been heavily adapted to evoke a sense that this is a Grecian style. Underneath the title is a Greek Olympic wreath, which also helps to set the tone of this text before readers ever begin the story.

As his previous illustrations show, Diaz relies frequently on icons, such as the text font and the wreath. As Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright argue, “Image icons are experienced as if universal, but their meanings are always historically and contextually produced” (39). Creators of images must be aware of the historical context they are evoking in their illustrations. Diaz utilizes icons that have connotations to historical Greek games participants, all of whom where white men. The Olympics began in ancient Greece as a chance for the country to promote the men that they viewed to be the most desirable when it came to athletic prowess. These icons carried on long after the time of ancient Greece.

The icons of the Greek Olympics were frequently used by Adolf Hitler in Nazi-era

Germany to propagate a belief in the racial supremacy of the Aryan race. During the 1936

Olympics, Hitler used Germany’s hosting of the Olympic Games as a way to promote his ideology. According to The New York Times, “Hitler, who admired the powerful imagery of

Greek gods like Zeus, wanted his Games to promote his belief in Aryan supremacy” (“Hitler’s

Berlin Games”). Diaz’s icons have to be situated in the historical context of their historical use: as a means to promote racial hierarchy. Jennifer Hargreaves in Sporting Females: Critical Issues

94 in the History and Sociology of Women’s Sport explains: “There is a popular tendency to idealize the Olympics and to ignore that they have always been imbued with extreme expressions of male chauvinism and enduring examples of female subordination” (209). This celebration of the

Olympics works to idealize the games and what participation in them means for female athletes, especially Black female athletes.

In addition to the use of the Grecian iconography, Diaz’s illustrations continue the style throughout the depictions of the characters. The first page opens with Rudolph, as a baby, being held by her mother and surrounded by a large group of her loved ones (See Figure 2). Other than

Rudolph’s body, the majority of the page focuses on just the faces of the other characters. They are all Black characters, and their faces are all illustrated to look strikingly similar: sharp, flat noses, round lips, wide eyes, and smooth skin. Other than the gendered clothing that readers can see, the characters in the text seem to be denoted as asexual. Diaz draws few distinctions among their faces.

This stylized mode for drawing characters is one that Diaz has used in other of his illustrated texts, such as El Barrio. This stylization matches Diaz’s illustrative style and was not typical within texts about athletes during this time. For example, David Adler and Robert

Casilla’s A Picture Book of Jesse Owens (1992), Eloise Greenfield’s For the Love of the Game

(1999), and Jack Norwoth’s Take Me Out to the Ballgame (1999), some of the popular sports picturebooks published in the same decade, all depict athletes through more realistic illustrations.

It is particularly noticeable throughout Wilma Unlimited that Rudolph is depicted in this stylized

Grecian fashion, as she is the subject-of-story. Perry Nodelman in Words about Pictures: The

Narrative Art of Children’s Picture Books argues that a picturebook’s images ask readers to construct narrative meaning. He explains: “Reading a picture for narrative meaning is a matter of

95 applying our understanding of words [. . .]. [W]e are engaged in the act of turning visual information into verbal, even if we do not actually speak the words aloud” (211). While the illustrations in Wilma Unlimited may not speak words about Wilma, they nevertheless offer important narrative details about her and an overall message about how readers should view her.

Diaz depicts Rudolph as a young child with a Grecian style, and where Rudolph is shown to be an older, maturing and growing athlete, she also strikingly resembles this style. On one page, she is seen shooting a basketball into the hoop. Later, she is seen tying her shoes preparing for a big race, showing the progression of her participation in sports to when she discovered her talent as a runner. This section of the text illustrates her journey at the Olympics, showing Rudolph in the thick of her race, arms pumping and her legs taut from the strain of the race (See Figure 3).

Within illustrations, as Molly Bang notes, “diagonal lines give a feeling of movement or tension to the picture” (22). In this particular scene, the diagonal lines of Rudolph’s arms and legs show her in motion.

Rudolph’s body is the focus of one image of the race (See Figure 4). Most of the pages include both text and illustration, but this illustration spreads across two pages. It shows only

Rudolph running the relay race (Diaz). Rudolph is all the way to the right of the page, taking up the majority of the page on the right. She grabs the relay baton from her teammate. Almost indistinguishable from Rudolph, this other athlete is also a Black woman. Four of Rudolph’s opponents are shown on the left page, also exerting themselves to win this race. While there is a diversity of skin color among them, they are also illustrated to resemble Greek athletes. Their faces all look remarkably similar. The next page shows a closer-up image of Rudolph’s face as, eyes closed and head lifted, she struggles to maintain her position in front her opponents, that readers can see to the left of her, are directly on her heels (See Figure 5). The last page then

96 shows a close-up of Rudolph’s face (See Figure 7). This time, she is standing above two other runners, with a gold medal around her neck. Her face is again the central focus on this page.

Kathleen McElroy points out that, while many of the Olympic sports were mainly male athletes who traditionally were competing, track and field was one event where many Greek women did participate, although not in the same format as men (6). She explains: “The women of ancient Greece staged their own competitions, the Hera Games, at which young unmarried girls dressed in robes that bared one breast as they ran their one event, a 160-meter race” (6).

Beyond just ancient Greece, “women of the early twentieth century held Olympics of their own, designed by Alice Milliat, perhaps the greatest pioneer of women’s track and field” (McElroy 6).

Many sports do not have historical female athletes dating back to the Greek Olympics to draw upon. Track and field is one exception. It makes sense that Diaz might choose to illustrate the text in this style so as to evoke connotations to the Olympics – and the Olympics’ historical connections to Greece. The storyline centers around Rudolph’s success at the Olympics, and, furthermore, this sport is one in which women have actually been formally competing for about two millennia.

Diaz relies on readers having background knowledge of the Olympics in order to understand the use of his icons, and the illustrations invite readers to view Wilma Rudolph as the ideal athlete in that context. Through the depictions of Rudolph specifically, Diaz asks readers to picture Rudolph as one might think the “ideal” athlete would look: Greek, fair-skinned, with sharply defined, masculinized features. This assumption relies on past cultural ideas of a racial hierarchy that is based on the premise of a Greco-Roman athlete as both the ideal body and identity, much like the young women who participated in the Hera Games. Peggy Albers suggests: “The essence of attention is selective. How the artist chooses the focus of an

97 illustration plays a large part in the way she or he looks at and represents an image” (“Theorizing

Visual Representation” 177). Even more than how just Diaz himself views Black female athletes, these illustrations shed light on how the field of children’s literature views them.

As Michelle Martin in Brown Gold: Milestones of African-American Children’s Picture

Books, 1845-2002 explains, much of the presence of images of Black characters in books written for children can be exemplified by characters such as Little Black Sambo and the Black-a-Moor.

These figures were both caricatured in order to highlight their inferiority in comparison to white characters. While utilizing stylization rather than caricatures, Diaz follows a historical trend of reimagining Black characters’ identities. By reimagining her as a white Greek athlete, he reifies a racial hierarchy that assumes that white people are more skilled athletes, more capable of the dedication needed to achieve success in their respective sport. While Diaz’s illustrations work to honor Rudolph as an inspirational athlete, they do not ask readers to accept her as a strong, powerful, and dedicated Black woman. The illustrations immortalize Rudolph, like a Greek hero, through this style. Through this particular commemoration, Diaz remembers and honors a whitewashed and masculinized version of her.

While problematic, Diaz’s focus through the illustrations is not unique. In fact, it follows a trend of the American media reporting on Rudolph during the 1960s. Wilson found that the

American media also reported on Rudolph by focusing on only certain aspects of her identity. As

Wilson notes, “Stories about Rudolph in the white-dominated press rarely made explicit mention of race. The three articles on Rudolph that appeared in Sports Illustrated in 1960 were typical.

The word “black” appeared only in reference to the nicknames used by the European press. The word “Negro” never was used” (Wilson 213). He points out that this “journalistic narrative offered by the white press presented a sanitized, if not romanticized, version of Rudolph’s life”

98 (213). In fact, much of the portrayal of Rudolph and her family was as a “caricatures, albeit a sympathetic one, of southern blacks” (Wilson 213). American journalists were celebrating

Rudolph’s successes without ever substantially addressing the issues of racism that were plaguing American society during the 1960s—discrimination that made it even more difficult for

Rudolph to break through so many barriers.

The Denying of Rudolph’s Black Femininity

Diaz’s style certainly draws attention to Rudolph’s athletic ability rather than her identity as a Black American or a woman. Although the athletes are shown with varied shades of skin color, Diaz draws very little distinction among the characters otherwise. In some ways, this can be viewed as a positive attempt to equalize characters in the book, to focus on their abilities and successes rather than their physical appearance. The downplaying of gender identity is also consistent with harmful stereotypes about Black women. They are often seen as either masculine or less feminine. Diaz plays into the stereotype that assumes that, unless Black women are using their sexuality to trick white men, their gender and sexuality are irrelevant to their identities.

Diaz’s illustrations are problematic in light of the past representations of both how

Rudolph presented herself and how she was constructed by the contemporary media. Rudolph began competing in track in a time when white Americans began to become anxious about the shifting role of women. Wilson notes, her coach at TSU, was “an anomaly” because he was

“coach[ing] women and took women seriously” (212). He also recognized the push-back that many female athletes received. Society viewed them as giving up their femininity in order to participate in sports. In response, he (and his wife) often took on the role of “surrogate parents” to the female track runners, and “encouraged his athletes to act and dress in concert with

99 traditional gender mores” (212). Working to position the female athletes as clearly feminine in others’ eyes, his motto for the team was “ladies first, then Tigerbelles” (Wilson 212). The mentor-mentee relationship between Rudolph and her coach was a problematic one. Much of his guidance had more to do with conforming to white notions of femininity than gaining technical running skills. The mentorship regarding Rudolph’s appearance that she received from her coach certainly exemplifies the pressures that have historically and continue to be placed upon Black women both from white Americans and from their own communities to fit into Eurocentric standards of what it means to be a woman in America. While promoting Black female athletes’ agency over their own gender expression should be a goal of supporting Black women in sports, that freedom was not offered to Rudolph.

Choosing to represent a female athlete as indistinguishable from a male athlete, especially when the female athlete is Black, has significant implications. “Whereas white women are accepted and promoted within sports media only as sexual objects,” Martin notes, “black women have difficulty entering into the sporting world, as the few spots of celebration and visibility are those seen as sexually desirable, a process defined by whiteness” (Out of Bounds

211). Sports media coverage of white female athletes often focuses on their appearance, sexualizing their athleticism. Media coverage of Black female athletes tends to do the opposite, viewing them as not up to the standard of white female beauty. As Heinecken explains, “[B]lack females have been stereotyped as ‘naturally’ athletic and as lacking the attributes of heterosexual femininity” (83). For example, on The Bleacher Report’s list of the “25 Hottest Elite Female

Athletes,” the author includes Serena Williams as the only Black female athlete worthy of recognition for her appearance. The author qualifies that Williams “isn’t my cup of tea, but I do know that many find her stunningly attractive” (qtd. in Martin Out of Bounds). The author states

100 that there are some who inexplicably find her attractive. He attributes this to others’ fetishes rather than any natural beauty that Williams may possess.

This treatment of Williams is reflective of the ways in which Black women are frequently constructed in American media as the sexualized “other” that, as Martin explains,

“position[s] black women as sexual objects (women) and as the Other who is consistently conceived of as outside the bounds of whiteness” (212). “Allowed to be athletes yet denied femininity or womanhood, black women are situated on the outskirts of the dominant frames and discursive articulations of female athletes,” Martin asserts (Out of Bounds 212). Stereotypes about Black women in sports led Rudolph to follow the leadership of her coach to abide by white notions of femininity, as well as for Black sportswriters to contradict views of Black women as unfeminine. Jennifer Lansbury in A Spectacular Leap: Black Women Athletes in Twentieth-

Century America notes that “Black sportswriters in particular seemed concerned that black women track athletes develop a public identity to counter prevailing stereotypes” (45). Diaz’s illustrations of Rudolph in Wilma Unlimited follow this pattern of denying Black femininity by asexualizing his depictions of Rudolph. A societal valuing of women’s (particularly female athletes’) abilities over their physical appearance may seem to signal progress. Diaz’s illustrations also problematically follow the historical stereotyping of Black female athletes as not being able to fit into societal constructions of femininity, stereotyping that does not allow

Black women to express their identity without fear of discrimination.

Rudolph was forced to present herself according to a Eurocentric standard of femininity in order to be even marginally accepted in sports. The “forgetting” of this aspect of Wilma

Rudolph’s history plays into a narrative of historical and contemporary America where race supposedly does not matter and does not affect how athletes are able to participate in sports. This

101 reframing of her story facilitates a cultural memory that reimagines the role of race in Rudolph’s history as a Black female athlete. Similar to historical media coverage of Rudolph’s athletic success, Diaz minimizes her racial identity. Both the past and more contemporary portrayals of her affirm the same cultural memory: how she was racialized in society was not an important aspect of her lived experiences. As Martin notes, “… constructing a specific public memory requires planning and rhetorical strategy” (153). Krull and Diaz had to decide how to ask the next generation to remember Rudolph. They rely on contemporary cultural norms and utilize a rhetorical and visual strategy that asks readers to reimagine her identity.

Through the publication of biographical books about athletes, the texts’ creators and publishers are commodifying the athletes’ stories by viewing them and telling them as marketable narratives. Krull, Diaz, and the publisher, HMH Books for Young Readers, are profiting off of Rudolph’s success in order to sell a product (the text). Challenging an erasure of

Black identities and their experiences should be an important part of the product in the context of profiting off of Black athletes’ accomplishments. Especially in the context of the 1990s when

Black girl readers saw limited representations of Black athletes—whether male of female— in literature, Wilma Unlimited does accomplish this mission by sharing the biography of a successful Black woman whose story had yet to be told in children literature. In many ways, the text honors Rudolph. The publication of the text offered contemporaneous Black girl readers, and readers of all identities, the opportunity to see the stories of Black women in sports as valuable and worth telling. At the same time, the book reified racist and sexist stereotypes by reimagining her identity as a white, male Greek athlete.

102 The Quickest Kid in Clarksville

The Quickest Kid in Clarksville is written by white author Pat Zietlow Miller and illustrated by Black artist Frank Morrison. Published in 2016, 20 years after Wilma Unlimited, the picturebook also focuses on Wilma Rudolph’s athletic success. In this text, readers see her through the eyes of a young Black girl, Alta, as a hero. Rudolph is commemorated in different ways through the perspective of two different characters. The Olympian is returning to her hometown—Clarksville, Tennessee— which is also Alta’s hometown. Alta and her friends encounter Rudolph as the woman whom they view as their inspiration. Readers learn from the beginning of the story through both the illustrations and text how influential Rudolph is to the girls. The story begins with Alta and her friends running outside. Alta narrates: “I’m running in place, listening to my feet pound the pavement. Pretending I’m the fastest woman in the world.

Of course, Wilma Rudolph – who grew up right in this town – is faster than anyone. But I’m the quickest kid in Clarksville, Tennessee” (Zietlow Miller). Zietlow Miller’s narration is accompanied by an image by Morrison of a young Black girl who is running in place on the sidewalk (See Figure 7). Her slight frame is jumping in the air as her feet in her white sneakers show her action. Her fists are tightly clenched, accentuating her flexed biceps which stand out on her thin arms.

Thoughts of Rudolph’s accomplishments play a large role in Alta’s aspirations as the younger girl explains that she is “wondering what Wilma’s three Olympic gold medals would feel like hanging ‘round my neck” (Zietlow Miller). This text is accompanied by an image of

Alta and her two friends, Dee-Dee and Little Mo, standing on the street (See Figure 8). The girls’ attention is all directed upward, with a large image of the sun looming above their heads. The words “XVII Olympiad” are etched in the sun, highlighting the importance of Rudolph’s

103 Olympic feats in the minds of the three girls as that detail metaphorically and (in the image) literally is over them. When the character Charmaine enters into the story, readers see a different commemoration of Rudolph and how she became successful. She walks up to Alta, Dee-Dee, and Little Mo. After introducing themselves, Charmaine says: “‘Got me some new shoes’”

(Zietlow Miller). The image shows fancy new white and pink shoes on her feet (See Figure 9).

The brightness of her shoes sharply contrasts with the dark hue of the other girls’ shoes, as their shoes are obviously much older and more worn.

On next page, Morrison illustrates Charmaine’s shoes from behind, and they form the bulk of the image composition (See Figure 10). Alta, Dee-Dee and Little Mo are depicted in the background, behind the shoes, and their faces all reflect their amazement as they look at the shoes. Both Dee-Dee and Little Mo are sitting on the sidewalk, and one of the girls has her mouth open, and the other has a large bubble from her chewing gum frozen in front of her face.

Alta stands behind the other girls, and her eyes look sideways toward the shoes. In response to

Charmaine drawing attention to her new shoes, Alta narrates: “Boy-howdy, does she ever. Brand- new, only-been-worn-by-her shoes with stripes down the sides and laces so white they glow.

Shoes to strut in. Shoes to run in” (Zietlow Miller). Nodelman notes that it is significant in illustrations when objects are brought to the foreground and are larger than other objects on the page as “[t]he size of objects in relation to their background may imply relationships between characters and environment” (129). In this case, Morrison is demonstrating that all of the girls are envious of the shoes that Morrison is drawing readers’ attention to particularly on this page.

Declaring her admiration for Rudolph, Charmaine says: “‘These shoes are like

Wilma’s… My daddy went uptown to get ‘em” (Zietlow Miller). Alta’s understanding of

Rudolph differs from Charmaine’s. On the next page, the illustration shows the two girls

104 standing opposite each other, engaged in this conversation. “I bite my lip,” Alta narrates. “It’s ok. Wilma wore a leg brace and flour-sack dresses before she got big.” She tells Charmaine:

“‘Shoes don’t make you fast’” (Zietlow Miller). Alta’s statement reflects her understanding of

Rudolph’s success. She remembers the details that the famous athlete had been economically disadvantaged and would have lacked necessary sports equipment and gear. Zietlow Miller is explicitly addressing the challenges that many minority girls face in their participation in sports: inadequate equipment (such as shoes) to help them participate. Lack of resources is an obstacle that Rudolph faced in the mid-twentieth century and that racially minoritized women and girls, especially in low socio-economic areas, continue to face in contemporary times.

The challenge of not having necessary resources (shoes) is one of the main themes of the book. On the dust jacket of the book, the text description reads: “It doesn’t matter that Alta’s shoes have holes because Wilma came from hard times, too” (dust jacket). The narrative also explicitly calls out that the challenge in the text is when Charmaine comes into the picture to challenge Alta. It asks: “But what happens when a new girl with shiny new shoes comes along and challenges Alta to a race?” (dust jacket). Not only does Charmaine challenge her as the

“quickest kid in Clarksville” but she also challenges who Alta is drawing on for inspiration:

Wilma Rudolph. While Charmaine is thinking about Rudolph’s greatness as resulting from the opportunities and resources available to her, Alta draws on a more realistic memory.

The girls decide to race. As she runs, Alta’s shoes hit the ground, making the rhythm of

“Wil-ma Ru-dolph,” as Rudolph is symbolically inspiring Alta enough to keep her feet going during the race. Her accomplishments mean so much to Alta that her feet even beat to the rhythm of Rudolph’s name. Alta wins the first race, and Charmaine proposes a rematch. When

Charmaine is winning during the second race, Alta remembers that “Wilma’s come from behind

105 to win some of her races. And so will I” (Zietlow Miller). This detail is followed by a description of her feet beating on the pavement: “Wil-ma Ru-dolph. Wil-ma Ru-dolph” (Zietlow Miller).

Alta’s reflection is an acknowledgment of Rudolph’s challenges as an athlete. She faces a similar obstacle: a lost race. Alta falls on the pavement as her competitor pulls ahead, and Alta explains that she tripped because “My toe hurts. Probably ‘cause it’s poking out a brand-new hole”

(Zietlow Miller). She limps back home and shows her shoes to her mama, who expresses chagrin at the ruin of shoes that needed to last longer for Alta.

Moving ahead to “parade day” when Rudolph herself is returning to Clarksville, the story then focuses on the victory parade being held in Rudolph’s honor. In the “Author’s Note” at the end of the text, Zietlow Miller explains: “After Wilma’s victories, Clarksville wanted to honor her with a parade and a banquet. Wilma said she would not attend unless the events were integrated-open to everyone. When the organizers agreed to her request, Wilma’s celebrations were the first major events for blacks and whites in Clarksville history” (Zietlow Miller

“Author’s Note). The scene in the text is depicted as a rather significant event in the characters’

(and Rudolph’s) hometown, one where integration was beginning to happen. Though the girls, especially Alta and Charmaine are competitive throughout the story, they learn to work together to greet Rudolph when she returns to Clarksville. When Alta tries to run by herself downtown with a banner to greet Rudolph, she realizes that the task is too much for her alone, so she relies on her friends, including Charmaine, to help her get the banner downtown in time to greet their hero.

Alta realizes that she needs her friends as they are able to help one another in feeling confident. Throughout the illustrations up until this point, Morrison has depicted Alta on the left and Charmaine on the right (See Figure 11). This illustrative choice is a way to establish the

106 protagonist of the text. “We tend to empathize with a character on the left,” Nodelman points out

(129). “Because we look first at the left foreground,” Nodelman states, “we tend to place ourselves in that position and to identify with the objects or figures located there” (135).

Morrison’s positioning of Alta invites readers to associate most with her. Throughout the next few pages, Morrison also asks readers to empathize with Charmaine. Along with Alta’s recognition that they need to collaborate, the placement of the two girls’ images begins to alternate. One of the last scenes of the picturebook shows the girls standing on the sidewalk

(Figure 12). They are watching Rudolph drive by, holding their sign. Rudolph waves at them, and Alta narrates:“[t]hat makes Charmaine and me sashay like we own the sidewalk and everything on it. And maybe – just maybe – we do. Because we’re the quickest kids in

Clarksville, Tennessee” (Zietlow Miller). In contrast to how Rudolph is illustrated in Wilma

Unlimited, Morrison’s depiction of her is much more realistic. Emphasizing her femininity, the image shows her wearing all pink, holding a bouquet of pink roses. Rudolph is also wearing her

Olympic medals around her neck. Through this illustration, Morrison represents her similar to how she presented herself, as highly feminine. Morrison does not ask readers to see femininity and athleticism as mutually exclusive attributes. He puts Rudolph’s femininity on display and invites readers to see her as a woman who has achieved the highest levels of athletic success.

In Wilma Unlimited, Rudolph’s appearance and achievements are mentioned equally throughout the text. While the girls’ bodies are described in the text of The Quickest Kid in

Clarksville as moving throughout the story, the focus of the text is on the movement of their bodies, not the appearance of them. Zietlow Miller and Morrison do not rely on scientific racism to explain Rudolph or the other Black girls’ athleticism. Morrison does not perpetuate stereotypes about their abilities as athletes or how the build of their bodies lends them to be

107 better at certain sports. The creators’ choices defy the tradition of media and literature either prioritizing appearance and ability equally – or, just as frequently, prioritizing female athletes’ appearance over ability. Morrison allows the illustrations to speak for themselves, as readers see that the girls have muscles, yet readers are not continually encountering descriptions of whether or not the girls fit into a Eurocentric standard of beauty as athletes.

The illustrations of The Quickest Kid in Clarksville are strikingly different than those in

Wilma Unlimited. First, the style of the watercolor illustrations that Morrison uses is much more realistic than the style used by Diaz. Like Diaz, Morrison is a prolific illustrator of picturebooks.

Many of the texts that he has illustrated are books featuring African American characters. While he has utilized many different mediums, such as water color, pencils, and graffiti, none of his texts have illustrated Black characters through stylization. The majority of them resemble the illustrations in The Quickest Kid in Clarksville. As a Black illustrator, this choice seems significant in light of a history of Black Americans being depicted throughout media and literature with caricatures. Belonging to the same racial identity group that Rudolph belonged to perhaps has impacted how realistically Morrison has illustrated all of the Black characters in The

Quickest Kid in Clarksville. Morrison’s illustrative choices also reflect the progress occurring in the twenty years between Wilma Unlimited and The Quickest Kid in Clarksville.

Morrison more realistically depicts Black girls and women (including Rudolph) throughout the text. He also chooses to emphasize their movement. In conjunction with Zietlow

Miller’s text, the illustrations draw readers’ attention to the girls’ activity and not simply their appearances. The focus of many of Morrison’s illustrations is on the girls’ movements, whether they are walking, running, or jumping. On the page where Alta and Charmaine race, both of the girls’ legs show muscles, especially tensed calf muscles, and their arms are flexed as they pump

108 them to accelerate (See Figure 13). On the page where Alta celebrates her first victory, we see her quads and calves accentuated, muscles necessary to propel one to a fast speed (See Figure

14). The bodies of the girls are all fairly similar, with all of them having slender frames with muscles that become more prominent when they are running.

The physical appearance of the characters between Wilma Unlimited and The Quickest

Kid in Clarksville also represents a growth in the representations of Afrocentric beauty in mainstream children’s books. All of the Black women portrayed in Wilma Unlimited have appearances that have been white washed and masculinized and are almost indistinguishable from one another. In contrast, the girls in The Quickest Kid in Clarksville all have unique appearances. Each of the girls wears her hair in a different style, all appearing to be distinctly

Black hairstyles (See Figure 2.9). According to Wanda Brooks and Jonda McNair in “‘Combing’ through Representations of Black Girls’ Hair in African American Children’s Literature,” some of the hairstyles which Black girls in America frequently use that connect them to their African heritage include “cornrows, press and curls, afros, jheri curls, perms, braids, dreadlocks, and twists” (297). Alta has her hair in one long braid, and Charmaine has hers all in tight curls. While

Rudolph did have short hair as an adult athlete, as Diaz portrays her having in Wilma Unlimited, nowhere throughout the text do the illustrations represent any of the Black characters as having

Black hair styles. Brooks and McNair assert that books showing Black girls with African hairstyles encourage readers of racial and ethnic identities to be able to “question prevailing images and representations of beauty that can lead to a reification of normative European beauty standards” (305). In light of Brooks and McNair’s assertion, Morrison’s choice to represent the young Black characters in The Quickest Kid in Clarksville with Black hairstyles encourages

109 young Black female readers to see positive images of themselves and Afrocentric beauty, and invites readers of all racial identities to challenge the hegemonic Eurocentric beauty standards.

The written and visual narratives work together to invite readers to see Rudolph, a Black woman, as a model for young girls. Zietlow Miller is a white author and does not share the same racial identity as Rudolph. However, she emphasizes aspects of the girls’ identities that make

Rudolph an excellent source of inspiration for young Black girls. It is especially the added details that are told only through the illustrations that help to emphasize certain aspects of the narrative.

Morrison’s illustrations celebrate Afrocentric beauty and his focalization of Charmaine’s shoes, for example, help to make the lack of access to shoes needed to be a successful runner a major theme of the text. Through the writing and illustrations, The Quickest Kid in Clarksville more realistically depicts Rudolph and the young Black girls that she inspires.

Conclusion

Lawrence Sipe in “The Art of the Picturebook” explains: “Socio-politically, art always engages us in the tension of how the world is perceived and understood, and therefore how it can be changed” (246). Picturebooks have the potential to play a unique role in shaping how we perceive the world around us––and the ways that we work to make it a more equitable place— through the commemoration of important figures and events. Children’s literature scholar John

Stephens explains that the ideology found in picturebooks is an insightful glimpse into the beliefs found in the wider society. He argues:

What any given society assumes to be meaningful and valuable in the practices of

its social life, and the notions it accepts about how it is structured, about what

constitutes proper authority, and about what is a desirable individual selfhood, are

110 all aspects of social ideology. The literary fictions written within a society are

situated within or against those practices and notions, and books for children tend

to be firmly within the domain of cultural practices which exist for the purpose of

socializing children (“Picturebooks and Ideology” 48).

Picturebooks show readers not just what dominant ideologies exists in the period during which a text is created, but specifically what ideologies are seen as important that the next generation must know. These texts work to offer suggested perspective for how child readers can think about the past, present, and future.

Wilma Unlimited and The Quickest Kid in Clarksville both provide insights into cultural ideology and norms during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, respectively. The two texts tell readers much about the perceptions of Black female athletes during Rudolph’s career, as well as the periods during which the books were published. Wilma Unlimited reflects a growing acknowledgment during the 1990s of Black women as deserving of inclusion and respect in athletics. At the same time, it demonstrates the permeation of stereotypes in American culture that continued to marginalize Black women based on their race and gender. The textual and visual elements of Wilma Unlimited include problematic representations of gender and race in conjunction with sport. The Quickest Kid in Clarksville grapples with perceptions regarding the success of Black female athletes, and it also shows us how commemoration of Rudolph’s full identity can impact young girls (mainly Alta and eventually Charmaine.) While Rudolph’s identity is altered in Wilma Unlimited, Alta realistically remembers her hero, inviting readers to do the same.

Many contributions to the field of African American children’s literature occurred between the publication of the two books. With the work of scholars such as Rudine Sims

111 Bishop, Michelle Martin, Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, Jonda McNair, Wanda Brooks, Violet

Harris, and many others—as well as grassroots movements such as #WeNeedDiverseBooks,

#OwnVoices, and #1000BlackGirlBooks—African American children’s literature has continued to develop as a genre that challenges oppressive cultural norms that minimize or erase the successes of Black Americans. The scholarship has pointed out the need for cultural authenticity in African American children’s literature8 and the need for Black Americans to have the opportunities to write and publish about their own lived experiences. With two decades between the publication dates of Wilma Unlimited and The Quickest Kid in Clarksville, the books reflect the ways in which the publishing industry, and American culture, have progressed in telling stories about Black women’s experiences and allowing those stories to recognize Black women’s racial and gender identities.

Wilma Unlimited was a groundbreaking text and, for many Black girls, is an inspirational story. Yet, as my work with the Title IX Story Club participants demonstrated, some Black girls see the depictions in the text as inaccurate or negative portrayals of what it means to be a female athlete. Wilma Unlimited reinforces certain mainstream narratives about Black female athletes, aspects that The Quickest Kid in Clarksville challenges. The former text is a significant contribution to the body of children’s literature. It centralizes the story of a Black female athlete, whose accomplishments had previously gone untold within children’s literature—and in era when most Black American athletes stories were not frequently included. The latter text is an important addition in that it breaks away from stereotypical constructions of a Black female

8 Although there is no universal or monolithic understanding within the scholarship of what “cultural authenticity” means. 112 athlete by celebrating Black girls in sports without whitewashing or masculinizing their identities.

In his text A Literature of Questions: Nonfiction for the Critical Child, Joe Sutcliff

Sanders suggests that, while “children’s nonfiction has long been considered a literature of answers,” that perhaps scholars could instead emphasize the genre’s potential to invite critical engagement. He asserts: “We can ask more of our nonfiction than authority. We can ask for a literature of questions” (45). As was the case when the Title IX Story Club read Wilma

Unlimited, the sharing of Wilma Unlimited and The Quickest Kid in Clarksville with young readers can allow for students to engage in critical inquiry around the history of perceptions of

Black female athletes. It can also invite them to analyze the ways in which the current state of athletics is or is not more equitable for Black female athletes.

On a panel focusing on the complexity of creating non-fiction texts, Black illustrator

Gregory Christie shed light on the challenges children’s book creators face with this particular genre. He aptly asserts that, in order to depict figures and events in non-fiction texts responsibly, creators need to “put [their] own human element into it,” while “honoring truth” (Burnett). When a part of the majority group in America, white authors and illustrators’ “human element” will often be shaped by a tendency to rely on the dominant cultural narratives about Black

Americans. The details that authors and illustrators choose to remember and choose to forgot in partial biographies will often reflect those current cultural attitudes and norms. In this case, examining Wilma Unlimited and The Quickest Kid in Clarksville highlight a shift in cultural attitudes and signal progress within children’s literature of the valuing of the stories of Black female athletes, such as Wilma Rudolph.

113 Chapter 3: “Dress[ing] up in White” to Play Tennis: The Racism, Sexism, and Classism of the

Representations of Althea Gibson in Nothing but Trouble and Playing to Win

“I hope that I have accomplished just one thing: that I have been a credit to tennis and my country.” – Althea Gibson

African American9 female tennis player Althea Gibson set out to dominate in the world of tennis. She succeeded. As Gibson realized in her tennis career and many Black female athletes continue to discover, she would have to overcome many more obstacles than other athletes because of her race, gender, and class. In spite of her groundbreaking career in tennis as both an

African American and female tennis player, Gibson has often been denied accolades that others have received. In March of 2018, the United States Tennis Association announced that they would be honoring Gibson by erecting a statue of her at the Billie Jean King National Tennis

Center in Queens, New York. Female tennis legend Billie Jean King herself had given a presentation to the USTA arguing why they should build the statue. Noting the lack of recognition of Gibson’s immense contributions in tennis, King asserted: “She’s the Jackie

Robinson of tennis and she needs to be appreciated for it, and she’s not” (The Undefeated). The

United States Tennis Association’s president Katrina Adams, the first Black president of the organization, explained that this statue represents a recognition that Gibson “broke the color barrier for tennis,” a barrier which, Adams notes, many people attribute to Arthur Ashe. Gibson competed, effectively breaking down barriers for other Black athletes, 11 years before Ashe’s career commenced (The Undefeated).

9 In this chapter, I refer to Althea Gibson as “African American” as this is how I have found that she has identified herself. However, I also refer more generally to “Black athletes”, a term which encompasses more than those who have African heritage. 114 In this chapter, I analyze the depictions of the historically under-appreciated and under- represented Althea Gibson in two different picturebooks: Nothing but Trouble: The Story of

Althea Gibson and Playing to Win: The Story of Althea Gibson. I unpack how Gibson is portrayed as being a “wild” child, who needs training in civility in order to be able to compete in sports. I situate my analysis within the larger context of the stereotyping of Black Americans, in both literature and the wider public discourse, as naturally deviant criminals, arguing that such stereotypes have both historically existed and continue to exist as white America’s rationalization for committing atrocities against Black Americans. In fact, a dehumanizing portrayal of Black Americans as deviant and wild have been pervasive in children’s literature, historically and currently. As such, the institution of children’s literature has upheld white supremacy. White authors and illustrators of American children’s texts have, for centuries, depicted Black characters as inferior to white Americans. Thus, children’s literature has participated in upholding racism and perpetuating stereotypes. The picturebooks about Gibson reflect dominant attitudes of white Americans who perceive Black characters as somehow more deviant than other white characters.

First, I argue that Nothing but Trouble portrays a young Gibson as a child who is naturally “wild” — as she is specifically referred to throughout the text. Through the visual and textual narrative, the creators of the book offer the message to child readers that Gibson benefited from learning to tame down the wildness, as well as suggesting that it is was only in this context that Gibson was able to succeed as an athlete. In the second half of the chapter, I turn my attention to Playing to Win, which also utilizes problematic terminology, describing Gibson as “wild.” In contrast to Nothing but Trouble, though, Playing to Win attributes her wildness to

115 her family’s socio-economic status in America and the fact that they lived in a crime-filled urban neighborhood, Harlem.

Ultimately, to one degree or another, both texts draw on stereotypes of Black Americans as criminals. Nothing but Trouble is more explicitly racialized in the stereotype. The two texts’ depiction of Gibson as “wild” as well as their different explanations for why she is represented in this manner reveal the multifarious ways in which many Black women face stereotypes based on their gender, race, and class in American society. Nothing but Trouble works to more complexly understand why Gibson was perceived as wild. At the same time, it blames her hometown of

Harlem as being culpable for under-preparing her as a future athlete. It ignores the significant ways that she found support within her local community and demonstrates a dominant perception of Black communities as not supporting children. This chapter discusses the parallels between the two picturebooks about Gibson and the narratives about Serena Williams around the time that they were released.

The Criminalization of Black Characters in Children’s Literature

Texts published during the era of slavery and for centuries afterward possessed an unmistakable condescension at best and hatred at worst for Black Americans. In her analysis of children’s literature published between 1827 and 1967, Dorothy Broderick found that “what the white readers primarily learned from these particular books is that blacks are lower creatures and in need of the superior white’s care, so white people should be nice to black people and treat them with kindness” (The Image of the Black in Children’s Fiction 8). Drawing a metaphor to how many people feel responsibility to care for animals, Broderick argues that white authors were working to rationalize why white Americans had enslaved and oppressed Black Americans.

116 Post-bellum authors, whether Northerners or Southerners, much like their predecessors, also justified social inequities against Black Americans by stereotyping them in all forms of media as morally, emotionally, and cognitively deficient. As discussed in the previous chapter, pseudoscientific beliefs were frequently used to point to the supposed existence of biological racial differences. Perceptions of a biological difference also included notions of a racial hierarchy with Black Americans always being categorized below white Americans. Donnarae

MacCann in White Supremacy in Children’s Literature argues: “Legal emancipation was neutralized in public consciousness by racist tale-telling” (xiii). When authors portrayed characters as lacking any semblance of a work ethic in a Black character, they were suggesting that “it was this laziness that deprived him of the gifts God planned to give him and opened the door for the white man to claim him” (13). The representations attempted to justify white

Americans’ enslavement of Africans. Paula Connolly in Slavery in American Children’s

Literature, 1790-2010, notes: “Children’s literature from the end of the Civil War through the turn of the century reveals the ways in which the first generations of authors living in postslavery

America re-presented slavery as a way of explaining the past, interpreting the present, and reimagining the nation’s racialized future” (92). Authors and illustrators of texts for children often portrayed those who had been kidnapped, enslaved, and beaten as the beneficiaries of the white slave-owners’ kindness in the past. They also worked to show what might be possible for the future. Those possibilities, of course, did not include Black Americans existing on the same mental or moral level with white Americans.

As a whole, Broderick argues, the depiction of Black characters particularly in children’s texts at this time “represents clearly what the white establishment wished white children to know about Black people” (6). White authors and illustrators wanted the next generation to believe that

117 continued domination was necessary and justified. White creators of children’s texts defended oppression with the assumption of inherent inferiority that made white Americans responsible for guiding and leading Black Americans. Views that Black Americans were somehow less moral or intelligent led to continued oppression in America and worked to justify the discrimination. The

U.S. government suppressed the rights of Black Americans in many ways, such as through the creation of the Jim Crow laws, which as Connolly argues, “nullified earlier-passed amendments” which might have been emancipatory.

The view of Black Americans as morally deficient has also continued to perpetuate widespread beliefs that Black Americans are criminalized — and incarcerated—in society as a result of their moral deficiency. Notions of Black Americans as more criminal than white

Americans has been proven to be untrue. Michael Harriot in his article for The Root notes that white Americans actually commit more crimes. “While white women might clutch their purses when they encounter a black man in a dark parking lot,” Harriot states, “in comparison with the black population, whites commit more than twice the number of rapes, aggravated assaults, burglaries, larcenies, arsons, frauds, sex offenses, embezzlement, disorderly conduct and drug abuse violations, according to FBI numbers” (“Unprotected, Undeserved”). White Americans are responsible for more infractions of the law than Black Americans; yet, with a focus on “Black- on-Black crime” in American media dialogue, Black Americans continue to be positioned as innately more devious.

The Criminalization of Black Male Athletes

In 2015, President Barack Obama, responded to a public outrage that had erupted in

Baltimore, Maryland, when the young Black teenage boy, Freddie Gray, died while in police

118 custody. Obama characterized the protests as being caused by “criminals and thugs.” The utilization of the president’s terms evoked responses from Americans, both from those who agreed with his assessment and from those who denounced the terms as coded racism. Calvin

John Smiley and David Fakunle in their article “From ‘Brute’ to ‘Thug:’ The Demonization and

Criminalization of Unarmed Black Male Victims in America” explain the problematic nature of using the word “thug” when describing Black Americans. They assert: “Over the last several years, the term ‘thug’ has become a way to describe Black males who reject or do not rise to the standard of White America” (351). This term, Smiley and Fauknle point out, is used to replace other language such as the term “nigger” used to deprecate Black Americans. They note that the term “thug” has been used as “coded language [. . .] as a substitute for personally mediated racism” (351). Even President Obama, who drew upon this term to condemn the protestors, has himself often been the target of this coded racialized language, as political opponents have frequently referred to him as a “political thug” (Smiley & Fauknle 351). The use of the word

“thug” has worked to rationalize the stereotyping, discrimination, and even murder of Black

Americans. In the minds of many white people, if Black Americans are perceived as “thugs,” then perhaps their criminality has rendered them deserving of such treatment.

The use of the term “thug” specifically appears often in media depictions of Black athletes. For example, following a win against the San Francisco 49ers in 2014, the Seattle

Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman, in an interview with Fox Sports’ Erin Andrews, began talking negatively about the 49ers receiver Michael Crabtree, declaring himself the best player in his position within the league. Fired up after the game, according to Ben Eagle of Sports

Illustrated, Sherman stated: “Well, I’m the best corner in the game! When you try me with a sorry receiver like Crabtree, that’s the result you gonna get!” (Eagle). In an interview with the

119 media following this speech, Sherman apologized. He also noted his disappointment with how some were referring to him by the term “thug” for his competitiveness. This response was rampant enough in the media that, according to Deadspin, in the day following his interview, the word “thug” was used 625 times on American television, the most that it had been spoken on television in the prior three years.

In a piece Sherman penned for Sports Illustrated, he recalled his perception of the interview. “It was loud, it was in the moment, and it was just a small part of the person I am. I don’t want to be a villain, because I’m not a villainous person. When I say I’m the best cornerback in football, it’s with a caveat: There isn’t a great defensive backfield in the NFL that doesn’t have a great front seven” (“Call Me a Thug or Worse”). While discussing in another interview his frustration with being repeatedly called a “thug” so widely throughout the media,

Sherman explained: “The reason it bothers me is because it seems like it’s an accepted way of calling somebody the N-word now” (“Richard Sherman”). Furthermore, he added: “What’s the definition of a thug? Really? Can a guy on a football field just talking to people [be a thug?] …

There was a hockey game where they didn’t even play hockey! [. . .] They just threw the puck aside and started fighting. I saw that and said, ‘Ah, man, I’m the thug? What’s going on here?”

(CBS Sports). While athletes in other sports, such as hockey (traditionally a sport with more white players), may be allowed to engage in violent behavior without condemnation, Black athletes simply have to “lose their cool” for a moment to be criminalized as a “thug” by the media.

Buttressing Sherman’s claim, in his article “Jumping the Gun: Sporting Cultures and the

Criminalization of Black Masculinity,” David J. Leonard discusses how dialogue in mainstream

American media frequently focuses on the criminality Black athletes are supposedly allowed to

120 get away with because of their fame as sports figures, specifically regarding their criminal use of guns. Due to the prominence of Black athletes in sports such as the NBA, many white Americans stereotype athletes as criminals without acknowledging the racial undertones of their attitudes.

White people make generalizations about “athletes” without stating that the underlying categorization they are making is against “Black people.” In response to widespread attitudes that Black athletes are dealt with leniently because of their fame gained through the sport,

Leonard argues: “The idea that black athletes are not held responsible or accountable for the minor transgressions, much less arrests, is laughable” (256). The opposite is often true. He notes:

“[T]he focus on sending a message to black youth reflects a broader racial reality within the

United States. The promotion of zero tolerance policies and the efforts to “teach” black through various forms of punishment are not unique to Arenas or the NBA, but central to the history of race within the United States” (256).

Katheryn K. Russell, analyzing the portrayal of Black Americans as criminals in her text

The Color of Crime: Racial Hoaxes, Black Protectionism, Police Harassment, and Other

Microagressions, asserts, at best, Black characters are sometimes depicted as amoral. More often than not, they are perceived as highly dangerous criminals. She points to prolific law enforcement television shows to exemplify the focus on Black Americans who commit crimes.

She explains: “[. . .] [O]n the shows Cops, Final Justice, and Highway Patrol, Black suspects are commonly videotaped cursing at law-enforcement officials and otherwise disrespecting the law.

[. . .] Shows such as these make it hard to believe that Black criminals represent a tiny fraction of the overall Black population” (2). Russell concludes: “Images of everyday Black life are overridden by images of Black deviance” (3). The representation of Black citizens in the media,

121 she says, are “contradictory.” They are both presented as oftentimes successful (albeit limited in the avenues in which they can be successful) yet deviant.

The result is often a perception of Black citizens as significantly more equal in society than they are while also being more deviant—and less deserving—of that success. White

Americans frequently rely on examples of Black citizens who have triumphed in society to argue that society offers equal opportunities to all. When they witness areas where Black Americans are underrepresented, they assume it is because of those individuals’ moral failings. When white

American do notice inequities, instead of becoming enlightened to the ways in which Black

Americans are oppressed, their observations only reaffirm the notions of themselves as morally superior. Perhaps if Black Americans were “better people,” they too would be more deserving of the same levels of success that white Americans experience. Many white Americans ignore societal injustices and justify them through believing the victims of oppression to be criminals.

The Criminalization of Black Female Athletes

The criminalization of Black Americans affects both male and female athletes.

Movements such as #SayHerName, a campaign launched in 2015 by the African American

Policy Forum, have drawn attention to the fact that some Black women and girls are victims of police brutality. Media in America tends to focus more on the stories of Black men and boys who have suffered and died at the hands of law enforcement. As the name suggests, #SayHerName emphasizes the importance of viewing how Black women’s dual marginalization in society has meant that their experiences have received less attention. The campaign aims to “[offer] a resource to help ensure that Black women’s stories are integrated into demands for justice, policy responds to police violence, and media representations of victims of police brutality” (AAPF).

122 Kimberle Crenshaw, the co-founder and executive director of the African American

Policy Forum, argues: “[I]nclusion of Black women’s experiences in social movements, media narratives, and policy demands around policing and police brutality is critical to effectively combating racialized state violence for Black communities and other communities of color”

(AAPF). Similarly, Andrea Ritchie explains in Invisible No More: Police Violence against Black

Women and Women of Color that “Black women, long the backbone of efforts to resist state violence, are insisting that we will no longer only play the role of aggrieved mother, girlfriend, partner, sister, daughter or invisible organizer, and demanding recognition that we, too, are the targets of police violence” (2). Speaking up and creating movements, such as #SayHerName,

Black women are calling attention to the distinct ways in which many Black women and girls are marginalized and over-policed in society.

Like some adult Black women, some Black girls also find themselves over-policed in society based on stereotypes of them as deviant. For example, the Georgetown Law Center on

Poverty and Inequality found that adults carry many stereotypes about Black girls, including perceptions of them as needing less nurturing and knowing more about adult topics than white girls. These views lead to “black girls [being] consistently disciplined more harshly than white girls” (Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality). For some Black girls, harsh treatment follows them in every arena of their lives, including schools. In her analysis of the criminalization of girls in schools in Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools,

Monique Morris asserts:

Though media and advocacy efforts have largely focuses on the extreme and

intolerable abuse cases involving Black boys [. . .] a growing number of cases

involving Black girls have surfaced to reveal what many of us have known for

123 centuries: Black girls are directly impacted by criminalizing policies and practices

that render them vulnerable to abuse, exploitation, dehumanization, and, under the

worst circumstances, death (1-2).

The misunderstanding and mistreatment of Black girls, Morris finds, has resulted in many of them feeling pushed out of educational spaces, spaces in which they should feel safe to learn and grow. As Gholnecsar E. Muhammad and Marcelle Haddix argue, “In light of the current and ongoing assaults on Black girls and the damaging instructional practices in and outside of schools across the nation, literacy educators must understand a more complete vision of the identities girls create for themselves, and the literacies and practices needed to best teach them”

(“Centering Black Girls Literacies” 301). Specifically, in the context of sports, more research is needed to show how these stereotypes about Black girls are affecting their experiences in sports.

Nothing but Trouble: The Story of Althea Gibson

Representations of Black athletes as innately criminal are prevalent even in books for the youngest readers. One example is Sue Stauffacher and Greg Couch’s picturebook Nothing but

Trouble: The Story of Althea Gibson. Published in 2007, the text focuses on telling the story of the famed athletes’ success in tennis. When the picturebook was published, it earned multiple accolades, such as being included on Oprah’s Book Club Kids Reading List Selection. White

American author Sue Stauffacher has penned multiple other books for children that include diverse characters. She is well-known for her text Bessie Smith and the Night Riders, a picturebook that centers around the Black female singer Bessie Smith. Stauffacher has shown her dedication to creating books that are aimed at empowering Black girls specifically. Illustrator

Greg Couch is also creating a text that tells of a figure different from his own racial identity as a

124 white American. Although neither creator of the text is themselves Black, the product of their combined text and illustrations won the 2008 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Children’s

Literature.

As the title of the book reflects, a main theme that weaves through the story is others’ negative perceptions of Gibson as an African American female athlete: that she was nothing but trouble because of her lack of desire to fit into society. The back matter of the text further highlights this theme. It reads: “Althea Gibson is nothing but trouble! Everyone says so. But

Althea knows she’s going to be somebody someday-somebody big” (back matter). Before readers ever open to the first page of the book, the peritext highlights this central aspect of the story. From the first interactions that the reader might have with Nothing but Trouble, Stauffacher and Couch portray Gibson as being seen by everyone around her as morally deficient, which the text specifically refers to as being “wild.”

The theme of Gibson’s wildness then continues on all throughout the intratext. The first page reads: “Althea Gibson was the tallest, wildest tomboy in the history of Harlem. Everybody said so.” This description of her is accompanied by an illustration, a painting, of her in grayscale

(See Figure 15). Gibson is depicted in a photograph, one of many featured across the page, although this one is the only one where the image is centered enough on the page to fully view it.

The utilization of this technique of starting the text with illustrated photographs works to authenticate this text by asking readers to feel as though they are looking at original images of

Gibson. On this page, Couch’s design of the image of Gibson is in grayscale, further adding to the photographic effect of the illustration.

Although Couch depicts Gibson this way, he also illustrates around her a myriad of other colors swirled around the top half of her body. Mainly red, blue, and yellow, the colors are all

125 bright and stand out on the page which is otherwise muted in color. The sweeping lines help to give a sense of motion to the illustration, complementing the textual explanation that Gibson was active and wild. This particular style is one that Couch had previously utilized in other of his works, including the 2003 picturebook Wild Child, written by Lynn Plourde. In this picturebook,

Couch illustrates Mother Earth’s child, who is considered quite wild, and he utilizes bright, fiery colors as a way to accentuate the activity levels of the child. In a review of Nothing but Trouble,

Publishers Weekly praises this element of Couch’s paintings, explaining, “In one of the most interesting elements in his consistently stunning compositions, a delicate but dynamic rainbow aura swirls around Althea wherever she goes; it's a sharp evocation of her spirited and appealingly prickly personality” (Publishers Weekly). As Publishers Weekly notes, the utilization of these colors is one of the most striking elements of the illustrations and effectively signals to readers that Gibson, like the child in Wild Child, has a wild nature.

On the pages that directly follow the opening introduction, Couch’s illustration includes four other photograph-style paintings (See Figure 16). Couch’s artistic medium invites readers to further see the text as non-fiction as the painted photographs offer artifacts to readers of Gibson’s history. One of the photographs is of Gibson with her mother, another is with her father, another is with her class and teacher, and a third is with a policeman. Each are positioned next to text that further portrays Gibson as wild. Stauffacher quotes her mother, father, teacher, and the policeman as all agreeing on Gibson’s troublesomeness. Her mother says: “Just give that child a nickel for a loaf of bread and see what happens. Soon as she catches sight of those boys playing stickball, my bread is gone” (Stauffacher). “That girl stays out so late playing basketball, she doesn’t even come home some nights,” her father says (Stauffacher). These two quotes suggest that her parents regard her as undependable because she cannot control her impulses to go run and play.

126 The conceptualization of Black women and girls as wild has historical roots in society as a dehumanizing view that keeps Black women trapped within societal expectations. Nikki Jones in her text Between Good and Ghetto: African American Girls and Inner-City Violence, points out that girls are expected to be “good” and that “‘good girls’ do not look or act like men or boys.

Good girls do not run wild in the streets; instead, they spend the majority of their time in controlled settings: family, school, home, or church” (48). Black girls who might engage in activities that are traditionally considered masculine have historically been cast as wild, deviant, and troublesome. By choosing to conceptualize Gibson this way, Stauffacher and Couch are following a historical trend of stifling possibilities for Black women’s identities.

Stauffacher’s research into Gibson’s life uncovered details about how Gibson’s early life and those perceptions of her as wild. In an interview with NPR, Stauffacher discusses the fact that one of the main things that drew her to Gibson’s story is the fact that Gibson had so much

“anger and energy” (“‘Nothing but Trouble’”). The quotes that follow from Gibson’s teacher and the policeman then extend this construction of Gibson as “wild” from just being undependable to downright deviant. Her teacher describes that “half the time [Gibson] doesn’t even return from recess. I’d see a lot more of Althea if I taught lessons on the playground” (Stauffacher). The policeman is then quoted, saying “She’s a fast runner, all right, but you can’t make a sport out of nickin’ sweet potatoes. That’s against the law” (Stauffacher). These statements from both her teacher and the policeman construct Gibson as not just lacking in impulse control, but as having a desire to break the rules, including by stealing. Gibson was a rambunctious child, but the way that she remembered herself as a child was different than how she is conceptualized here. In the biography Born to Win: The Authorized Biography of Althea Gibson, Gibson recalls: “I just wanted to play, play, play. My mother would send me out with money for bread, and I’d be out

127 from morning to dark—and not bring home the bread. I had fun, fun, fun” (qtd in Gray & Lamb

2). She recalls herself being full of activity and desire to find enjoyment in life. Gibson’s description of herself sharply contrasts with Nothing but Trouble’s portrayal of her as innately deviant.

The next page recaps the previous descriptions: “They all said: Althea Gibson, you’re nothing but trouble” (Stauffacher). This detail about how Gibson is viewed by those around her is accompanied by an image of Gibson on the page on the right (See Figure 17). Colorful swirls surrounding her suggest motion. On the left side of the page is a man and a woman, standing together, presumably discussing how troublesome Gibson is, as well as a policeman standing in the distance. This page again accentuates that Gibson needed not only monitoring by adults but also surveillance from law enforcement because of her deviance. As Morris argues, a view of

Black girls as naturally deviant has resulted in “an increasing number of girls in contact with the criminal and juvenile justice systems” (2). Consequently, the view of Black girls as presented in

Nothing but Trouble positions Black girls as criminals in society, needing constant monitoring.

After establishing this aspect of Gibson’s personality, the text then foreshadows the fact that Gibson would succeed in spite of this start to her athletic career. Couch depicts her walking along a street, bat slung over her shoulder (See Figure 18). She is again accompanied by the swirl of bright colors, and in the background are posters, the most focalized of which is a promotional poster for a fight between the Black boxer Sugar Ray Robinson and Harry La Barba.

In the text, Stauffacher explains: “Althea didn’t care what they said. She knew she would be somebody someday. Somebody big, like Charlie Parker or Sugar Ray. In the meantime, just one thing to care about in this world: The Game” (Stauffacher). The next page depicts Gibson

128 engaged in different athletics (See Figure 19). Within four images on the page, Gibson is waving a bat, waving a paddle, dunking a basketball, and throwing a baseball.

One momentous occasion for Gibson in the text comes when Couch depicts her running through a street, being followed by multiple boys (See Figure 20). A man is seen in the foreground watching her. The text introduces this character as Buddy Walker. “Buddy Walker was the play leader down on 143rd Street, where Althea lived,” Stauffacher writes (Stauffacher).

Explaining Walker’s perception of Gibson, Stauffacher notes: “When Buddy watched Althea play paddle tennis, he didn’t see ‘nothing but trouble.’ No, sir, except maybe for the poor rubber ball. What he saw in Althea was pure possibility” (Stauffacher). Stauffacher does not refute a perception of Gibson as wild and deviant; she instead describes someone who was generous enough to look past that aspect of Gibson’s character. Walker was able to provide the tennis player with a racket and set up an opportunity for her to compete. Stauffacher again emphasizes

Walker’s ability to look past Gibson’s wildness: “As Althea covered the court, Buddy forgot all about the wild tomboy who roamed the streets of Harlem” (Stauffacher).

In the illustration that accompanies this scene, Couch depicts Gibson hitting a tennis ball with her racket (See Figure 21). Walker intently watches as she plays. Bright colors around her span the width of two pages, highlighting the strength of her swing. The text narrates that

“[w]hat Buddy saw was music in the way she moved” and that the others around her also saw this when watching her play. Walker introduces Gibson to Juan Serrell. He was a member of the

Cosmopolitan, the most prestigious tennis club in Harlem. At the time, this tennis club was one of the only owned by a Black American. Walker and Serrell convince members of the club to assist with the payments. Gibson is able to play at the Cosmopolitan where she receives private lessons with the tennis pro Fred Johnson. Stauffacher explains: “Fred tried to improve Althea’s

129 ways, on and off the court” (Stauffacher). The lessons off the court turn out to be much more difficult than the ones on it. “Althea loved playing a new game on a big fancy court, [but] didn’t like being told how to act” (Stauffacher). Stauffacher quotes Gibson complaining about these lessons. Gibson says: “’Never said I wanted to be a fine lady’” (Stauffacher).

This disconnect between Gibson’s personality and others’ expectations for her arises on the next page. The text reads: “Unfortunately for [Gibson], the members of the Cosmopolitan didn’t like her wild ways either. They shook their heads and whispered. Nothing but trouble, that one” (Stauffacher). A member of the tennis club, a woman named Mrs. Rhoda Smith, tries to mentor her in learning not just tennis but behaviors. “[Smith] made time to play regularly with

Althea and to instruct her in the polite rules of the sport,” Stauffacher notes. Smith instructs

Gibson on how to treat other people appropriately. Smith tells Gibson: “Now, Althea, when a loose ball rolls onto the court, you don’t just bat it out of the way in any old direction. You send it back to the player it belongs to” (Stauffacher). This portion of the narrative suggests that

Gibson was ignorant of these expected behaviors of politeness. Gibson resists learning the behaviors as she again complains: “Can’t we just play tennis?” (Stauffacher).

Gibson is portrayed as being resistant to learning these behaviors, and her need for mentors resurfaces multiple times. Many scenes throughout the book show Gibson’s temper as being her main barrier to learning tennis. One page shows Walker standing behind Gibson appearing to encourage her while Gibson is depicted with bright red and blue swirls around her.

She is standing with her eyes downcast and her arms crossed to show her hostility toward the instructions. Stauffacher narrates that Gibson has thrown her tennis racket on the ground, as she exclaims: “‘I don’t fit with these rich society folks. I’d rather punch somebody’s lights out at

Stillman’s Gym’” (Stauffacher).

130

Gibson Learns to “Dress up in White”

Gibson’s temper again causes problems when she plays her first tennis tournament and loses. The text quotes her opponent, Nana Davis, berating Gibson as she says: “‘[Gibson] headed straight to the grandstand without bothering to shake my hand. Some kid had been laughing at her and she was going to throw him out. I tell you, Althea Gibson is nothing but trouble’”

(Stauffacher). Although this main conflict permeates the narrative, the resolution includes Gibson learning to change her personality. Alongside an illustration of Gibson dressed in a white tennis outfit swinging a tennis racket (See Figure 22), the text narrates: “It took time, a good long time, but slowly Althea learned that wanting to slug her opponent as soon as she started losing her match made her a worse tennis player than if she kept her cool” (Stauffacher). “With Buddy’s help,” Stauffacher writes, “Althea realized she could dress up in white and act like a lady, and still beat the liver and lights out of the ball.” This positioning of the story’s resolution highlights the importance in Gibson learning both to play tennis and to behave as she was expected to as a

“lady.”

By the end of the story, Gibson is the one to conform to expectations rather than others realizing their racist and sexist perceptions of her. Stauffacher writes: “Tennis changed Althea, all right. But just as importantly… Althea changed tennis” (Stauffacher). This difference in Althea is symbolized multiple ways through both the text and illustrations. The textual narrative explicitly demonstrates that Gibson learns to act more according to societal expectations. The visual narrative also showcases her transformation. Couch utilizes shifting colors throughout the book to symbolize the changes in her. While a young Gibson is surrounded in swirls of colors from the very first page, the colors change throughout the story. They begin as very bright and deep

131 colors, mainly reds and blues. By the end of the story, Couch begins to use lighter hues, concluding with the last page where Gibson is depicted in a light yellow dress and she is surrounded by light shades of pastels (See Figure 23). The transformation of these colors parallels Gibson’s transformation. She has gone from being a wild child who is “nothing but trouble” to a “true lady.”

The story’s message is clear: Gibson would not have been able to succeed as an athlete if she had not simultaneously succeeded in making herself fit into the conventions of white middle- class femininity. Perhaps she would not have succeeded if she had not transformed herself.

Pressures to fit into hegemonic ideals of what it means to be a woman, ideals that draw on both sexism and racism, often surround Black women’s experiences. Pointing out these pressures in a children’s text is not necessarily problematic. Depicting the discrimination that Black women face is not necessarily problematic. However, Stauffacher and Couch uncritically represent

Gibson’s transformation as a positive one, one that meant that Gibson was able to be both a better tennis player and better person without first establishing that she was already a fully acceptable person. The resolution of the text is not Gibson overcoming barriers caused by racism and sexism to succeed as an athlete. The conflict is resolved when Gibson learns to stifle her emotions and use expected politeness. In her NPR interview, Stauffacher is asked how she decided to talk about the racism that Gibson experienced in her athletic career. Stauffacher responds: “The book itself does not really discuss racism” (“‘Nothing but Trouble’”).

Stauffacher explains that, instead, she wanted to focus on the fact that Gibson was mentored in order to be able to succeed. Nothing but Trouble intricately ties Gibson’s athletic achievements to her success as a “lady,” without, as Stauffacher herself acknowledges, a mention of how those

132 pressures to change were racialized. This move in the text is a problematic connection that withholds respect from Black women until they conform to racial and gender expectations.

Although Stauffacher and Couch depict Gibson as moving beyond negative perceptions as “nothing but trouble” in order to succeed, they never problematize a view of Black children as innately deviant. First, the portrayal of Gibson’s story is that others recognize that Gibson is more than just trouble, although she is that. Stauffacher and Couch focus on the aspect of

Gibson’s journey where she is negatively viewed by others without critiquing a society that withholds opportunities from Black Americans unless they assimilate to white culture. They reinforce it by offering a narrative that demonstrates to young Black girls how to succeed: to assimilate. Throughout the narrative about Gibson’s life, she learns to follow social norms, such as only ever speaking meekly and respectfully to her tennis opponents, expectations that white women were supposed to follow both on and off the court. Stauffacher and Couch acknowledge

Gibson’s success as an athlete, but they also portray her most important feat to be learning to follow the rules set out for her.

Nothing but Trouble serves a cultural purpose. It illustrates a historical and current societal view of Black American women as naturally morally deficient. Produced for a dominantly white audience, the text represents an expectation that, in order to be accepted by white America, Black women must “tame” themselves from their naturally “wild” inclinations that allow them to be the stereotypical Angry Black Woman or hypersexual Jezebel. In order to be respected by American society, they must conform to the norms for women, but not just any women; they must fit the expectations of what it means to be a white woman. As Stauffacher writes, “Althea realized she could dress up in white and act like a lady, and still beat the liver and lights out of the ball.” Stauffacher shows that, when Althea learned to “dress up in white,” she

133 could be recognized in society as an athlete with legitimate success worth honoring. In the text,

Althea’s success is connected to her ability to “act like a lady,” and specifically to act according to Eurocentric standards of what it means to be a lady.

The critical reception of this picture book also highlights cultural attitudes toward Black women in the early 21st century. A Publishers’ Weekly review of the text offers this endorsement of the book: “Stauffacher (Bessie Smith and the Night Riders) and Couch (Wild Child) brilliantly capture Gibson's trajectory from feisty, undisciplined tomboy to poised champion. Stauffacher appreciates that flawed heroes are the most interesting (they also make for eye-catching titles)”

(Publisher’s Weekly). As this review demonstrates, many understood this theme from Nothing but Trouble to be essential to the storyline. The book suggests that success is possible for Black women – but only under the conditions that they transform themselves from “feisty, undisciplined tomboy[s]” (Stauffacher). While many of the reviewers see this theme as a positive narrative trajectory for this story, others have pointed out the problematic aspects of this message in the text. Amie Doughty refers to it as “a Pygmalion-like tale of feminine transformation to tell a story of cultural assimilation” (92). She argues: “Despite the gendered, raced, and classed ideals of tennis etiquette as standards which Althea must learn to embody, the book also presents black female respectability and athletic success as the product of a visionary male” (93). As one of only a few African American female tennis players, she is portrayed as having the opportunity to either uplift or bring shame upon other Black Americans. By choosing to assimilate,

Stauffacher and Couch suggest that she has succeeded in asking white Americans to view her and other Black athletes favorably.

134 A Shift in Focus from Gibson to Others

In the Author’s Note at the back of Nothing but Trouble, Stauffacher gives some more details about Gibson’s life, highlighting the ones that she views as important for children to encounter in this partial biography. The majority of this note focuses on others who helped

Gibson along the way rather than focusing on her accomplishments. After a few details about her, Stauffacher writes: “Althea Gibson lived the American dream. But dreams aren’t achieved alone. Though this is Althea’s story, it also Buddy Walker’s story” (Stauffacher). The rest of that paragraph then continues to discuss how Walker helped Gibson to become successful.

The note proceeds to detail some of the challenges Gibson faced in her athletic journey, such as the scarcity of opportunities for her in sports. Stauffacher explains that Alice Marble, “an influential white tennis player,” helped Gibson by publishing an article in a tennis magazine arguing for her to be allowed to participate. The rest of the paragraph then demonstrates how the famous tennis player began to receive more opportunities to participate in tennis competitions as a result. There is then one sentence that highlights her accomplishments: “Over the next seven years [Gibson] competed and won many top tennis honors, including the Wimbledon Cup twice, in 1957 and 1958” (Stauffacher). The detail of her top honors is the extent to which the note focuses on Gibson’s success. Instead, the peritext mainly highlights people who helped Gibson to succeed. Stauffacher’s note follows a troubling trend of decentering the achievements of Black women by focusing instead on those who may assist them in their journey. This shift in focus from Black women to others lessens the recognition that they receive for their hard work and dedication to overcome barriers to their success. Through an emphasis on others’ view of Gibson as “wild” and a de-emphasis of her achievements, Nothing but Trouble, while meaning to empower Gibson, relies on historical stereotypes and dismissal of Black women in sports.

135 Playing to Win: The Story of Althea Gibson

Published in the same year as Nothing but Trouble, Playing to Win: The Story of Althea

Gibson also tells the story of Gibson’s success as a tennis player. It is written by Karen Deans and illustrated by Elbrite Brown. Although Deans herself is white, she has created other texts that tell stories about inspirational Black women. Akin to Stauffacher, she engages in cross-writing to tell stories outside of her own cultural experiences. This text, coming from the perspective of an outsider, requires particular attention to its accuracy. In addition to writing Playing to Win, Deans has also penned Swing Sisters: The Story of International Sweethearts of Rhythm, another picturebook that focuses on how Black women have broken both racial and gender barriers in

America. On Deans’ personal page that lists these two picturebooks as her publications on her author website, the description reads that these books, “bring history alive with the stories of women who defied racial and gender discrimination to become trailblazers and superstars in their respective fields” (“Books”). In an interview with Reading Rockets, Deans explains her inspiration for writing Playing to Win. “I had known about [Gibson] from my early childhood in

Atlanta, Ga. I was a tennis player, and my father, who was also my first tennis coach, had seen her play at the U.S. Open in Forest Hills, New York. His stories about watching her play, as well as her determination and resilience in the face of racial and gender discrimination, were inspiring to me, even as a kid” (“Everyone Has a Story”). Although Deans is writing outside of her own racial identity as white woman, she identified with Gibson in many ways, both as a female and as a tennis player. Illustrator Elbrite Brown is African American10. Brown is known for his co- creation of other texts, such as My Family Plays Music, a book that features the story of a Black

10 My identification of Elbrite Brown as Black is based on the fact that he has received a John Steptoe New Talent award, which is only given to African American authors/illustrators. 136 girl playing musical instruments with different members of her family. He won the prestigious

John Steptoe New Talent Award for his illustrations of this text. Although only Brown shares a similar racial identity with Gibson, both Deans and Brown had previously published texts that feature the stories of Black characters.

Similar to Stauffacher and Couch, Deans and Brown also focuses on white society’s low expectations of Gibson from a young age. “When Althea Gibson was born on August 25, 1927,” the opening line states, “few would have imagined she was destined for greatness” (Deans). This detail is accompanied by the image of Gibson as an infant as she is being held by her mother while her father stands next to her mother (See Figure 24). However, the low expectations for

Gibson are rationalized because of her family’s social status. On the first page, Deans introduces the tennis player as the “first child of poor sharecroppers living in South Carolina” (Deans). She gives the additional information that “Gibson parents, Annie and Daniel, worked hard, trying to scratch out a living on a cotton farm. [. . .] As sharecroppers, they were given part of the cotton they farmed. They sold it to buy just enough food and clothing to get by on” (Deans). With this information, the text notes the low expectations for Gibson. Because of her parents’ socio- economic status, she would have had few opportunities to participate in sports. While

Stauffacher and Couch do not include information about Gibson’s family’s social status, Deans and Brown spotlight it from the beginning of the narrative in Playing to Win.

Although Deans and Brown frame it differently than Stauffacher and Couch, they still portray Gibson as being a “wild” child, reflecting the biographical details that both Deans and

Stauffacher discovered about Gibson’s childhood. Deans explains that, early in Gibson’s life,

“she was becoming wild” (Deans). Instead of attributing this characteristic to her lack of ability to conform to gender and racial norms as Stauffacher does in Nothing but Trouble, Deans

137 attempts to give readers what she sees as a reason for behaviors that made Gibson seem “wild.”

Her verb tense of “becoming” suggests that Gibson was not born “wild” but that her environment was making her this way. She contextualizes perceptions of Gibson with information about the tennis player’s socio-economic status. Deans narrates that Gibson’s parents had to send her to live with her aunt up north in Philadelphia, “hoping things might improve for her there.” Gibson returns to live with her parents again when they moved to Harlem when Gibson was nine years old. Further background information tells readers that “In the 1930s life in Harlem was tough on kids trying to grow up. Crime was everywhere, and people were poor” (Deans). The author invites readers to interpret Gibson’s “wildness” as a consequence of needing to survive in this

“tough” environment. As the text details, growing up in a low socio-economic family who lived in a crime-ridden neighborhood, Gibson struggled to stay in school and follow the expectations that others had for her. While acknowledging these difficulties in Gibson’s early life, Deans asserts that this was simply because she had yet to find a way to express herself and that she would, but only through tennis: “She had a restless, determined nature that hadn’t found a good way to express itself yet” (Deans).

Deans’ words, viewed in isolation from the illustrations, are a grim description of

Gibson’s home neighborhood. Seen in connection with the images, though, the book represents

Harlem more complexly. One image in particular depicts the neighborhood using warm colors of what appears to be the outside of the Gibson family’s apartment. Three adults, all depicted as

Black or Brown, are seen waving to one another. Brown also illustrates eight different children, all of whom but one is Black or Brown. The children also seem to be playfully interacting with one another. Three girls are playing jump rope, and the other children are climbing stairs into the building together or waving at one another. On the ground near the stairs is a piece of paper with

138 a drawing on it and words scribbled on the corner of the paper, with both the picture and words seeming to be in a child’s handwriting. While Deans’ description of Harlem is dismal, the illustrations show children being supported. The illustration invites readers to see this neighborhood as one where children are being supported in play, physical activity, and literacy

(through the inclusion of the drawing and words on the paper). In conjunction with one another, the visual and written narrative offer a complex depiction of Gibson’s context. It is a low-income neighborhood that is also crime-ridden. At the same time, children are being supported here in many different ways. In this way, while Deans’ narration describes Harlem in only negative ways, Brown’s illustrations offer a more complex unified understanding of it for readers.

Ultimately, though, Deans’ description of the “tough” environment never relies on a truly intersectional historical understanding of how Gibson and her family’s position in society was affected by both race and class. The information about their social status specifies how much more difficult life in the 1930s was for a young Gibson in the contextualization of the story.

Deans’ statement that “life in Harlem was tough on kids trying to grow up” in the 1930s never differentiates between what Gibson’s family would have experienced and others who were more privileged because of their status as white Americans. In light of the history of linking race and criminality, Deans and Brown instead shift the focus to Gibson’s environment rather than focusing on her racial identity. While the initial contextualizing of the story lacks an intersectional explanation of how life might have been particularly tough for Black American families, it also attempts to avoid the connection between Gibson being a “wild” child and being

African American. The question must be asked, though, why a white author would continue to promulgate stereotypes of African American children as being wild, even if this is a perception

139 that the author found in researching to have been accurate past perceptions. This authorial choice participates in reifying a single story particularly about low socio-economic Black children.

Althea Gibson and Cultural Constructions of Children

Shifts in the role of African American children’s literature during Gibson’s childhood reflect shifts happening within the larger cultural context during Gibson’s childhood.

Specifically, African American children’s literature during this time was aimed at inspiring a next generation of Black American children to reimagine themselves against the stereotypes that worked to hold them back from achieving their goals. In particular, several Black authors were writing influential texts directly for a Black child audience. “The most prominent African

American voice of the era was that of Arna Bontemps,” Sims Bishop argues, “whose writing for children, along with that of Langston Hughes, is one of the most important legacies that the

Harlem Renaissance left to African American children’s literature” (Free within Ourselves 45).

During this period, Black authors were creating texts “in which characters confronted the racism and discrimination that are inescapable aspects of growing up Black in the United States” (Sims

Bishop Free within Ourselves 45).

Gibson was growing up during an era when cultural constructions of children were shifting in Black communities. The number of Black authors writing specifically for children particularly expanded during this period with publications such as DuBois’ The Brownies’ Book and The Crisis magazine and the writings of Langston Hughes and Arna Bontemps. In her critical analysis of children’s texts during this era in Children’s Literature of the Harlem

Renaissance, Katherine Capshaw Smith asserts: “Children’s literature played a crucial role in the reinvention of black childhood in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s” (xiii). The children’s issues of the Crisis and The Brownie’s Book not only addressed the white imagination of the existence of

140 Black characters in writing for children. It also focused on helping early-twentieth-century

African American children imagine new possibilities for themselves. Children’s literature during the Harlem Renaissance, Capshaw Smith finds, was particularly influential in promoting positive images of Black children. She notes: “[. . .] DuBois reimagined the black child as culturally, politically, and aesthetically sophisticated” (1). DuBois not only acknowledged children’s agency, but also saw them as key members in the fight against oppression. This new construction of who Black children were and what their potential might be “propelled them into cultural leadership” (Capshaw Smith 53), and the focus on this within books for children reflected the ways in which Black Americans were viewing the children within their communities and what support they needed.

During this time, although happening in more elite circles than Gibson’s, female leaders of the Harlem Renaissance were refuting harmful narratives of their identities and, as a result, were often perceived by white society as “wild” and out of place. In particular, Black female artists during this period found themselves construed this way because of stereotypes about what their role should be as both Black Americans and women. Amy Helene Kirchske in her analysis of Black women of the Harlem Renaissance discusses the unique challenges that Black female artists faced more acutely than did Black male artists. She explains:

The years of the Harlem Renaissance found African American artists trying to

support one another and better the race through a celebration and expression of

black culture. Women artists found very little support in this endeavor, attempting

to create while balancing the sole responsibility, in most cases, for the home life

as well. Several of the women [. . . became educators, answering the call to teach

other hopeful artists. (Women Artists of the Harlem Renaissance xii).

141 These inspirational Black female creators navigated seemingly insurmountable obstacles. These powerful Black female creators and intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance, although most of them were in a more elite socioeconomic standing than Gibson, were similarly marginalized on many counts as being “wild” for challenging societal norms. They were breaking boundaries as both Black Americans and specifically Black women.

Similar to how these women who were not conforming to expectations were treated,

Gibson would also have been perceived as unruly. Like the Black women who had come before her, she was breaking barriers that had been put in place to keep Black women oppressed. In researching Gibson’s history, author Deans likely found details about how Gibson was seen as

“wild,” and her written narrative reflects her work to contextualize those perceptions within the context of Gibson’s socio-economic class. Yet, it does not take into account the intersectional ways in which these perceptions were both racialized and gendered. According to many biographical texts discussing her life, Gibson, as a child, did break rules and was often seen unruly. Gibson’s behaviors, though, would have been seen as particularly deviant because of the ways in which Black girls’ “misbehaviors” were viewed as much more intentional than white girls’ behaviors. As Georgetown Law’s Center on Poverty and Inequality found, Black girls are

“viewed as more adult than their white peers, they may be more likely to be disciplined for their actions” (14). The problematic representation lies not on sharing this way in which Gibson was seen as a child, but in the lack of contextualization of how those perceptions were likely harsher for her than they would have been if she had been white.

142 Gibson’s Impact on Tennis and Tennis’s Impact on Her

Akin to the way that Nothing but Trouble represents the importance of tennis in Gibson’s life, Playing to Win illustrates how tennis gave Gibson an outlet for expressing herself in a world that otherwise did not have an interest in hearing her voice. The narrative reads: “When she was thirteen, Althea realized she loved to play ball, any kind of ball. Instead of fighting, she started bowling and playing basketball and paddle tennis” (Deans). “She found she was happiest when she was competing in sports,” Deans details, “and she was good at just about anything she tried.”

She further demonstrates that Gibson was skilled at tennis from the second that she began to play and describes her as a “natural” (Deans). Through this explanation, Deans portrays Gibson similar to Krull’s representation of Rudolph in Wilma Unlimited: as natural athletes.

Deans shares that Gibson’s talent was recognized when she was a young adult by a man named Buddy Walker. Brown shows a room of teenagers playing paddle tennis. While Gibson is not pictured on the page, readers see Buddy Walker depicted in the corner. He is watching the games of paddle tennis. “When [Gibson] was fourteen years old,” Deans writes, “a grown-up friend named Buddy Walker recognized how talented she was at paddle tennis and thought she would be good at real tennis.” Walker helps provide Gibson with the equipment necessary to play tennis. Deans offers: “[. . .] she was a natural!” While the text acknowledges that Gibson spent a lot of time playing sports, Deans draws no connection between the time spent being active and Gibson’s abilities. While many athletes’ biographies position the figures this way, it is more problematic to follow this trend when Black athletes’ abilities have historically been understood through the pseudoscientific lens of biological racial differences when it comes to athletics. Relying on this narrative undermines the time, talent, and effort that is required to

143 succeeds in athletics. It does nothing to refute racist understandings that attribute Black athletes’ successes to biological differences instead of dedication.

Not included in the text’s descriptions of the athlete’s talent is the information that her father worked hard to prepare her physically. As the firstborn of five children in her family,

Gibson was afraid that her father had wanted a boy and was disappointed when she was born.

Gibson recalled that her father had treated her like he might have treated a son. For example, he spent hours upon hours when she was young teaching her how to box. “He would box with me for an hour at a time,” she recalled, “showing me how to punch, how to jab, how to block punches, and how to use footwork” (qtd in Lansbury 78). This training undoubtedly helped

Gibson in her athleticism, and beginning early with these activities helped introduce her to being active.

Nothing but Trouble emphasizes the importance of the support Gibson received by making that the focal point of the text. Playing to Win spotlights Gibson’s success, while also acknowledging those who aided her. The latter is more highlighting those who discovered

Gibson’s innate talent—and then helped her to change her personality. Those who helped the tennis player sacrificed their own time and resources to help her develop her talents, such as her father who spent hours helping her stay physically active as a young child. The emphasis in

Playing to Win is more simply on the discovery of Gibson’s perceived natural abilities. Perhaps the mostly-white sport of tennis would not have offered Gibson opportunities to compete if she had not conformed to societal expectations. Celebrating Gibson’s transformation within her biographical narratives only reaffirms an expectation that Black girls and women must change their identities in order to succeed. In the end, both texts avoid portraying true mentorship by

144 discrediting just how hard Gibson would have had to work to dominate so thoroughly in tennis and by positively portraying others’ abilities to reshape Gibson’s personality.

While Deans’ does summarize Gibson’s talent in Playing to Win as being simply innate, the co-creators’ portrayal of tennis in Gibson’s life throughout the narrative is an unequivocally positive one. Deans and Brown’s representation of Gibson’s participation in tennis contrasts with

Stauffacher and Couch’s. The latter depict the sport as a hindrance in Gibson’s life, causing her to reject gender and race expectations. In Playing to Win, the final scene depicts Gibson in a series of images playing on the tennis court with the following description: “She became a curiosity to many spectators and officials. Some objected to her participation and doubted that she was any good. She gave them something to notice” (Deans). The text tells us that Gibson lost that particular match because of a storm that rolled in that required officials to stop the game.

“She had broken down a barrier: people were taking her seriously. She was a contender”

(Deans). Deans portrays tennis as being an important outlet for young children, particularly those of a similar background as Gibson’s, to learn not just how to win a tennis match – but to do so as a “lady.”

Picturebooks that are a product of both written text and illustrations require an analysis of both elements as the words and images often work together to tell the same story – or the story with different nuances. In Nothing but Trouble, Stauffacher’s narration work together with

Couch’s illustrations to portray Gibson as “wild” and both creators emphasize her transformation throughout the narrative biography. Deans, in Playing to Win, is the one who demonstrates most of the problematic emphasis on Gibson’s perceived need to change her identity in order to succeed. Gibson’s personality is not a hindrance to her participation in tennis, nor does Brown emphasize a transformation for her. The changes are mainly narrated through the written text.

145 Brown also, in spite of written text that only portrays Harlem negatively, offers a positive view of Gibson’s neighborhood as supporting children like Gibson. Brown is the only creator of the four discussed here whose racial identity matches Gibson’s own. This detail leads to the question of cultural authenticity, considering that the Black illustrator is the only one to not portray

Gibson (or the mainly-Black neighborhood from which she came) through stereotypical verbal descriptions or visual depictions.

Many children’s literature creators and scholars have debated whether or not authors or illustrators can ever authentically depict Black characters without having ever been treated themselves as Black Americans are treated within society. Examining the narrative biographies discussed here does not provide a definitive answer to this debate11. Apparent from an analysis of the texts, however, is the fact that more books are needed within children’s literature so that single stories about Black female athletes, and Althea Gibson in particular, are not the only ways in which books are asking child readers to see Black female athletes. With a history of inaccurate and inauthentic representations of Black characters in children’s literature, it is particularly important to call for representations of Black Americans that do not all fall into perpetuating single stories.

Althea Gibson, Serena Williams, and “The Angry Black Woman”

Akin to Gibson, Serena Williams has also long dealt with negative stereotypes about almost every aspect her identity from her abilities to her physical build to her temperament. In

2007, when both of the picturebooks about Althea Gibson examined here were published, Venus

11 Furthermore, as a white scholar, I do not take it upon myself to deem these texts either authentic or inauthentic representations. 146 and Serena Williams, two Black12 American female tennis players, were beginning to more prominently dominate in tennis. Their successes were directly bringing to the forefront in tennis, and more broadly American sports, the vitriolic sexism and racism in sports that both sisters faced as successful tennis players. For example, Williams had given a press conference, unashamedly discussing her confidence that she would soon be rising to the top. As a follow-up to William’s statement, Pat Cash, a former Australian tennis player, wrote a piece for The Times.

In this article, he responds to her claim that she is confident in upcoming success. He begins with the statement “If anybody is qualified to make deluded statements about tennis, it is a former world No 1 and winner of seven Grand Slam titles. But when Serena Williams arrives in

Australia on her first foreign playing trip in a year and announces that it is only a matter of time before she is again dominating the sport, it’s time to tell her to get real” (Cash). Cash continues to insult Williams, making claims such as that the only reason she plays tennis is because her father forced her to and that, while Serena may have been ranked number 1, in the years since then, “[t]ennis moved on in her absence” (Cash).

Additionally, while Cash acknowledges that the Williams Sisters impacted the field of tennis, he argues: “Serena clearly has a limited attention span” (Cash). In spite of her domination in the field of tennis, these comments have plagued Williams in her entire career. Her career has often been seen as one that might be more successful if she simply changed her personality both on and off the court. In his The Atlantic article “Why Doesn’t Serena Williams Have More

Sponsorship Deals?” Marc Bain points out the striking discrepancies in pay and sponsorships between Serena Williams and other white tennis players (both male and female), arguing “…

12 I refer to the Williams Sisters as “Black” because, in the interviews quoted here, that is how Serena Williams identifies herself. 147 [Williams] would be paid far more if she were someone other than who she is” (Bain). Despite being one of the most famous athletes in the world, Serena Williams, according to Forbes’ list of

The World’s Highest-Paid Athletes in 2017, was only fifty-first with an income of $27 million and endorsements up to $13 million (Forbes). Williams’ pay noticeably contrasts to the financial benefits of other female tennis players. For example, Maria Sharapova, a white Russian female tennis player, who, although not securing nearly as many wins as Serena and also having recently been banned by the International Tennis Federation from competing in tennis for two years for drug-related offenses, has frequently earned more than $10 million more in endorsements

(Forbes). While both female athletes earn substantially less than their male counterparts, such as

Roger Federer who earns more than double Williams’ income, there is still a striking difference between Black and white female athletes (Forbes).

One of the most common narratives in the media and in other aspects of public discourse about her portrays her as possessing an uncontrollable temper, being a very angry woman. Often left out of these narratives are the full details about why Williams “lost her temper” as the player’s outbursts of anger generally coincide with instances of discrimination against her. In an interview with Vogue, Williams explains how she views these perceptions:

I feel like people think I’m mean [. . .]. Really tough and really mean and really

street. I believe that the other girls in the locker room will say, ‘Serena’s really

nice.’ But Maria Sharapova, who might not talk to anybody, might be perceived

by the public as nicer. Why is that? Because I’m black and so I look mean? That’s

the society we live in. That’s life. They say African-Americans have to be twice

as good, especially women (Vogue).

148 As a prime example of what Williams identifies as a racial problem in perceiving Black women as aggressive, other media outlets called William’s comments in this interview inflammatory.

For instance, Hindustan Times reported on William’s comments, with their article containing the headline “Serena Williams Slams Maria Sharapova, Says She Has It Easy Due to Her Race.” The article quotes Williams’ assessment that it is a cultural problem that means that many do not critique Sharapova as harshly as they critique Williams. Through the framing of the article, the reporter works to skew Williams’ interview to pit her against Sharapova. Williams had simply pointed out the institutional racism that she has to face as a Black female athlete that Sharapova would not.

Perceptions of Williams as angry and mean to her opponents frequently go unchallenged and very rarely are seen as being grounded in racist views of Black women. In her analysis of the media representation of the Williams sisters in her chapter “Sister Act VI: Venus and Serena

Williams at Indian Wells: ‘Sincere Fictions’ and White Racism,” Nancy E. Spencer identifies how many often argue that critiques of Williams are not laced with racism. Spencer focuses on the event at Indian Wells in 2001 where the Williams sisters were scheduled to play one another in the semifinals. Venus Williams had dropped out of the match only shortly before the match.

When Serena moved on to play against Belgium’s Kim Clijsters in the final, Venus and her father, Richard Williams, had entered the stadium to watch the match. Upon entering the stadium, they were both booed, as the crowd shouted racial slurs at them, including one fan threatening the elder Williams that he would “skin him alive” (Spencer). The reaction to this display of obvious racism was a general denial that any of these reactions from the crowd were drawing on racism.

149 Spencer argues that the Williams family, at this event and throughout both the Williams sisters’ careers, have faced “sincere fictions” that are created by white Americans. As she argues,

“whites make sense of their complicity in racist behaviors that are considered to be politically incorrect” (42). These sincere fictions “[enable] whites to resolve the dissonance between beliefs in equality and participation in a racist society,” Spencer asserts (44). They believe that white supremacy no longer impacts motives of white Americans or how society functions. Black

Americans experience racism on many levels, while white Americans believe themselves to be completely innocent of participating in a racist society. White Americans rely on racist beliefs to criticize Black athletes without being held accountable by white society for being racist.

The sincere fictions that Spencer identifies at play at this incident at Indian Wells have greatly affected Serena Williams all throughout her career as a successful tennis player. She is constructed by public discourse as an “Angry Black Woman”; yet, any who construct her this way would deny that these conceptions of her are rooted in the historical stereotyping of Black women. They focus on calling her out for having “bad manners” or being a “sore loser,” arguing that they might do the same for any white player who behaves the same yet, while almost never focusing on these behaviors for any white athletes when they do display them.

Williams’ portrayal in the media strikingly parallels that of Althea Gibson. The picturebooks Nothing but Trouble and Playing to Win were both released during a time where

William’s career was at a peak, along with the critiques of her. Williams was consistently depicted as a wild, angry Black woman. Some of these depictions, like Gibson’s in Playing to

Win, portrayed her as a product of growing up in an urban area; even so, most of them, like

Nothing but Trouble, explicitly or implicitly, linked her temper to her identity as a Black woman, depicting her as a stereotypical angry Black woman.

150 Perhaps one of the most disturbing portrayals of Williams in recent media depictions was in response to Williams’ outrage over what she perceived to be an unfair call by umpire Carlos

Ramos during the 2018 U.S. Open Women’s Singles Final. Williams had what many deemed a verbal altercation with Ramos during the match over receiving a code violation of illegally receiving coaching. Responding to this controversy, Herald Sun’s Mark Knight tweeted an illustration of Williams for the Australian newspaper. Knight depicts Williams as a cartoon baby, with her features highly exaggerated. In the image, Williams is stomping and smashing her racket. An image of Ramos is in the background, asking Williams’ opponent, Naomi Osaka, if she can’t just let Williams win. In spite of clearly drawing on racist imagery that has for centuries demeaned Black Americans, Knight defended his image as having nothing to do with

Williams’ race. Michael Cavna of The Washington Post reports: “Knight draws facial features reflecting the dehumanizing Jim Crow caricatures so common in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Knight’s cartoon conjures up a range of such caricatures that were branded on memorabilia and popularized” (“Racist Serena Williams Cartoon”). Most athletes of all gender and racial identities demonstrate at one point or another in their careers outrage over what they perceive to be unfair circumstances in their sport. National and international media met Serena’s display of emotion with racist and sexist opposition, opposition not just to her behavior, but to her identity.

In her article for The New York Times entitled “The Meaning of Serena Williams: On

Tennis and Black Excellence,” Claudia Rankine unpacks this perception of Williams. She explains,

There is a belief among some African-Americans that to defeat racism, they have

to work harder, be smarter, be better. Only after they give 150 percent will white

Americans recognize black excellence for what it is. But of course, once

151 recognized, black excellence is then supposed to perform with good manners and

forgiveness in the face of any racist slights or attacks. Black excellence is not

supposed to be emotional as it pulls itself together to win after questionable calls

(Rankine).

Rankine argues that part of what makes Williams so exceptional — as well as what makes those around her often so uncomfortable — is the fact that she does not often allow racist assumptions about her to go unchallenged. She explains: “Serena’s grace comes because she won’t be forced into stillness; she won’t accept those racist projections on her body without speaking back”

(Rankine).

As an example of Rankine’s observation, Williams has frequently been known to point out to news media when she is being asked sexist or racist questions. White American male tennis player Andy Roddick has also been known for shutting down the sexism and racism in questions that he is asked. In 2016, Roddick won two Olympic gold medals. In an interview, a reporter commented to him that he was the first “person” to have won two Olympic medals for tennis. Roddick responded to the reporter that he actually was the first “male athlete” to win two, mentioning that Serena and Venus have each won about four (Truong). Just last year in 2017 at

Wimbledon, in his interview after a lost match, in a question to Roddick, a reporter commented that his opponent, Sam Querry, was the “first US player” to reach a semi-final since 2009. Again,

Roddick corrected the reporter, commenting that Black female tennis player Serena Williams has won 10 since 2009 (Chandra). These racist and sexist questions reflect the attitude that many in society, including reporters, which erases the accomplishments of Black female athletes. The questions suggest that the Venus and Serena Williams’ accomplishments are barely worth noting

152 or mentioning. Serena Williams, in particular, is constantly bombarded by racist and sexist questions that work to dismiss or belittle her identity and her athletic accomplishments.

Williams refuses to let others stifle her success. When Black women and girls fight others’ attempts to define them, they are often ostracized. In spite of being arguably the most successful tennis player ever, Williams also remains one of the most controversial figures in all of sports. Morris points out: “girls fighting for their humanity end up being pushed out of schools, jobs, homes, houses of worship, and other places where they might otherwise feel whole” (20). Sports is another arena where Black women and girls are often pushed out for any attempts to assert their identities.

Williams is frequently viewed as “wild,” just like Althea Gibson. The publication of two picturebooks about Gibson at a time where Williams was becoming even more recognizable in society as an athletic contender is not a coincidence. These texts portray Gibson as needing to overcome her temper, her “wildness” in order to be successful. This message parallels the one that Williams was facing from critics, such as Pat Cash in his The Times article, who were suggesting that William would only be truly successful once she learned to better keep her true emotions, and specifically her temper, hidden. Many white Americans doubted Williams would ever be truly successful because they doubted that she would be able to control her temper.

The press often construed Gibson the same way. In 1950, Fay Young of the Chicago

Defender, in an article she penned about Gibson, predicted success for Gibson, on the condition that she learned to “[keep] both feet on the ground and [not] ‘lose’ her head” (qtd in Lansbury

101). This was typical of the press’s coverage of Gibson at the time. Lansbury notes: “They worked with her to soften the abrasiveness of her personality. Fay Young had ‘chided’ her at one of the ATA championships when she chose not to mix freely with other players. The exchange,

153 apparently, was pleasant and the advice accepted because the reporter later complimented

Gibson on her ‘improvement,’ at which she laughed, understanding what he meant” (104). The press worked to “soften” Gibson’s personality and viewed that as her path to success. Both

Nothing but Trouble and Playing to Win connect Gibson’s success in winning tennis matches to her ability to conform to white notions of femininity. Instead of empowering, the implications that these texts offer young Black girl readers is that they will have a more difficult time succeeding as athletes if they follow in the footsteps of Gibson or Williams.

Conclusion

Nothing but Trouble and Playing to Win are noteworthy for the fact that they offer young readers the opportunity to interact with the story of a successful African American woman who succeeded in sports and has been previously undervalued. Although the texts were published in the same year, they differ in many ways in how their visual and textual narratives construct

Gibson as an African American female athlete. Ultimately, both picturebooks portray Gibson by relying on a stereotype of Black children, particularly low socio-economic Black children, as

“wild.” In Nothing but Trouble, Stauffacher and Couch uncritically represent her as a “wild” child. This narrative non-fiction text offers the implication to readers that, in order to achieve their goals in sports, Black girls must learn to act like a lady, and not just any lady, a white woman. Stauffacher and Couch’s book offers this warning tale to young Black female readers that they need to take care when participating in sports, as their acceptance within that realm will happen only if they follow these expectations.

Playing to Win more complexly constructs Gibson’s wildness in the narrative. Deans gives the rationale to readers that Gibson is wild because of her residence in Harlem, a

154 neighborhood where “crime was everywhere, and people were poor” (Deans). Through the written portion of the biography, Deans portrays the entire neighborhood, and its residents, as providing nothing beneficial to Gibson. Yet, Brown’s images invite readers to see Gibson’s neighborhood as also being a place where children are being supported, thus allowing the book to portray a more multifarious depiction of Harlem. Additionally, both texts still show a tendency to rely on racist language—such as referring to Black children as “wild”—in telling their stories, marking a certain need for further progress in biographies of Black female athletes.

Critically examining the picturebooks sheds light on the need for more social awareness in creators of the literature about Black female athletes. The author and illustrator of Nothing but

Trouble and Playing to Win are both white. Both identify that they are striving to provide positive and encouraging portrayals of successful women to child readers. Stauffacher and Deans have shown a prioritization of the stories of Black women. At the same time, both have relied on problematic terminology in choosing to uncritically call Gibson “wild” that perhaps may have been a choice that an insider may have been more aware of and sensitive to avoid. While the text as a whole is problematic, Playing to Win’s illustrators’ racial identity is also connected to a more positive portrayal of Gibson and Harlem. However, Stauffacher, Couch, and Deans all incorporate stereotypes of Black Americans into how they portray Gibson’s identity and story of success. Describing an African American figure through racist terminology asks Black child readers to see themselves through a distorted lens as well.

There is a difference between accurately tracing the trajectory of Gibson’s journey as an athlete and glorifying and condoning the parts that reflect her marginalization as an athlete.

Gibson — like the Black women leaders of the Harlem Renaissance and, more currently, Serena

Williams — should not have had to worry about how her personality would be perceived as

155 stereotyped as much as she had to worry about beating her opponent on the tennis court. This issue is not the concern of most other athletes. It is unclear whether or not she would have accepted as much as she was within tennis had she not worked to conform to societal expectations. Celebrating a society that forces an African American woman to be somebody other than herself perpetuates inequality.

Texts that focus on past figures do not just inform child readers about historical figures.

They provide insight into the period in which they written. The picturebooks discussed here shed light on Gibson’s journey, as well, as highlight the racism and sexism toward Black female athletes that had continued well into the beginning of the 21st century when the texts were created. Choosing to represent Gibson’s story as one where she had to change who she was in order to succeed, without so much as a suggestion that maybe she should not be required to do so, only condones the pressure that society places on Black female athletes. Althea Gibson, her story, and her legacy deserve more. Just as Serena Williams is currently fighting for in tennis,

Gibson wanted equality as a tennis player. The lens of viewing Gibson as a wild child only perpetuates racism and holds Gibson, Williams, and other Black women back from true equality and success in sports.

156 Chapter 4: The Hurdle of Family Support: Representations of Gender, Race, and Socio- Economic Status of Alice Coachman in Queen of the Track and Touch the Sky

“I’ve always believed that I could do whatever I set my mind to do.” - Alice Coachman

Olympic medalist Alice Coachman set her mind to accomplish ground-breaking achievements in track and field. In order to achieve her goals, she had to overcome overwhelming barriers as an African American female athlete participating in the early to mid- twentieth century America. Many factors continue to impact the potential for Black women and girls to participate in sports, far less maintain a successful career in sports. These factors include, among others, obstacles related to opportunities available because of how white Americans continues to marginalize Black girls based on their race, class, and gender. For example, children living in lower socio-economic areas often face more obstacles that hinder them from taking part in sports than children in higher socio-economic areas. Economic disadvantage threatened to keep Coachman from achieving her goals, and similar aspects of structural inequities continue to keep Black girls on the sidelines of sports even today.

Reviewing the literature about involvement in sports, Steven Allender, Gill Cowburn, and

Charlie Foster found that frequently, for both adults and children, “barriers to participation in physical activity include high costs, poor access to facilities and unsafe environments”

(“Understanding Participation in Sport” 831). Due to a lack of resources, physical space, or safe environments, children in low socio-economic areas tend to have a more difficult time entering sports. While these challenges often determine a child’s participation, discourses in white middle-class America often blame low-income families for their children’s lack of sports or physical activity involvement. The barriers that racially minoritized families face in allowing

157 their children to take part in sports are important to consider in encouraging parents to be active participants in their children’s athletic involvement.

This chapter focuses on two picturebooks about the track and field athlete Alice

Coachman, Queen of the Track and Touch the Sky, to analyze how the text creators portray familial support. While the narratives contained in both picturebooks focus on Coachman’s journey to become the first Black female athlete to win an Olympic gold medal, the authors and illustrators of the two different books represent the role of Coachman’s parents quite differently.

Both texts acknowledge the resistance that Coachman felt from her family in sports participation.

Differentiating the two biographical picturebooks is the complexity with which they portray the absence of parental encouragement. While Queen of the Track depicts Coachman’s parents as the people who impede her success in sports, Touch the Sky contextualizes their hesitance to support her in light of Coachman’s racial and gender identity, as well as her family’s socio-economic status. This chapter contends that picturebooks can influence how child readers view themselves and their families. As such, it is important for text creators to invite child readers to see the complex intersection of their families’ status in society. Racism and poverty impact their willingness and ability to support their children. Economically disadvantaged Black children are well-aware of this reality. Attempting to hide the truth from them does nothing to shield them from these circumstances. It merely ignores their families’ lived experiences.

Biographical Introduction to Alice Coachman

When Alice Coachman, the American female Olympic athlete, won a gold medal at the

1948 Summer Olympics in London, King George VI presented Coachman, and the other

Olympians, with their medals. In contrast, upon her return home, the mayor of her hometown of

158 Albany, Georgia, refused to even offer her a congratulatory handshake. The town officials did not allow her to speak at the parade and ceremony held in her honor. They refused her this much- deserved honor because she was Black. Reflecting on this reception home in an interview with the Visionary Leadership Project, Coachman explained: “To come back home to your own country, your own state and your own city, and you can’t get a handshake from the mayor?

Wasn’t a good feeling” (qtd. In Colker).

The Black and white citizens of Albany who had arrived to see Coachman were kept separate during the ceremony as Albany was a strictly segregated city. While many were excited to witness a citizen of their town gain recognition on a global platform, few white residents of

Albany outwardly acknowledged Coachman’s accomplishments. Coachman reported that, although she received some gifts upon her return, most of them were from anonymous people as

“[t]hey couldn’t let people know they were sending flowers to this black woman” (Colker). A lack of recognition after achieving the highest level of success in track and field was only one of many obstacles that Coachman faced as a Black athlete in a predominately-white sports domain.

Coachman is perhaps best known for being the first Black American woman to win a gold medal at the Olympics, particularly because she won during an era when Black women were infrequently allowed to participate in sports at all. Author of A Spectacular Leap: Black

Women Athletes in Twentieth-Century America, Jennifer Lansbury, explains: “[Coachman] captured the acclaim of white Americans at a time when competing in track and field was considered inappropriate for an American woman of any color” (45). The track and field athlete was breaking ground in sports participation for Black women whom the institution of American sports had historically excluded from the sport. Lansbury offers two rationales for why

Coachman gained the degree of fame that she did at such a rapid pace: “On one hand, her career

159 showed that a black woman track athlete celebrated by white American society was a distinct possibility. It also demonstrated, on the other hand, the ways that black women athletes would push back when confronted with the stereotypes of white society” (44). Lansbury argues that

Coachman was fully celebrated by white Americans. However, her hometown reception highlighted that, in spite of her accomplishments, white Americans were unwilling to fully acknowledge her success. While Coachman served as a model to women of different racial identities, many believed her success demonstrated that Black women could chase their dreams despite the overwhelming limitations that white society had placed on them.

As such, Coachman became a sensation in the Black media. Black Americans looked to her as an example of how one might succeed despite the discrimination based on race, gender, and class that she faced in all areas of her life, particularly sports. Lansbury notes: “Through the sports pages of the black press, [Coachman] became nationally known in the black community even as she found herself marginalized by white society on three counts—as an African

American, a woman, and a track and field athlete” (44). As Lansbury points out here, on top of the discrimination that Coachman felt as a Black woman, she was competing in events that did not garner as much recognition as some of the other sports, which were considered more “elite.”

Track and field necessitated some funds to participate, but it required less money and fewer resources than some of the other arenas in which women were competing. Coachman showed the possibilities for how a Black woman might be able to participate in certain sports, despite economic disparities. Coachman felt resistance from both Black and white society; however, she managed to uplift the sport of track and field, which sometimes had lacked recognition, as her successes were heavily covered by the Black media. Coachman inspired many during her years

160 as an Olympic athlete. Her legacy has lived on as she is viewed as an athlete who inspired many others, particularly Black children of low socio-economic status, to chase their dreams in sports.

Socio-Economic Status and Opportunities for Success in Sports

The absence of economic opportunities to participate in sports that Coachman experienced throughout her career as a track athlete is a situation that many racially minoritized children have also encountered—and continue to face today. In his The Charlotte Observer article, Tim Stevens argues that socio-economic status is directly correlated to the potential for high schools in North Carolina to win championships and recognition in most sports. As he reports, “In sports other than football, track and basketball, the smaller the percentage of students who receive aid, the greater the chance the school will win championships” (“Analysis Finds

Ties”). Income, as Stevens found, serves as one of the greatest predictors of the success of students involved in school sports.

Stevens quotes Bob Gardner, executive director of the National Federation of State High

School Associations, as stating: “We have long known that there are advantages [for higher income students] in sports like golf, tennis and swimming, but we are seeing that in other sports now” (qtd. In Stevens). Gardner asserts that, while this trend of correlation between success in a sport and socio-economic status has been closely tied for decades to certain sports considered more “elite,” this gap is also beginning to be found in other more mainstream sports, as well.

More wealthy families and schools are pouring increasing amounts of resources into preparing their children to participate in sports. As a result, the gap is growing between sports teams at economically disadvantaged and more affluent schools. Children from low socio-economic families may historically have had opportunities to participate in some sports without significant

161 financial sacrifices from their families. Currently, however, most sports require families to pay large amounts of money if they want their children to participate. More often than not, any sport will require hefty financial and time commitments from children and their families alike in order for the children to have the opportunity to take part in their desired sport. According to research conducted by Utah State University, “between league fees, camps, equipment, training, and travel, families are spending as much as 10% of their income on sports” (qtd. in Barone). This trend is so rampant in athletics for children and youth in America that Gardner refers to it as a

“national concern” (qtd. In Stevens).

Although the expectations of support and finances for child and youth sports has increased for all students, young girls from lower socio-economic schools particularly feel the effects of this new trajectory. Recently, the organization GOOD teamed up with Dick’s Sporting

Goods to launch an initiative to bring attention to the opportunities in sports that are lacking for girls from low-income families. As GOOD notes on their site, “Translating into real numbers, at heavily white schools, there are 58 available spots on girls’ sports teams for every 100 students, while at heavily minority high schools there are 25 spots per 100 students” (Burks). They assert:

“Put simply, girls of color receive the fewest opportunities to play” (GOOD). Not having sports readily accessible at schools means that families would need to seek out other athletic organizations in which to enroll their children, which frequently require even more of a financial and time commitment than sports offered at their child’s school. Even when economically disadvantaged schools do offer sports, few low-income families have enough expendable resources to devote to that avenue.

Many Americans believe that the solution to providing girls with more sports opportunities lies solely in investing in girls’ school sports teams. However, as GOOD notes,

162 “Continuing to increase investment in girls’ sports at all is important. But if we are truly committed to making youth sports accessible to girls—in the face of an incoming secretary of education whose policy preferences exasperated school segregation in Michigan—we can’t separate interscholastic athletic inequities from segregation” (qtd in Cook). As GOOD is arguing, it is necessary to adopt an intersectional approach to thinking about positive change for girls in sports as there are many layers of barriers that are keeping girls—especially racially minoritized girls—from participating. Furthermore, the barriers are making it more difficult for their families to be willing or able to support them in those endeavors to be involved.

In order to improve the conditions of athletics for Black girls, proponents of change must analyze the continuing racial segregation of schools, which many argue is currently being furthered by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ educational reform agenda regarding school choice. Patrick Wall of The Atlantic reports: “Trump and DeVos appear to be single-mindedly focused on expanding access to school choice—particularly private-school tuition vouchers and charter schools, which are often highly segregated” (“How Betsy DeVos Could End”). Critics of school choice, and the current administration’s push for school choice, often cite segregation as one of the most negative consequences of implementing an educational voucher system. In their review of literature on the topic of school choice and segregation for the National Education

Policy Center, William J. Mathis and Kevin G. Welner contend that the research overwhelmingly suggests that school choice is connected to a return to a lack of integration of American schools.

They point out that “the overall body of the research literature documents an unsettling degree of segregation—particularly in charter schools—by race and ethnicity, as well as by poverty, special needs and English-learner status” (“Do Choice Policies Segregate”). The current climate

163 of education, instead of addressing inequities, is only furthering the gap in opportunities for

Black girls, particularly those in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods and schools.

Janie Boschma and Ronald Brownstein report in The Atlantic: “In almost all major

American cities, most African American and Hispanic students attend public schools where a majority of their classmates qualify as poor or low-income” (Boschma and Brownstein). This connection between race and socio-economic status, they note, occurs in “virtually all types of cities” across America (Boschma and Brownstein). Sean F. Reardon, a professor at Stanford

University’s school of education and researcher on the issue of school segregation, finds:

“[Socio-economic status] is the measure of segregation that is most strongly correlated to the racial achievement gap” (qtd. In Boschma and Brownstein). Children belonging both to a racial minority group and to an economically disadvantaged group will, more than likely, live in a highly-segregated neighborhood and go to a highly-segregated school.

The segregation of American neighborhoods and schools, and the resulting discrepancy in opportunities available to children who attend the segregated schools, is no accident. Black families are often living in low socio-economic areas as a product of the intentional redlining in

America by white decision-makers. As Ta-Nehisi Coates argues in his The Atlantic article “The

Case for Reparations,” many white Americans attribute economic discrepancies between white and Black families to the country’s history of slavery and the period of segregation that immediately followed. However, while these eras certainly laid the foundation for economic inequality, much of the disparity has continued to occur in the recent past, as well as continuing into the present. “[I]n the mid-20th century,” Coates asserts, “the federal government—through housing policies—engineered the wealth gap, which remains with us to this day” (Coates).

Richard Rothstein’s text The Color of Law argues that the Federal Housing Administration’s

164 housing discrimination policies has profoundly affected the economic status of Black Americans today. In an interview with NPR, Rothstein explains: “The Federal Housing Administration's justification was that if African-Americans bought homes in these suburbs, or even if they bought homes near these suburbs, the property values of the homes they were insuring, the white homes they were insuring, would decline. And therefore their loans would be at risk.” With this belief, the Federal Housing Administration utilized “color codes” on maps to “indicate where it was safe to insure mortgages” (qtd in Gross). They refused mortgages to Black Americans in mainly white neighborhoods, resulting in segregation designed and enforced by the government.

"The segregation of our metropolitan areas today leads … to stagnant inequality,” Rothstein contends, “because families are much less able to be upwardly mobile when they're living in segregated neighborhoods where opportunity is absent” (qtd in Gross).

According to Coates, many may point to societal barriers that many Black Americans have overcome as proof of improved situations for Black Americans. He points out, however, that “[t]he income gap between black and white households is roughly the same today as it was in 1970” (Coates). Buttressing Coates’ claim, the Economic Policy Institute conducted an investigation into economic inequality for Black Americans. They found: “Since the Bureau of

Labor Statistics began reporting the black unemployment rate in 1972, it has almost always been about twice the white unemployment rate—in good economic times and in bad, as well as at every level of education” (“50 Years after Riots”). Black Americans’ incomes continue to lag behind white Americans13, and they continue to be forced to live in segregated areas, making it even less likely to be able to close the income gap. Furthermore, schools not only are not being

13 The median white household income in 2011 was $111,146, while the median Black household was $7,113 (“The Racial Wealth Gap”). 165 integrated but continue to be further segregated in current times. According to research conducted by Orfield and Lee found, schools have not only maintained segregation since the post-civil rights era but have in fact become more segregated. As they maintain, “The children in

United States schools are much poorer than they were decades ago and more separated in highly unequal schools” (5). They found: “After three decades of preparing reports on trends in segregation in American schools the most disturbing element of [the report conducted in 2007] is the finding that the great success of the desegregation battle—turning Southern education, which was still 98 percent segregated in l964, into the most desegregated part of the nation--is being rapidly lost.” (5). The legal battle for segregation had not attained integration in American schools.

In light of these statistics, some argue that the historic Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954 has been completely undermined. While schools are no longer segregated de jure, many schools remain segregated de facto because of the continued segregation of neighborhoods. In her The Washington Post article, Valerie Strauss notes that a full desegregation of schools did not happen as a result of the court ruling. She argues: “Had civil rights lawyers been able to attack neighborhood rather than school segregation, they would have accomplished more for educational equality than by focusing on schools directly” (“Brown v.

Board”). Because the government focused on the schools that children attended rather than the neighborhoods that they lived in, schools remained and continue to be highly segregated. Many

Black girls live in low socio-economic neighborhoods and attend low socio-economic schools. A conversation about the lack of resources available for Black girls’ participation in sports must be contextualized within this reality of racial and economic segregation of schools in America.

166 Stereotypes about Black Families of Low Socio-Economic Status

Lack of resources at low-income schools and communities are certainly at the heart of limited opportunities for Black girls’ participation in sports. There are many other factors that are also important to consider in understanding why Black girls do not have as many opportunities to take part in sports. Many Black families deal with negative perceptions of their desire and willingness to support their daughters in sports. Kate Sattler explores the involvement of racially minoritized parents in their children’s education. She finds: “Most articles on racial disparities in education are followed by reader comments along the lines of: ‘Where are the parents?’ ‘Some cultures just don’t value education.’ ‘These kids live in chaos, what can we expect?’ The phrasing isn’t usually this generous, although some commenters express a sympathetic intent”

(“Let’s Acknowledge Minority Parents”). Comments such as the ones that Sattler identifies reflect white society’s blaming of Black parents. They blame Black families when their children struggle with the ways in which they have been disadvantaged in society.

A view of Black families as lacking motivation to support their children often intertwines discrimination based on socio-economic status and race as this is a stereotype that both families of low socio-economic status and racially minoritized families frequently face. Because Black families are often viewed by white Americans as unsupportive of their children, school administrators and sports organizers take fewer efforts to include Black families in efforts to help their children succeed. The impact of this negative perception is found throughout many different arenas of society, including educational spaces, as school administrators and educators often view low-income and racially minoritized families as having little to no motivation to offer their children any form of verbal or financial support.

167 A focus on familial support makes sense as families’ attitudes toward physical activity are frequently one of the most important factors in their child’s activity level. Robert Brustad points out: “[A] wealth of related research indicates the nature and extent of young children’s physical play opportunities depends greatly upon the set of beliefs and expectations held by their parents”

(“Who Will Go Out and Play?” 211). Confirming this previous research, Brustad found that

“[h]igher parental encouragement was linked to greater perceived competence [of physical activity] for children” (221). Furthermore, they assert that “parents who express greater encouragement are more likely to provide opportunities for children to be physically active and communicate higher expectations of their child’s ability in physical activity” (221). Children with families who display high expectations for their children’s success in sports—in addition to willingness and material resources to help their children work toward their goals in sports—are more likely to find success. They are the ones who have had reinforced to them, explicitly or implicitly, that their athletic involvement brings value to their lives. Their families have given aid through methods such as encouragement, time dedication, and financial support. As a result, they are likely to perceive athletics as a worthy endeavor and dedicate the time and effort necessary to gain skills within a sport.

Encouragement from family matters and Black families do, more often than not, provide that to their children. Black families are frequently discussed inside and outside of schools as being habitually disengaged with their children’s education and extracurricular activities. Walter

E. Williams of The Daily Signal suggests: “The No. 1 problem among blacks is the effects stemming from a very weak family structure” (“Black Family Is Struggling”). A lack of commitment to their families, Williams claims, means that children are left unsupported and unable to succeed. Contradicting negative perceptions of Black families such as Williams’ are the

168 facts that racially minoritized families are actually often more engaged in certain ways with their child’s education than white families. For example, as Sattler notes, Black families are more likely than white families to create a space in their home for their children to do homework, and while only 65 percent of white families check their children’s homework, 71 percent of Black families support their children this way (Sattler). Black families often offer extensive support to their children at home in terms of their schooling. In spite of these statistics, society often views white families as more dedicated to helping their children to succeed. “Our community’s positive assumptions about white students go unspoken, untested and rewarded,” Sattler asserts.

“Meanwhile, negative assumptions about students of color get repeated, go unproven and lead to very real, adverse consequences in life and in the classroom.” White Americans discuss how, if their children have succeeded in school, it must be a result of the support they have offered their children. When Black children do not succeed in the same way, instead of examining the barriers that Black families have to overcome, white families often discuss this as a result of parental failure.

Black families are often aware of and working to encourage their children to close the achievement gap between white and racially minoritized children. In addition to perceiving the need to assist in educational pursuits, they are often cognizant of the challenges that their children face in athletic opportunities. For example, former First Lady Michelle Obama, upon her husband’s election into office, prioritized advocacy for children’s opportunities to be active.

Her campaign, Let’s Move!, encourages children, families, and communities across the nation to live a healthy and active lifestyle. On the movement’s website are listed statistics that point to the dismal statistics of childhood obesity, pointing to limited opportunities for healthful foods and physical activity as contributing factors this epidemic. The site explains: “Over the past three

169 decades, childhood obesity rates in America have tripled, and today, nearly one in three children in America are overweight or obese. The numbers are even higher in African American and

Hispanic communities, where nearly 40% of the children are overweight or obese” (“Learn the

Facts”). The site also notes how “[g]ym class and after-school sports have been cut; afternoons are now spent with TV, video games, and the internet” (“Let’s Move!”). Black parents such as

Michelle Obama are often well aware of the limited options for involvement in sports or other physical activities and are advocating for the needs of their children.

When Black families are unengaged in their children’s education and other school-related activities, the lack of familial participation frequently reflects a conscious decision on the part of the families. In their study on parental involvement in urban schools, Peter McDermott and Julia

J. Rothenburg found that teachers in urban schools perceived minority parents as disengaged from their children’s education. “The urban teachers expressed frustration with parental involvement,” they explain. “Although they believed in family participation, they despaired at improving it” (11). As they assert, these beliefs highlight the “gulf existing between the community and school” (11). McDermott and Rothenburg also found that much of the reason why many parents display reluctance to form connections with their children’s school is the family’s sense that school does not understand, respect, or value the family’s culture and unique strengths. “Urban parents are more likely to participate in school activities when they feel their children are respected, and their communities and heritages are valued,” they contend (12). With a lack of communication between families and schools, teachers continue to view minority families as uninterested to support their children and infrequently question what might be hindering families’ engagement.

170 Perceptions of lack of familial support exist for all areas of children’s education, including their participation in sports and other physical activity. Oftentimes, girls’ lack of participation is viewed as a sole result of limited familial support. These stereotypes do not take into consideration the challenges from institutional inequities that Black families are facing in offering this type of support to their daughters. If a Black family is of a lower socio-economic status, it is more difficult for them to find the resources that would allow their girls to participate in sports, especially in light of a continually growing demand of financial support in order for their children to succeed. Similar to how many Black families have felt a lack of respect for their child’s culture and background from educators, many families withhold their children from realms of sports because of the absence of respect. They do not feel that school administrators, coaches, or other physical activity organizers value their child’s identity.

Assumptions that Black families do not prioritize an engagement with their children’s education and extracurricular activities can lead educators and administrators to feel as is if endeavors to include families would be wasted efforts. Black girls often face the obstacle of fewer attempts being made to include them in sports, with those in leadership assuming that their families will be unwilling to support their children. Sattler argues: “Acknowledging that students of color and their families prioritize educational success – to the same extent our community does for white students — will go a long way toward ensuring they have equal opportunities to attain it.” In both the classroom and in extracurricular activities, such as sports, it is imperative for those in leadership to challenge perceptions of how motivated Black families are to support their children, as well as understanding families’ rationale for choosing to be less involved.

Leaders must be willing to challenge the educational institutions in America that have been set

171 up in a way that inherently excludes Black families in order for girls to have equal opportunities to participate and succeed in sports.

Touch the Sky: Alice Coachman, Olympic High Jumper

Negative perceptions of familial support can be damaging to the children, their families, and those who exclude the families because of incorrect assumptions. Children’s literature as a whole often upholds structural racism in America by perpetuating false narratives about Black families. Touch the Sky: Alice Coachman, Olympic High Jumper, written by Ann Malaspina and illustrated by Eric Velasquez, serves as one example of a book that, through both text and illustrations, depicts a Black family as intentionally hindering their child’s success by refusing to support her.

This biographical picturebook, published in 2012, tells of the life and athletic accomplishments of Alice Coachman. Malaspina, a white American author, has penned numerous picturebooks for children, with many of them being multicultural texts. According to her introduction on the homepage of her personal website, she “writes about social justice, nature, immigrants, and amazing people in history” (“Welcome!”). The scope of her writing includes stories, both fictional and narrative non-fiction, that share the life stories of individuals whose voices have been marginalized in society, such as Black Americans and Syrian refugees.

In order to write Touch the Sky, according to an interview with Malaspina in the eMissourian,

Malaspina spent “two to three years researching Coachman’s story before she even began writing a book on her” (Cernich).

Written in free-verse form, Malaspina tells Coachman’s story of athletic success lyrically throughout the book. While Malaspina originally wrote the text in traditional prose, her editor

172 encouraged Malaspina to rewrite the text in verse. Malaspina explains: “She thought it would get more emotion. […] I definitely like it better. […] It gives the story more energy, and because it’s about an athlete, it works” (Cernich). In conjunction with Malaspina’s free-verse text are whole- page oil watercolor paintings created by Velasquez (copyright page). Unlike the images of

Rudolph in Wilma Unlimited that I discussed in Chapter One, the painted illustrations in Touch the Sky beautifully depict Black characters without relying on the same sexist and/or racist iconography. Furthermore, the flowing free-verse form of the text helps to complement the constant motion being depicted in the illustrations, as Coachman is portrayed as a highly active athlete.

Illustrator Eric Velasquez, according to his biography on his personal website, is an Afro-

Puerto Rican American and was raised in Spanish Harlem in New York City. Many of his picturebooks center around the stories of Black Americans, with experience illustrating books about Black male athletes in particular. His picturebooks Champion: The Story of Muhammad Ali and Jesse Owens: The Fastest Man Alive both are books focusing on Black male athletes, and, in

My Friend Maya Loves to Dance, Velasquez illustrates the story of a young Black girl’s experiences with dance. His use of vibrant colors in the oil paintings in Touch the Sky wonderfully match Malaspina’s lyrical text in emphasizing Coachman’s movements throughout the text.

Both the text and illustrations of the narrative non-fiction text focalize Coachman’s athleticism. The opening pages show a painting of Coachman as a young girl running in a forest, leaping over a fallen tree (See Figure 25). Her speed and agility are both highlighted by the diagonal angles of her legs in this image. Malaspina further emphasizes Coachman’s athleticism in the text, which reads: “Alice Coachman raced/ down the dirt road,/ bare feet flying,/ long legs

173 spinning,/ braids flapping in the wind…/ LEAP!/ She said over/ a tree branch/ and kept on running” (Malaspina). Beginning the text this way encourages readers to see Coachman’s speed and agility as integral to her identity. The majority of the illustrations following this introduction to Coachman show her in motion, legs frequently outstretched and to the side as she leaps into the air. As Barbara Kiefer notes in “Visual Criticism and Children’s Literature,” diagonal lines are often utilized in picturebooks to convey “movement,” (79) which is how Malaspina uses the lines of Coachman’s legs to emphasize the physical activity happening throughout the text.

After establishing Coachman as an athlete early in her life, the text then introduces the main conflict of the story on the following page. Velasquez depicts Coachman standing on the porch outside her home (See Figure 26). Coachman is pictured wearing a bright white dress. As

Claire Painter, J.R. Martin, and Len Unsworth discuss in Reading Visual Narratives: Image

Analysis of Children’s Picture Books, “… probably the most bonding effect created by a picture book is that established by its choices in the use of colour” (35). Velasquez’s choice of color is particularly significant in that, in contrast to the other dark, warm colors of the page,

Coachman’s dress stands out and draws readers’ eyes to Coachman. The colors identify her as the main protagonist of the story. Velasquez’s choice of white, in particular, is also drawing on the symbolism of color. White has traditionally been utilized to symbolize innocence and purity, traits most frequently associated with traditional notions of white, heterosexual, middle-class femininity. Relying on the symbolism of this color, the white dress represents to the gender norms to which most are expecting her to abide. In this image, Coachman’s body language conveys her distain for these norms, as she is depicted with her fists tightly clenched at her sides and her chin turned up toward her father. These norms, signified by the white clothes, are apparent throughout the whole text, as most of the images show Coachman in either white, light

174 pink, or light blue clothes. The lightness of these clothes stands out even more in contrast to the rich dark colors on the page behind Coachman.

Coachman’s father stands on the other side of the page between her and the door to the house, presumably blocking her passage. As Perry Nodelman in Words about Pictures: The

Narrative Art of Children’s Picturebooks points out, “Since we tend to empathize with a character on the left, the move of a previously established protagonist to the right can suggest that the protagonist is in some sort of difficulty” (136). The positioning of Coachman on the right with her father on the left, after the first page of the text establishes Coachman to be the protagonist, informs readers that Coachman is facing some challenge. The obstacle is explained both by the text and illustrations to be her father. Her father has one hand on his hip, the other outstretched with a pointed finger directly in his daughter’s face; he is leaning over so that his face is close to hers. Readers can immediately sense the tension in the image because of his body language (Velasquez). Coachman’s father is angry at her. Malaspina explains the reason for his disappointment with her: “Back home, Papa was angry./ Bare feet shouldn’t fly./ Long legs shouldn’t spin./ Braids shouldn’t flap/ in the wind” (Malaspina). Her papa then scolds Coachman to “[s]it on the porch and be a lady” (Malaspina). From this interaction, we learn that he is one of the biggest challenges to her participation in activity. He relies on sexist assumptions about women’s abilities and what their role should be in society, namely that of a “lady” who does not much more than sit on the porch and completes tasks considered more feminine when needed.

Furthermore, he is exerting control over what her body is allowed and not allowed to do.

This section of the text that tells readers that Coachman’s father opposes her being active is an integral part of the story as a main conflict. In fact, it holds so much weight in the narrative the text’s publisher, Albert Whitman & Company, begins the blurb about the text both on the dust

175 jacket of the book and on their promotional page for the book on their website with the line from the book about her father’s lack of support of her. Thus, before even reading the book, the publisher makes child readers aware that the challenge of unsupportive parents will be a central part of Coachman’s journey in this biography.

After the scene with this interaction with her father, readers then learn that Coachman’s mother piles chores upon her: “Cooking breakfast./ Picking cotton./ Gathering plums/ and pecans/ to make ends meet” (Malaspina). Malaspina contextualizes her mother’s demands, explaining: “Hard times had come/ to Albany, Georgia,/ in the 1930s./ There was always/ more work to do” (Malaspina). Malaspina gives further background information that “[h]ard times had come to Albany, Georgia, in the 1930s” (Malaspina). She offers this information without so much as a mention of how Coachman’s family’s status as a Black American family would have impacted how they experienced those “hard times.” She fails to acknowledge the structural racism working to keep Coachman and her parents oppressed. Coachman’s family’s status in society as a low socio-economic Black American family would have meant that Coachman has a lot of responsibilities in helping her family to survive. From Malaspina’s explanation, however, readers are given only the information that Coachman’s family was struggling, like all of the other residents of their city, because tough times had hit the city as a whole.

The depictions of Coachman’s interactions with her parents mirror the resistance that she felt from them. Lansbury notes in A Spectacular Leap: “Despite her natural track and field talents, she received little encouragement from her parents to pursue sports” (46). Lansbury explains Coachman’s parents’ rationale for this lack of encouragement:

There were several reasons for this. Coachman and her siblings supplemented the

income brought in through their father’s plasterwork by picking cotton, and her

176 parents were not keen on anything that interfered with that or their schoolwork.

Moreover, Evelyn Coachman worried that her daughter would seriously hurt

herself, especially from jumping over bamboo fishing poles, rags tied together to

fashion a rope or anything else that would serve as the bar. (46)

Akin to Wilma Rudolph and her family’s worry in Rudolph’s journey to become an athlete,

Coachman’s family recognized the lack of support and empathy that their daughter would receive in their society if she were to injure herself. To be a Black woman of low socio-economic status with a physical disability, marginalized by society on all accounts, would have been to lose just about any chance at being able to succeed in life. This concern is barely mentioned and certainly not emphasized in Touch the Sky.

In spite of Coachman’s father’s scolding and the obvious lack of encouragement or support that Coachman feels in the beginning of the text, she does not stop being active. The next page shows Coachman high in the air across from a boy, with both Coachman and him reaching above their heads to catch a basketball that is falling down toward them (See Figure 27).

Velasquez depicts Coachman in the same bright white dress as on the previous page, which juxtaposes the gender norms she is expected to follow with her motion of jumping in the air to make a basket, a movement not considered by her father or the larger society to fit into gender expectations. Malaspina narrates that the children are playing basketball during recess and that

Coachman wanted “to play basketball/ with the boys” (Malaspina). Malaspina’s lyrics include the sounds being made during this game of “SWOOSH/ SWOOSH/ SWOOSH” and tell us that

“Alice wanted to touch the sky” (Malaspina).

In the pages that follow, readers learn that Coachman’s desire to “play with the boys” is encouraged by a teacher who “saw something special in that never-sit-still girl” (Malaspina).

177 This description of Coachman contrasts from language used to describe Gibson in Nothing but

Trouble and Playing to Win as we learn that Coachman loves to be active and has trouble sitting still. Malaspina avoids using the term “wild” to describe this desire to be active. Her activity is framed as a positive thing. Coachman’s teacher takes her to a track meet, and Velasquez depicts

Coachman standing next to her teacher, a Black woman, who is pointing at a male athlete who is jumping over a high bar a few feet away (See Figure 28). Malaspina narrates: “Alice’s feet

[tingle],/ wanting to try” (Malaspina). Coachman’s desire to take part in sports is framed as eagerness, rather than a natural—and negative—wildness, as that desire has often been portrayed as in Black women and girls.

The next page shows Coachman practicing jumping over a crossbar fashioned out of white rags which are tied together between two sticks that are driven into the ground (See Figure

29). Velasquez paints Coachman again in a bright color, which helps her to stand out as the focus of the page. Her outfit of shorts and shirt are pink which, similar to her white outfit in which she is previously depicted, is also considered a traditionally feminine color. The lines of her legs show her to be in motion, as in previous pages. These two elements in conjunction again show the juxtaposition of what Coachman is expected to be and what she actually wants to do and her capabilities. The text reads: “Fields shut./ Track shut/ Doors shut/ to girls like Alice./ No place to practice./ No crossbar to raise” (Malaspina). Malaspina explains to readers that Coachman is facing obstacles, the nature of which is quite unclear. Knowing that this story is taking place during an era of segregation in which the Coachman family would have been being systemically discriminated against, readers may infer that the reason Coachman does not have the same opportunities is because of her race. Other than in peritext at the end of the text, this information

178 is not connected to Coachman’s challenges to become an Olympic athlete, as the main obstacle is portrayed to be Coachman’s lack of parental support.

The text continues to depict others besides her parents recognizing Coachman’s talent, such as when the man who is collecting rent from Coachman’s parents stops by their home. The illustration presents him watching Coachman jumping outside over the same rags tied together to make a crossbar (See Figure 30). Standing next to Coachman’s mother, who is also watching her daughter, the man comments: “‘Evelyn, that gal’s gonna/ jump over the moon/ one of these days’” (Malaspina). As Malaspina narrates, “The moon was so far from Albany, where Momma saved pennies because there weren’t ever enough” (Malaspina). This scene with Coachman’s mother accurately reflects a true-to-life encounter. Lansbury explains: “When a doctor collecting rents remarked to her that he thought her daughter would one day ‘jump over the moon,’

[Coachman’s mother] replied that she would also probably break her neck” (46). There were complex factors affecting her mother’s reaction. Lansbury notes:

[T]he Coachmans’ strongest reservations regarding their daughter’s interest in

track and field probably stemmed from the fact that most Americans shunned the

sport as too masculine. They feared that her pursuit of the sport would push her,

as an African American woman, even further onto the margins of society. (46)

While there are some hints at larger systems of sexist oppression in the text, her parents in this text are the ones holding these views about Coachman, her abilities, and her role in society. The racial inequalities included in the narrative serve more as supplementary details, rather than an invitation to readers to empathize with the oppression Coachman’s family feels in America.

Malaspina’s explanation in the text ignores the fact that a system of both sexist and racist oppression often leaves Black parents feeling as if they have no other choice but to force their

179 children to fit into white America’s expectations for them. During this time in Coachman’s life, if Black families refused to compel their children to conform, the result was potentially opening their children to beatings, rape, and lynching. The Equal Justice Initiative defines lynching as

“violent and public acts of torture that traumatized black people throughout the country and were largely tolerated by state and federal officials” (“Lynching in America”). They document that the lynching in America “peaked between 1880 and 1940 and claimed the lives of African American men, women, and children who were forced to endure the fear, humiliation, and barbarity of this widespread phenomenon unaided” (“Lynching in America”). Coachman’s journey to athletic success in the 1940s and 1950s happened during this widespread utilization of terrorism to force

Black Americans to fight against this constant assault or to suffer the potential to lose their lives.

The Equal Justice Initiative also finds that, along with Mississippi and Louisiana, Georgia

(Coachman’s home state) “had the highest number of lynchings” (“Lynching in America”).

Lynching was a real and present threat to Coachman’s family if they dared to allow their daughter to break expectations white America had for her. In his analysis of the historical lynching of women, Kerry Segrave cites the statistic that “[b]etween 1882 and 1968 the

Tuskegee Institute recorded 3,437 lynchings of black people” (Lynchings of Women in the

United States: The Recorded Cases 1851-1946 6). While lynching of Black women was more rare than it was for Black men, the NAACP found that between 1889 and 1918, 50 Black women were victims of it (qtd. in Segrave 7). The possibility of this terrorism, while it occurred less frequently for women than men, still threatened Black women, especially in the American South.

Transgressions of societal norms frequently incurred the wrath of white America through beatings, rape, and lynching.

180 Participating in sports was a breaking away from expectations for any women during the mid-twentieth century. As Lansbury notes, when Coachman entered the sport of track and field,

“[M]iddle-class women physical educators had convinced the broader society that the black and working-class women who chose to enter track and field were either unfeminine or in danger of quickly becoming so” (45). Coachman’s parents’ fears were being influenced by larger societal influences that argued that women, particularly Black women, could not participate in sports without surrendering their right to be considered a “true woman.” This inability to fit in was one that many Black parents during Coachman’s time (and still in contemporary times) find nigh impossible to ignore. If their child was already to be on the outskirts of society because of her racial identity, it makes sense for parents to be loath to allow their child to do what might be heaping further societal scrutiny upon them.

In her text Dark Continent of Our Bodies: Black Feminism and the Politics of

Respectability, E Frances White argues that “White bourgeois nationalism has repeatedly portrayed African Americans as a threat to respectability” (122). In order to be seen as anything other than abnormal, Black Americans were pressured by white Americans – and by Black communities – to follow the “standards of proper behavior” (White 122). The goal of following expectations was to finally gain the respect from white Americans. Any Black Americans who succeeded in doing so were seen as uplifting their entire community. Conversely, any exceptions of Black Americans who do not assimilate are viewed as giving all Black Americans a bad name and are guilty of bringing down the level of respectability for the entire race. Many Black girls feel pressure from both white Americans to conform to gender and racial expectations, as well as feeling pressure to do so in order to not let down Black communities as a whole.

181 In her research of the gender expectations for Black girls in historical children’s literature, Broderick argues, “Black girls could aspire to be nurses and teachers… because these vocations would help uplift their race. … Boys on the other hand, if they were to survive, had to suppress their masculinity and aggressiveness in order to avoid the threat of physical attack by whites” (7). For Black girls to not conform to gender ideals of white America, including participation in activities and career deemed unacceptable, would be seen as opening themselves up to not just further economic disadvantage, but to physical oppression.

Because of the narrow ways in which white society has told Black Americans that they are able to succeed, Black families frequently feel pressure to not allow their children to fall into behaviors or personality traits that may deviate from those narrow allowances. In her book Dark

Continent of Our Bodies: Black Feminism and the Rise of Respectability Politics, E. Frances

White points out that white Americans had tried to rationalize the brutality of Black bodies by relying on stereotypes of Black women. “Whites turned to the very deep prejudices based on gender and sexuality,” White argues, “to convince themselves that they had to suppress blacks and to rationalize the evil acts of both the powerful and the ordinary” (31). Black women utilized standards of behavior as a way to refute negative views of them in white America. She points out that, “[b]y emphasizing the manners and morals of good black women, club and church women were able to counter racist discourses that used negative stereotypes to portray all black women as innately inferior” (White 31). White America viewed—and continues to view—Black women as inherently less deserving of equality because of perceptions of them as not fitting into conventional notions of femininity. For Black families to support their daughters in deviating at all from the expected norms might be seen as them allowing their children to be discriminated against, brutalized, or even killed in a way that white America would completely justify.

182 Allowing their daughters to experience the full spectrum of their identities is often a luxury that many Black families do not have, for fear of having their children taken from them, as has been the case with so many young Black girls

While these concerns of Black families are certainly rational, the terrorism of Black

Americans by white Americans never has been—and is not today—as simple as a desire to force

Black Americans to conform. That is not ultimately the end goal. As Ida B. Wells points out about the use of lynching as terrorism of Black Americans, this brutality was “[a]n excuse to get rid of Negroes who were acquiring wealth and property and thus keep the raced down and the nigger terrorized” (qtd. in Coates). The Equal Justice Initiative argues that terrorism through beatings and lynching was often inflicted upon Black Americans who had done nothing more than having “displayed any economic success of their own” (“Lynching in America”).

Succeeding as a Black American was often enough to incur terrorism from white Americans, and the notion of uplifting the whole Black community by conforming to gender and racial norms would not work. In her discussion of this issue related to critiques of Colin Kaepernick’s protests during NFL games, Christina Greer argues: “[E]ven in the 21st century, [Black Americans] being

‘respectable’ is not enough, and neither will it ever be” (Greer). As she asserts, “For real advancement to occur, Black people cannot live lives to make white people feel more comfortable. That is not equity; that is not equality; and it is definitely not being respected”

(Greer). While the impulse to succumb to pressures by white America to conform to expected white societal norms is certainly understandable for Black families, conforming will not ultimately provide equity or respect to Black communities. White America’s refusal to treat

Black Americans as equals is not grounded in whether or not Black Americans are “respectable,” but in the need to maintain institutional white supremacy in America.

183 In Touch the Sky, Coachman’s parents’ refusal to support her in sports can ultimately be seen as being driven by an ultimately futile desire to protect their child. That support is something that they, like many other Black parents, did not feel able to provide for their children, for fear of sacrificing their child’s future. In a world of white supremacy, encouraging their children to challenge expected norms might mean risking their children's potential to live, far less succeed, in white America. A portrayal of Coachman’s parents as her main obstacle may accurately reflect resistance she felt from them. At the same time, it ignores the complex factors that were impacting her families’ attitudes toward her sports participation, fears that to allow her to participate would mean to allow her to be vulnerable to the terrorism of white America.

Coachman’s Success Despite Parental Resistance

In spite of Coachman’s lack of parental support, the text portrays her achieving success nevertheless. As the story progresses to when Coachman is in high school, we learn that

Coachman was chosen for the Tuskegee Relays in Alabama. Malaspina explains: “Alice’s teachers bought her/ shoes to run in,/ shorts,/ and bright white socks./ If she was gonna touch the sky,/ she needed all that.” The text alternates between others supporting Coachman and her family’s refusal to support her. Malaspina includes a few minor acknowledgments of other factors that are acting as barriers to her success, but she portrays Coachman’s parents as the main hindrance. Because of Coachman’s teachers, she is able to join the Tuskegee Golden Tigerettes for “the biggest meet of the year,” The American Athletic Union National Championship in

Waterbury, Connecticut (Malaspina). It is here that “Alice won/ her first/ national medal”

(Malaspina). Along with these details are images of Coachman first stretching, then running, and

184 lastly jumping over a high bar, through which the readers get glimpses into her participation in this huge event (See Figure 31).

Establishing that Coachman has great athletic potential, the text returns to the main conflict: the resistance of her parents. Velasquez illustrates two side-by-side pages of a moment where Coachman’s coach approached her family to convince them to allow her to enroll a

Tuskegee Institute High School, an all-Black school in Tuskegee, Alabama (See Figure 32).

There she would be able to train with the track team, the Tigerettes. Velasquez paints Coachman on the right page, sitting on the edge of a bed next to her mother. Her mother holds a young child with four other siblings also on the bed behind her. Coachman is straining forward, presumably to hear the conversation happening on the left page. Coach Abbott is depicted standing in front of

Coachman’s father, gesturing as if arguing his case. Coachman’s father is seen listening, one arm across his chest and the other balled in his fist by his face. From his body language, readers can see that he is listening, yet his posture shows resistance.

Touch the Sky also demonstrates this resistance—resistance that again goes unexplained.

“When Alice got back to Albany,/ Papa was proud,” Malaspina narrates, “but he wanted her home./ Momma admired her medal,/ but warned her to stay humble.” Coach Abbott had come to invite her to Tuskegee, and her father refused. Malaspina builds the tension by narrating

Coachman’s thought process: “Alice held her breath./ No more picking cotton./ No more gathering plums and pecans./ Best of all, she’d train with the Tigerettes” (Malaspina). The conflict is finally resolved with the explanation: “Papa nodded./ Yes. He had to let her go”

(Malaspina). Coachman’s parents are portrayed as feeling conflicted about her participation in sports. Their hesitance to let her participate is never contextualized in light of the racist and sexist discrimination that would have influenced their decision.

185 The only moment where Malaspina and Velasquez include contextual details about the racial discrimination is when Coachman is attending the Tuskegee Institute. The page shows an image of the Golden Tigerettes sitting together, eating lunch next to a bus (See Figure 33). The text reads: “Traveling wasn’t easy for the Golden Tigerettes./ Whites-only restaurants shut./

Restrooms shut/ to girls like them./ They ate supper on the roadside./ After dark, they hurried on”

(Malaspina). This page is the only moment where this particular challenge is mentioned. While the conflict of the absence of support from Coachman’s family takes up multiple pages throughout the text, the conflict of racial discrimination only takes up a third of one of the pages.

The oppression because Coachman is African American is immediately downplayed. “Together, the team held strong./ Laughing. Teasing. Having fun./ When they got to the meets,/ all that mattered was/ sprinting,/ throwing,/ running,/ jumping” (Malaspina). The conflict is never revisited throughout the rest of the narrative. Coachman, the text suggests, only really experienced racial discrimination when she left home.

In both Malaspina’s text and Velasquez’s illustrations, Coachman’s family’s resistance, particularly her father’s, serves as the main obstacle that Coachman has to overcome. Malaspina, in an interview, explains that she writes for children so that they can learn about historical figures and events that they might not have known about otherwise. She asserts: “Even with sports, girls and boys have the same opportunities now, but there was a time when they didn’t. [. . .] We need to be aware of these things and look out for each other” (Cernich). Malaspina’s remark here reflects a grave misunderstanding of what sports still looks like for girls, especially Black girls or other girls who are racially minoritized, as equal opportunities are far from being achieved.

Akin to their from other racial and ethnic groups, Black girls experience a varied degree of support from their family regarding participation in sports. The story’s focalization of this lack

186 of support as Coachman’s main challenge in succeeding relies on a stereotype of Black families as being unwilling or unmotivated to help their daughters achieve their goals. Touch the Sky echoes other areas of public discourse that blames Black families when their children encounter seemingly insurmountable institutionalized obstacles. It assigns ultimate responsibility to Black families for Black girls not participating in sports. Without acknowledging the institutions that have held Black girls back from participating in sports and other endeavors for centuries—and continue to hold them back—Malaspina shifts the blame to individuals, mainly Coachman’s parents. According to Malaspina’s understanding of current situations for girls in sports, shifting attitudes of girls in sports have guaranteed them equal opportunities. Holding an intersectional positionality in society, Black girls are still quite far from achieving equality in sports. A text that suggests otherwise does not reflect the realities that many Black girls continue to face in sports today. Touch the Sky perpetuates racism by not challenging stereotypes about Black American families.

Queen of the Track: Alice Coachman Olympic High-Jump Champion

In contrast to Touch the Sky, Heather Lang and Floyd Cooper’s Queen of the Track: Alice

Coachman Olympic High-Jump Champion presents a more complex picture of Coachman’s family. Author Heather Lang, a white American, is the author of a couple of works of sports literature. According to her biography on her personal website, “As a kid [she spent] all [her] free time running and jumping and playing sports” (“Meet Heather”). She adds: “I was shy, and I loved sports. For some reason my shyness never carried over to sports, and perhaps that's one reason I loved them so much. I took risks and chances in sports that I didn't take in other parts of my life. I played volleyball, softball, tennis, and just about any sport—except gymnastics”

187 (“Meet Heather”). Lang’s books often focus on non-fiction stories about women who have achieved their dreams, such as Anybody’s Game, which tells the story of Kathryn Johnston – the first woman to play little league baseball – and Swimming with Sharks, a non-fiction narrative about Eugenie Clark – a woman known as “the Shark Lady” for her daring dives with sharks.

Lang partners with Floyd Cooper in Queen of the Track. Cooper is a Coretta Scott King award-winning illustrator, who has made a name for himself in children’s literature as a prolific

Black American artist. According to his personal website, he creates texts for children because

“giving children a positive alternative to counteract the negative impact of what is conveyed in today’s media is a huge opportunity” (“About Floyd”). He is known for his co-creation of other picturebooks, such as The Blacker the Berry, Brown Honey in Broomwheat Tea, and I Have

Heard of a Land. Cooper’s pastel illustrations work together to remember and honor the story of

Coachman’s athletic journey.

Published in 2012, the same year as Touch the Sky, Queen of the Track also portrays

Coachman’s relationship with her family as a main theme of the text. However, throughout the narrative, Lang and Cooper represent Coachman’s family, while having many children to take care of, as being willing to support her in her athletic endeavors to some degree. Furthermore, they work to more effectively contextualize her family’s hesitancy to support her in light of the complex factors previously mentioned that would have impacted how willing they were to allow their daughter to break away from conventional gender norms.

Queen of the Track begins with an image of Coachman as a young girl, leaping into the air, with an elderly woman depicted walking a bit behind her (See Figure 34). “Alice Coachman was born to run and jump,” the accompanying text reads (Lang). Lang explains: “On morning walks with her great-grandmother Rachel, Alice skipped ahead through the fields. She hopped on

188 rocks. She vaulted over anything that got in her way” (Lang). She attributes Coachman’s earliest experiences with running to these walks with her great-grandmother, noting how even the opportunity to be active was supported by some in her family. With the inclusion of this scene, she credits Coachman’s family to some degree with providing her opportunities to stay active through these walks with her great-grandmother.

However, on the next page, Lang clarifies that not all of her family members provided her with these opportunities. The text explains: “As Alice got older, her papa told her to stop running and jumping” (Lang). Similar to Touch the Sky, Queen of the Track also acknowledges that her father did not want his daughter to be engaging in these activities. Lang contextualizes her father’s beliefs with the statement: “In the 1930s, running and jumping weren’t considered ladylike” (Lang). She offers that it is sexism, and not just her father’s objections, that make sports participation difficult for her.

Lang details that, as one of ten children, Coachman’s family needed her to help with the care of her younger siblings and the completing of household chores, such as cooking, washing clothes, and picking cotton. In spite of these limitations, the text explains that Coachman would still “sneak off to play sports with the boys” whenever she had the opportunity to do so even though “she knew Papa would punish her” (Lang). Accompanying this description, Cooper shows an image of Coachman playing basketball with a group of boys (See Figure 35). She is launching herself into the air to grab a basketball, as the boys around her do the same. Lang includes the detail again that her father did not support these activities; in fact, he would punish her. “People said [Coachman] was a ‘crazy fool,’” she writes, “and she knew Papa would punish her. But she couldn’t pass up a chance to run and jump” (Lang). Akin to Touch the Sky, Lang

189 describes the hesitance of Coachman’s father in allowing her to break the white societal norms that did not allow her to participate in sports.

The descriptions of her father’s punishments parallel those in Ta-Nehisi Coates’ The

Atlantic article, written to his son, in which he reflects upon his own relationship with his father.

Coates discusses the punishments that he received from his father. Societal inequalities, he asserts, had impacted how his father viewed the need to punish his son. He would try to protect him from a worse fate he might suffer at the hands of white American institutions, such as law enforcement and the criminal justice system. Coates describes one instance when, as a child, he had slipped away from his parents in order to go play on a playground. His father beat him. He writes: “Later, I would hear it in Dad’s voice—‘Either I can beat him, or the police.’ Maybe that saved me. Maybe it didn’t. All I know is, the violence rose from the fear like smoke from a fire, and I cannot say whether that violence, even administered in fear and love, sounded the alarm or choked us at the exit” (Coates). Coates acknowledges that his father’s punishment may have been detrimental to him. Likewise, he recognizes the context in which his father was acting. His father was a Black parent in a place where his child may or may not escape with his life if he does not follow the strict racial code for Black men and boys. Queen of the Track does not as thoroughly discuss the rationale for why Coachman’s father punishes her. The contextualization of his treatment of her within the text, however, invites readers to read the narrative with more empathy and understanding for why a Black parent may feel that they do not have the luxury of fully supporting their child.

The next page of the text particularly distinguishes Queen of the Track from Touch the

Sky in its description of the context of Coachman’s experiences. “In Albany, Georgia, like most of the South,” Lang narrates, “black people didn’t have the same rights as white people. Most

190 white people wouldn’t even shake hands with a black person.” Addressing specifically the challenges for Coachman springing from this societal climate of racial oppression, Lang notes:

“There were no gyms, parks, and tracks where Alice could practice running and jumping,” which meant that, in order to practice jumping Alice had to “[run] barefoot on dirt roads” and “[collect] sticks and [tie] rags together to make her own high jumps” (Lang). In particular, this section of the text positions Coachman’s story, and specifically her ability to participate in high jumping, in light of the rampant racism in America during the 1930s. It moves from a more general description such as that “hard times had come to Albany Georgia” to directly addressing who was particularly experiencing those hard times, namely Black families like the Coachmans.

Additionally, as the narrative progresses, explaining Coachman’s participation in the

Tuskegee Relays in Alabama when she was in seventh grade, Lang details that her family had to be convinced by her track coach to let Coachman go. Moreover, Lang explains that Coachman had never left Albany or been away from her family before. Furthermore, she notes that

Coachman “had never worn track shoes before or jumped over a real high-jump bar” (Lang).

Lang attributes the lack of resources described here as a result of the specific discrimination

Coachman faced as a young Black girl in the segregated American South. White Americans were discriminatorily denying Coachman and other Black girls opportunities.

The text then explains a significant event for Coachman in being able to pursue her athletic goals. Because of the limited options available to her in Albany, she needed to leave home in order to have access to opportunities to participate in high jumping. Lang explains that the track coaches from Tuskegee Institute, an all-Black school, convinced Coachman’s parents to allow her to move to Tuskegee to continue her education and to compete on their track team.

Similar to on the previous page with the word “convinced,” Lang uses the term “persuade” to

191 connote Coachman’s parents’ resistance to her moving away. Through this description, the picturebook still acknowledges the lack of encouragement to move away to pursue an athletic career that Coachman felt from her family.

Utilizing both the written text and illustration on this page, Lang and Cooper offer a multi-dimensional understanding of this event. The image shows a young Coachman as she sits on a window sill, presumably at the Tuskegee Institute (See Figure 36). Coachman’s gaze is drawn outward, and from her body language of knees pulled to her chest, arms hugging her knees, readers can see Coachman’s sadness. The text tells readers: “Alice missed her family and worried about them a lot” (Lang). Lang further explains the difficulty of being away from her family with the detail that “[w]ithout any money, they had a hard time staying in touch” (Lang).

As a result of her family’s agreement to allow her to move to Tuskegee, Coachman not only lived away from them, but she unable to have virtually any contact with them. She communicated with them so infrequently that “[o]ne time she went home for a surprise visit, and her family had moved to a different house” (Lang). Her family had not had the resources to contact Coachman to let her know that they had moved and where to find their new home. In this explanation, by showing the image of Coachman’s sadness to be away from her family, Lang and

Cooper are presenting a more complex portrayal of her parents’ support.

A lack of complexity in Touch the Sky may be due partly to a difference in literary format, as it utilizes significantly fewer words to tell the story than Queen of the Track. Even a phrase or two, however, could have led to a more complete understanding of and empathy for Coachman’s family. This shift in portrayal of the Coachman family could have invited readers to challenge rather than a reinforce of a stereotype about Black parents. The discrepancy in complexity in describing the obstacles that Coachman faces also exists in the author’s notes found in the two

192 books, despite being roughly the same length. In the peritextual information in Touch the Sky,

Malaspina includes two sentences that explain Coachman’s position as a Black woman in sports.

“Alice Coachman became the first black woman to win an Olympic gold medal,” the first sentences tells readers (Author’s Note). Later in the note, Malaspina explains: “Never before had

Albany honored one of its black citizens, but some things hadn’t changed. Alice saw the audience was divided by race—blacks sitting on one side, whites on the other. She wasn’t invited to speak” (Author’s Note). Other than the detail that she wasn’t invited to speak, Malaspina does not share how racial discrimination affected Coachman in her athletic career. There are no references to gender norms during the era in which Coachman was participating affected attitudes toward her.

In contrast, in the author’s note entitled “More about Alice Coachman” at the end of the

Queen of the Track, Lang discusses both the racial and gender discrimination that Coachman faced. She also more complexly portrays Coachman’s family. “Alice credits her success to the support she received from her family, teachers, coaches, and sometimes people she hardly knew,” she explains (Author’s Note). The inclusion of this detail helps to reinforce that, reflecting on her success, Coachman credited her family partially with her ability to succeed in sports, despite their initial refusal to support her in her endeavors. In spite of this acknowledgment, Lang does not ignore her family’s resistance. As she notes, “Alice’s father punished her severely for sneaking off to run and jump” (Author’s Note).

What Lang manages to do in this note is to provide a background to this resistance. “For most athletes, the greatest challenge is to master their sport,” she explains (Author’s Note). She then offers the information that

193 [F]or Alice Coachman, hurling herself over a 5-feet-6 1/8-inch bar was far from

her biggest obstacle. Born in 1922, Alice grew up very poor. She lived in Georgia,

where black people were treated unfairly. Banned from public places, Southern

black children weren’t allowed to participate in most organized sports. To make

matters worse, in the 1930s girls were expected to help with housework and be

dainty” (Author’s Note).

The detail that Coachman’s father punished her for being active is contextualized in the time in which she was participating and the expectations that society had for Coachman both because of her gender and racial identity. The note adopts an intersectional view of Coachman’s identity by first explaining how she was marginalized because of how she was racialized in society.

Following that detail, it then explains that, because Coachman was a girl, she had additional pressure to present herself a particular way, as “dainty.” Acknowledging both aspects of

Coachman’s oppression in society offers readers a more complex understanding of why

Coachman faced the unique challenges that she did as a Black female athlete.

While the book blurb on the dust jacket of Touch the Sky is clearly framed from the first sentence with the information that it is Coachman’s father who is the main problem in the story, the book blurb of Queen of the Track presents a different conflict. It begins: “When Alice

Coachman was a young woman, most white people wouldn’t shake her hand” (dust jacket). With this detail, the blurb centralizes racism as the main obstacle that Coachman had to face in order to become successful as an athlete. Before readers begin the narrative in the intratext, they are aware that the overarching conflict of this story is racism that Coachman encounters in her sports journey.

194 A Happily Ever After? Individual Racism and a Happy Ending

Although Queen of the Track offers more complex portrayals of Coachman’s family, the text still problematically portrays racism in many ways. Unlike Touch the Sky, Queen of the

Track places blame for Coachman’s challenges onto the racism that she faced; however, the portrayal of that discrimination is never portrayed as structural racism. It is constructed as the fault of prejudiced individuals. That racism is neatly resolved by the end of the text.

Problematizing this portrayal, Amie Doughty notes: “Although [Queen of the Track] demonstrate[s] to readers that African American women can be successful within the parameters of dominant culture, [it] feature[s] a ‘happily ever after’ resolution that is disquieting” (90).

Queen of the Track concludes with an image of Coachman standing on a podium at the Olympics between two other female athletes. Coachman on the highest podium as she has won gold. The text reads: “On August 7, 1948, Alice Coachman from Albany, Georgia, became the first African

American woman to win an Olympic gold medal. As thousands cheered, she stepped onto the podium. She had achieved her dream—a dream that started with a little girl running and jumping barefoot in the fields of Georgia” (Lang). Lang’s description harkens back to the first page where

Coachman is running with her grandmother. These details work to again make her family an important contributing factor to her success. When Coachman reflects on how she has come to this climactic moment, she recalls the opportunities that she had to be active because of time spent with her grandmother. By referencing the opening page, Lang is inviting readers to view

Coachman’s family as having supported her.

To conclude the biography of Coachman, the text then tells readers that the king of

England presented Coachman with her medal and that Coachman has overcome racism in order to achieve her athletic goals. Doughty argues: “Ending on a moment of triumph, [Lang and

195 Cooper] suggest that because these athletes have achieved recognition, they no longer have to worry about racial or economic discrimination. The book’s historical setting further implies that the injustices that the athletes suffered are in the past” (90). Achieving success certainly did not signal a new era of racial equality for Coachman, as the mayor of her own home town in Georgia refused to shake hands with her upon her return home. Coachman had proven herself successful in sports, yet racial equality was never something that she saw in her lifetime, nor have today’s

Black athletes.

Ending the text that has a central conflict of exclusion from sports because of racial inequality with this triumph does offer an uplifting story. It also presents an unrealistic image of what a fight for equality has looked like for Black Americans—and what that fight continues to look like today. The story did not ultimately end with a neat resolution. Texts such as Queen of the Track that do not contextualize those successes leave out an important aspect of what it means to “succeed” in white America for Black Americans. Frequently that success is accented with continued or even increased resistance to their equality. While Queen of the Track certainly provides a more complex understanding of familial support, Lang and Cooper still offer a less than complex view of what achievements actually looked like for Coachman.

As Ebony Elizabeth Thomas argues in “The Next Chapter of Our Story: Rethinking

African American Metanarratives in Schooling and Society,” stories of triumph can serve as encouragements to a population that has been oppressed for centuries. They can also have a problematic purpose. Thomas contends: “Antecedents of today’s triumphalist metanarratives include the Afrocentricity of the Black arts movement of the 1960s and 1970s, as well as the earlier Harlem Renaissance’s “New Negro Movement’” (6). She explains that stories that focus on the triumphs of Black Americans have been told in African American literature as a way to

196 highlight the fact that some Black Americans have “pulled themselves up by their bootstraps” and so should others. Figures such as former President Barack Obama, she argues, are often upheld as examples of successful Black Americans, with implications of their example being seen to be that others can achieve their goals if they work hard enough. Triumph narratives can provide children with models of how one might chase their dreams, but they “[do] not provide students with satisfactory explanations for why many African Americans have not thrived in post-civil rights era America” (Thomas 8).

Queen of the Track, while offering a positive image that shows that success in sports might be possible for Black women and girls, does not fully acknowledge the complex realities of that success. For Coachman, it looked a lot like receiving a gold medal but being still refused a basic acknowledgment of her humanity by most white citizens in her hometown. As Thomas argues, narratives can show Black girls what might be and invite them to imagine future possibilities for themselves. It is also important for authors and illustrators, especially in biography picturebooks, to acknowledge the realities of what achieving success has been and continues to be for Black women and girls.

Comparison of Touch the Sky and Queen of the Track

While Queen of the Track lacks complexity in how the conflict within the text is resolved,

Touch the Sky portrays a more multidimensional understanding of Coachman’s family. The text asks readers to empathize with her family’s position in society. As was the case for Alice

Coachman, many Black girls do indeed experience familial resistance to their sports involvement. A negative and uncritical framing of this resistance in literature for young Black girl readers can influence how they view themselves, their families, and their families’ support

197 (or lack thereof) of them. In Touch the Sky, Malaspina and Velasquez fail to accurately contextualize Coachman’s family’s opposition to her sports career. They share that her family relied on gender stereotypes to evaluate their daughter’s potential in sports without also fully addressing the context of her family’s racial and socio-economic position in society. The text does not acknowledge how belonging to both a lower socio-economic class and a minoritized race complicated Coachman’s family ability to support their daughter in athletics. Malaspina and

Velasquez portray her parents as Coachman’s main obstacle that she must overcome in order to succeed in becoming the first Black woman to win a gold medal at the Olympics.

In Queen of the Track, Lang and Cooper work throughout the text to create a context for understanding her family’s lack of support, identifying racial and economic disparities that they faced which would have certainly impacted their willingness and ability to fully support her. his visual and textual difference in the two books highlights the difference between how Black girls experience support from their families in contrast to the stereotype that any lack of opportunities in sports is mainly the fault of Black parents who hold their daughters back from succeeding.

Queen of the Track recognizes the sacrifices that economically disadvantaged Black families have to make for their daughters to participate in sports. Touch the Sky views families through a deficit perspective that portrays them as the main obstacle that Black girls have to overcome in order to succeed. Through this view, the text works to perpetuate racist stereotypes of Black families and continues to justify the structural inequities that marginalize Black girls and women in sports.

198 Conclusion

One question that often arises in analyzing children’s texts, especially in picturebooks, which are geared for a particularly young audience, is how much responsibility authors and illustrators have to critically portray stories. Some might argue that not every text needs to take on all of America’s history of injustice. The question arises of how much is too much to share with a young readership about events of racial discrimination. This concern may lead some to choose to shield white child readers from the past. Desires to protect child readers from

America’s grim realities fail to take into consideration the fact that many of the child readers, particularly the target audience of young Black girls, still face similar challenges that Alice

Coachman encountered. While America has made some strides toward racial equality, inequities still plague the experiences of many Black girls. Offering a historical view of these inequities presents a picture to understand from where these inequities are stemming. To suggest that Black girls will be shocked or have their “innocence” somehow tainted by an encounter with an unsheltered portrayal of historical events is to presume an innocence that is most often not afforded to Black girls in America.

A lack of focus on the context can lead to a skewed understanding of events, such as

Coachman’s parents’ hesitance to support her sports endeavors can perpetuate a single story about Black families. Some Black families do not support their daughters in sports, just like some non-Black families do not. When children’s books tell only one dominant narrative about what support from Black families looks like, then the literature is asking readers to see Black families through just that one lens. The perpetuation of this single story can offer to readers a deficit view of what Black families have to offer their daughters, potentially affecting how Black

199 girls view their own families. As Jacque Roethler notes in ““Reading in Color: Children’s Book

Illustrations and Identity Formation for Black Children in the United States,

One of the ways in which black children in America create their schemata is

through the illustrations they encounter in the literature to which they are exposed

as children. Children, especially young children, are sensitive to illustrations.

They concentrate on illustrations while another person reads to them, and they are

subject to the impressions illustrations create. The images these children soak up

remain with them for the rest of their lives (96).

When authors and illustrators ask Black child readers to view their families through the author and illustrators’ deficit view of them, they are offering an impression that will last a long time.

As the Title IX Story Club highlighted, Black girls are certainly capable of challenging negative views of themselves and their communities that are present in texts. In discussions about their families, the girls of the Title IX Story Club were able to more complexly understand the ways in they were supported and, if the support was lacking, what some of the factors were impacting their families’ hesitance. Instead of encouraging girls to see their families and communities in this complex way, authors and illustrators such as Malaspina and Velasquez are offering children one way to see them: as an obstacle that they have to overcome if they are to succeed in sports.

While certainly some Black families are not as involved in or are less eager to support their children (just as some non-Black families are not), as the research shows, most are more than willing to offer their children the support and opportunities that they are able to. Perceptions of Black families as being disengaged from their children’s curricular and extracurricular activities can negatively affect families as schools and sports organizers offer fewer opportunities for involvement to them. When children’s texts uncritically show racially minoritized families as

200 unsupportive of their daughters’ efforts to succeed in sports, the creators of the books are reinforcing stereotypes to readers. They ask, in particular, Black girls to see their families through a deficit lens through which their families seem to care less about them white families care about their children.

Touch the Sky and Queen of the Track work to show the triumphs of a successful Black female athlete by sharing Coachman’s story. While they both simplistically depict what success looks like for Black Americans, Queen of the Track manages to more complexly portray the various factors that impacted Coachman’s family in not feeling able to fully support their daughter in sports. Complex depictions such as Cooper and Lang’s allow for Black girls to see themselves, their families, and their communities more accurately and positively represented while reading about a successful and inspirational female Black athlete. Furthermore, it helps

Black girl readers better understand the hurdles that not only they, but also their families, must overcome in order for them to be successful in sports.

201 Chapter 5: “To Match My Strength Is to Feel Your Own”: Peritext and Culturally Authentic Mentorship in Trailblazer and Firebird

“Success is not easy and I think everyone should know that hard work and perseverance and being open to giving back are so much more powerful than stepping all over people to get to the top.” - Misty Copeland

In 2017, the active wear corporation Under Armour launched a $15 million-dollar campaign, entitled “Unlike Any.” The company’s marketing for it focused specifically on empowering women in sports. One of their featured inspirational spokespersons was Black female ballerina Misty Copeland. An official video advertisement highlights Copeland’s success as a dancer, in spite of perceptions that she would never be able to achieve her goals. The voice- over for the advertisement says: “Dear Candidate, Thank you for your application to our ballet academy. Unfortunately, you have not been accepted. You lack the right feet, achilles tendons, turn out, torso length, and bust. You have the wrong body for ballet. And, at 13, you are too old to be considered” (“Principal Ballerina Misty Copeland”). This narration shares a letter that a teenage Copeland received as a young ballet dancer, rejecting her from a ballet academy. Not only does the note inform her that she has no future at this particular academy, it offers her an assessment of her future in ballet: that it will not exist. Appearing on screen throughout this voice-over segment is Copeland. She dances determinedly, performing pirouettes and boldly leaping across a stage.

In an interview with Eliana Dockterman of Time magazine, Copeland explains: “I think every woman has her version of that rejection letter” (Dockterman). Noting the ad’s relatability,

Copeland shares: “Like many women, I was told that I wasn’t good enough and that I couldn’t succeed, but I willed myself to where I am now. I think that’s a message that resonates with all women. Success isn’t handed to us: we earn it” (Dockterman). Many women’s athletic experiences, Copeland asserts, are tainted by discrimination. While all women encounter these 202 challenges, some experience them more acutely. Black women, in particular, face unique stereotypes and discrimination because of both their gender and racial position in society.

Their treatment impacts how they are able to participate in recreations and activities, such as ballet. As both creative artistic expression and a demanding physical activity, ballet is much more than an art form, as it most frequently is described. It is physical exertion, it is sport, and it is storytelling. While many focus (rightly so) on its artistic nature, ballet holds many similarities to women and girls’ athletics. It is important to consider ballet in the conversation of women’s sports as many of the women who participate in ballet are trailblazers within the arena of women’s sports. During the Obama administration, Misty Copeland served on the President’s advisory Council of Fitness, Sports, and Nutrition and specifically influenced efforts to encourage Black girls to enter into all avenues of physical activity. Considering ballet a sport need not take away from its position as an art form; a dual categorization of it as sport and art form allows for it be understood as a complex artistic physical activity. Thus, within this chapter,

I consider ballet as an important physical activity for Black girls from which they have frequently been excluded.

This chapter examines how two picturebooks, Firebird: Ballerina Misty Copeland Shows a Young Girl How to Dance the Firebird and Trailblazer: The Story of Ballerina Raven

Wilkinson, represent the stories of two successful Black female ballerinas, Misty Copeland and

Raven Wilkinson. Undergirding this analysis is the contextualization of Black women’s historical and current participation in ballet. I focus on how gender, race, and socio-economic status impact Black girls’ involvement in ballet. Noting the controversy surrounding the categorization of ballet as a sport versus an art form, I explore how its frequent conceptualization as a more feminine art form (versus as a sport requiring physical ability) has historically

203 impacted Black women’s exclusion. Because of this lack of participation, Black girls often do not find those with similar identities represented in ballet, resulting in a lack of role models.

Responding to the absence of mentorship, Firebird and Trailblazer work to connect successful

Black ballerinas both to each other and to aspiring young female dancers. They utilize both the intratext and peritext to do so. This chapter argues that these two picturebooks bring together successful Black female ballerinas and young girl readers in order to provide culturally responsive and cross-cultural mentorship and encouragement.

Black American Women in Ballet

In 2015, the American Ballet Theater named Misty Copeland as its principal ballerina.

Copeland’s hard-earned accomplishment broke a barrier that had long existed for Black women in dance: being allowed a leading role in what is often considered the most prestigious ballet company in America. In spite of the challenges from both personal obstacles and barriers set up by systemic oppression in society, Copeland achieved the highest level of success for an

American ballerina. Ever since this climactic moment in her career, she has spent much of her time working to help other women believe that, as she explains it, “The path to your success is not as fixed and inflexible as you think” (“Principal Ballerina Misty Copeland”).

While Copeland reached this height of success as a ballerina, many Black female dancers had paved the way for this possibility. For example, in 1955, Raven Wilkinson became the first

Black female ballerina to dance with the prestigious Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo ballet company. While she was rejected from the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, Janet Collins had become the first Black prima ballerina for the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1951. In the

1970s, Anne Benna Sims was the first Black ballerina to dance for the American Ballet Theater.

204 While not many had reached this level of success, Black women had broken down barriers that paved the way for Copeland’s entrance to ABT.

Copeland, in her book Ballerina Body, explains that, up until more recently, she had previously had no knowledge about these dancers. She writes: “After about 6 years in [the

American Ballet Theater company], the article was written, The New York Times’ ‘Where Are All the Black Swans?’ It hit me harder than I ever imagined. I learned of ballerinas I’d never heard of. Why didn’t I know who they were? Why aren’t they a recognized part of ballet history?” (qtd. in Pratt). She had been dancing for quite some time before becoming aware of the many Black female dancers who had preceded her. The stories of these successful ballerinas had not been recognized let alone celebrated.

Ballet and Perceptions of Femininity

Retired Black ballerina Aesha Ash offers an explanation for the dearth of acclaim that the former Black dancers had received. “Ballet embraces the soft, ethereal and majestic side to women,” she explains, “and yet we often don’t see the media portray black women in this light”

(qtd. In Pratt). Historically, ballet has been an area in which Black women have been excluded.

As a white-dominated arena, many white dance teachers believed that Black women’s bodies and social identities did not fit. Ballet, Misty Copeland analyzes, has been “structured and built” around racist ideology that placed barriers for aspiring Black ballerinas. She points out: “George

Balanchine [the choreographer widely regarded as the father of American ballet] created this image of what a ballerina should be: skin the colour of a peeled apple, with a prepubescent body… So when people think of ballet, that’s what they expect to see” (Mulkerrins). Because of these perceptions, the decision-makers in ballet have often justified their exclusion of Black

205 women. Any non-white ballerina would not match the expectations audiences would have of dancers.

In spite of being traditionally excluded from most forms of physical activity, ballet has been one area where women have participated for a long time. A history of inclusion in ballet versus exclusion in sports stems from narrow perceptions of the physical activity. Many consider it an art form, and many in the realm of ballet would vigorously defend its categorization as an art rather than a sport. Akin to sports, though, ballet requires significant physical strength and coordination and includes competitive elements. Many worry that emphasizing those aspects of dance undermines the skill required that also makes it an art form. Shedding light on this debate,

Brittany Kottler argues in HuffPost: “it is the emotion and creativity in each dancer that ultimately makes ballet what it is: an art” (Kottler). Kottler contends that the recent phenomenon of centralizing the competitive elements of ballet has stripped it of its artistic qualities.

Regarding ballet competitions, she asserts: “These competitions, such as the renowned Youth

America Grand Prix, ruin the art of dance and completely remove the soul and emotion necessary in the art of ballet” (Kottler). Others worry that defining ballet as simply an art form minimizes the physical demands required of dancers. In 1975, a study conducted by Dr. James

A. Nicholas examining 61 different physical activities found that ballet was the most physically challenging (Kottler). A downplaying of ballet’s physical demands fails to acknowledge ballerinas’ athleticism. Ballet is complex. Understanding of it as both art and sport leads to more appreciation of what ballerinas must accomplish. They must be both an artist and an athlete.

While this debate has been sparked more recently, ballet has long been considered an art form that emphasizes grace, beauty, and poise. This conceptualization sheds light on why women have been included here while excluded in other sports. American society has traditionally seen

206 those qualities as feminine. Ballet has been viewed as more fitting avenue for women. Although female participants have been comparatively more welcome in ballet than other outlets of physical activity, their level of involvement has varied greatly over the centuries. As Ilyana

Karthas in “The Politics of Gender and the Revival of Ballet in Early Twentieth Century France” explains, “[The] image of the female dancer [has fluctuated] from having little or no presence in the ballet milieu in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; becoming the epitome of femininity in the early nineteenth century; losing all respectability in the late nineteenth century; and acquiring mass adoration and emulation in the early twentieth century” (962). Over the past few centuries, women’s participation in ballet has both gained and fallen out of favor in western societies.

Ballet, Karthas claims, has gone through periods where it has “destabilized traditional ideologies of gender, traditional cultural perceptions of ballet as a feminine arena remained predominantly intact” (969). Those who understand ballet as a “feminine arena” have also stereotyped male ballerinas as effeminate. Because the aspect of ballet that requires intense physical exertion has long been downplayed, ballet is often perceived as a more acceptable avenue for women to participate as they artistically express themselves. American society has long viewed male participants as having been emasculated.

This conceptualization of dance has led to an exclusion of women who do not conform to traditional ideas of “femininity,” namely Black women. White America has long viewed Black women as not matching white social norms for woman, thus not belonging in the “feminine” and artistic area of ballet. In their research on the perceptions of Black women, Charisse Jones and

Kumea Shorter-Gooden in Shifting: The Double Lives of Black Women in America found that

Black women are frequently stereotyped as unfeminine, and, in fact, masculine (22). Discussing

207 the evolution of this stereotype, they explain: “The myth sprang to life in the characters of

Mammy and Sapphire, then evolved into the archetype of the coarse, sassy Black girl, a ubiquitous image in popular culture” (22). Black women are positioned as either hyper-sexual, and thus dangerous, or masculine. These stereotypes affect women’s lives in many ways, including an exclusion from and lack of recognition in realms that are considered to be traditionally feminine, such as ballet. The institution of dance perceives female ballerinas as successful only when they artistically express themselves in what is considered to be a feminine way. If they do not conform, their opportunities to participate suffer. Luke Jennings of The

Guardian reports that, in ballet, “boys see themselves as individuals from the start, but girls quickly learn how replaceable they are, and in consequence can become over-anxious to ‘fit in’”

(“Sexism in Dance”). The criteria is especially strict for Black women, who already are often perceived to be lacking in white, heterosexual feminine qualities. They are especially vulnerable to be considered “replaceable.” Held against such a narrow standard, Black women have little chance to prove themselves as quality dancers in ballet.

Ballet and Socio-economic Status

In addition to not fitting the perception of the “perfect ballerina” because of racialized stereotypes about femininity, Black women also frequently do not have the opportunity to participate in ballet because of socio-economic factors. As discussed in the previous chapter, many Black Americans find themselves economically disadvantaged in America as a result of centuries of white supremacy at an institutional level. Unlike many white Americans of middle to upper-middle socio-economic status, Black Americans often do not have money that has been passed down through generations. The houses which they inherit are located in neighborhoods

208 that have yet to be desegregated, where few opportunities exist to be able to rise above the poverty threshold. Centuries of discrimination, through policies such as redlining, have kept

America highly segregated and Black Americans from ever gaining true equality. “The State of

Working America,” an analysis published by the Economic Policy Institute, found that, in 2010, the poverty threshold for an American family of four was $22,314. The study shows that

“[a]mong racial and ethnic groups, African Americans had the highest poverty rate” (Economic

Policy Institute). While 9.9% of white Americans were considered below the poverty threshold,

27.4% of Black Americans were found to be living in poverty (Economic Policy Institute).

Economic oppression impacts Black families, who struggle not just with the current financial burdens they encounter, but the discrimination prior generations faced. While a huge disparity exists between the income of white and every racially minoritized group, there is an even larger gap between their wealth. According to a study conducted by Demos and the Institute for Assets

& Social Policy, the median white household in 2011 had $111,146, while the median Black household had just $7,113 (“The Racial Wealth Gap”). They conclude: “From the continuing impact of redlining on American homeownership to the retreat from desegregation in public education, public policy has shaped these disparities” (Demos & Institute for Assets & Social

Policy). Having fewer monetary resources available limits Black families’ abilities to financially support their children in extracurricular activities, like athletics.

Ballet, in particular, requires significant contributions from participants. According to research conducted by FiveThirtyEight, the lifetime cost for families to raise a child to become a professional ballerina is around $120,000, with $53,000 being spent on tuition at a ballet school,

$2,000 on ballet school fees, $32,000 on summer ballet intensives, $29,000 on pointe shoes, and

$2,000 on tights and leotards (Abrams). These expenses are costly for families in any socio-

209 economic position. They are oftentimes particularly burdensome costs for Black American families, considering the ways that they have been economically disadvantaged throughout past and present times.

A high cost of involvement in ballet frequently acts as a barrier for many Black girls to participate. In her autobiography Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina, Misty Copeland explains: “I came from a San Pedro, California, family that didn’t always have enough food to eat, let alone money to spend on a hobby, and it wasn’t until I was 13 years old that I could even take my first ballet class” (qtd. in Abrams). This economic disadvantage was one that one of the most well-known ballerinas had to overcome. As Abrams notes, “While Copeland was introduced to ballet as a teenager, most professional ballet dancers start to dance shortly after they learn to walk” (Abrams). Many ballerinas begin training by the age of the three.

Addressing economic disparities, initiatives like Project Plié (a project begun by the

American Ballet Theatre,) have begun offering scholarships for racially minoritized dancers.

While some within ballet are working to address the gap of opportunities for Black women who are aspiring ballerinas, Black girls still face many obstacles in ballet participation. Furthermore,

American society continues to ignore the substantial past and present accomplishments of Black women. Dancers such as Misty Copeland have entered into ballet feeling resistance without a connection to the history of Black women’s talents and achievements as ballerinas.

While many young Black girls who aim to become ballerinas do so without the benefit of role models, picturebooks can serve as a medium through which authors and illustrators can ask child readers to see possibilities for themselves. In her article “Contesting Controlled Images:

The Black Ballerina in Children’s Picture Books,” Dawn Heinecken draws on the black feminist theory of intersectionality to examine seven recently published picturebooks that feature Black

210 female ballerinas. All of the books she examines focus significant attention on the Black female ballerinas’ bodies. She notes: “[A] construction of femininity that may sometimes appear troubling for its emphasis on physical appearance” is actually following the “affirmative tradition of African American children’s literature by asserting the beauty and competency of black girls and challenging controlling images of black femininity” (3). As Heinecken argues, “research on ballet stories has focused on books’ representations of gender without sustained attention to the ways that race shapes the meanings of such stories” (1). Much more research is needed to examine these intersectional factors. Her work examines how the illustrations specifically contest stereotypical images of black femininity. I build off of her important work on ballet picturebooks to discuss how, in particular, creators of two picturebooks are challenging stereotypical ideas of

Black girls as both readers and athletes to offer them encouragement directly through peritextual elements.

This chapter analyzes how peritext impacts the possibility for stories in picturebooks about Black female ballet dancers in Misty Copeland and Christopher Myers’ Firebird: Ballerina

Misty Copeland Shows a Young Girl How to Dance Like the Firebird (2014) and Leda Schubert and Theodore Taylor III’s Trailblazer: The Story of Raven Wilkinson (2018). Examining the depictions of obstacles and successes for the featured ballerinas, I identify how the texts connect the adult ballet dancers to Black girl readers through their stories and the surrounding peritext. In both Firebird and Trailblazer, the book creators work to accurately represent Black female athletes and offer the mentorship of women in ballet to their readership. These texts are particularly significant to consider in light of a lack of culturally authentic mentors for young

Black ballerinas.

211 The Use of Peritext in Picturebooks

Peritext as defined by Gérard Genette in Peratexts: Thresholds of Interpretation is the

“elements [such] as the title or the preface and sometimes [those elements] . . . inserted into the interstices of the text, such as chapter titles or certain notes” (4). In his article “Reading Outside the Lines: Peritext and Authority in South African Children’s Books,” Elwyn Jenkins explains that included in peritext are “titles and subtitles, authors’ names and pen portraits, prefaces, forewords, introductions, acknowledgements, dedications, cover blurbs, endorsements, quotations from reviews, letters from readers, datelines, tables of contents, epigraphs, glossaries, notes, epilogues, and illustrations” (115). Peritext functions as an important element of picturebooks for young readers. In her article “The Playground of the Peritext,” Margaret R.

Higonnet explains: “Features that in adult literature are usually taken by critics to be peripheral to the text, in children’s literature are deliberately used to enhance the reader’s consciousness of the material existence of the text as an object, a ‘toy’ as well as a text” (47). Peritext, Higonnet asserts, plays a significant role in a child’s experience with a book. Because of its importance in this genre, “children’s literature offers a particularly rich domain for the exploration of the functions and effects of peritext” (Higonnet 47). Examining the peritext of a picturebook can tell critics much about who the intended readership is and how the creators are inviting children to engage with the narrative.

Although there is no set format for how often children interact with the peritext in relation to the intratext, “[a] reading of the front cover, frontispiece, and table of contents, for example, usually precedes one’s reading of the text” (Higonnet 47). Other elements such as author’s notes, glossaries, and end notes are usually engaged with more after the reading of the intratext. Melissa Gross and Don Latham in “The Peritextual Literacy Framework: Using the

212 Functions of Peritext to Support Critical Thinking” examine the role of peritext in encouraging critical thinking in child readers. “The presence or absence of [peritextual] elements [. . .] is not uniform,” they assert, “These elements will vary depending on various factors including when the item was produced, the culture that produced it, the genre, or the edition” (117). There is a wide variety of combinations of types of peritext that a publisher might choose to include in a children’s text. While the amount and content of the peritext may differ among picturebooks, peritextual elements are especially significant to analyze in the non-fiction genre of children’s literature. The producers of children’s texts often utilize that space to give details about the authenticity of a text. Attempting to bolster the informational text’s reliability, peritext may note where authors may have conducted their research in order to be qualified to write this text, give biographical details that did not fit into the intratext yet remain important, or add other details that may influence how the text is understood. Thus, analyzing the supplementary information can shed light on how the text’s creators are mediating the reading experience for children.

Lack of Access to Female Mentors

Having access to mentorship, beyond just from parents, can be an important asset for many children and adolescents. As defined by LaShawnda Lindsay-Dennis, Lawanda

Cummings, and Susan Crim McClendon in “Mentor’s Reflections on Developing a Culturally

Responsive Mentoring Initiative for Urban African American Girls,” mentorship is “an integrated approach to advising, coaching, and nurturing protégés, which utilizes a positive relationship to enhance individual growth and development” (70). It involves encouragement and advisement of a younger person through a close mentor-mentee relationship. In “Ties to Influential Adults among Black and White Adolescents: Culture, Social Class, and Family networks,” Barton

213 Hirsch, Maureen Mickus, and Rebecca Boerger discuss their findings in regard to the impact of having non-parental adults involved in the lives of adolescents. They explain: “Over time, by offering new perspectives, and their own experiences as a model, [the mentors] provide a window to allow adolescents to examine and prepare for adult life” (290). They reason that these relationships can impact adolescents because parental relationships often do not allow for children to view their parents objectively. Hirsch, Mickus, and Boerger contend: “[. . .]

[R]elationships with nonparental adults are typically less psychologically complex than ties to parents. [. . .] Adolescents tend to perceive parents as authority figures rather than as full persons in their own right” (290). Relationships with non-guardian adults can provide youth with developmental benefits they may not be able to gain from just their families.

For example, Hirsch, Mickus, and Boerger suggest that “adolescents with access to a range of adult relationships may be able to employ their newfound cognitive capabilities to learn most effectively about potential identities, and how these might be integrated into a coherent whole or self” (290). As they note, this type of guidance can be vital to adolescents’ growth and development, including being able to explore different possibilities in their identity formation.

While this research looks directly at mentorship for adolescents, there are many implications for children, as well, especially because mentorship for young children can help them see possibilities for themselves early on in their lives.

In spite of the proven benefits of mentorship, opportunities for relationships with advising adults are limited for young Black girls. More specifically, for Black girls who have aspirations of athletic participation, the options of mentors available to them are often slim.

Black women still grossly underrepresented in most sports. As a result, Black girls infrequently interact with successful women who share a similar position in society, being both marginalized

214 because of their race and gender. A lack of available role models persists for many Black women throughout their careers in sports. For example, Sloane Stephens, a Black female tennis player who was the 2017 US Open champion, discussed in a recent interview with ESPNW how she watched Serena Williams’ career in order to plan out her own. When asked how long she intended to compete, she responded: “[W]e’ll see. I mean, Serena had a baby, and eventually I want to have a baby as well. So if she comes back and wins a couple more slams, maybe I will think about it. But I’m kind of gauging it on how well she does and then we’ll see” (Maine

2018). This interview highlights the lack of available role models for Stephens who is expressing a need to watch to see how Serena is able to manage both being a mother and participating in a sport that, in many ways, is still rife with sexism. In spite of frequently being portrayed as

“frenemies” (Maine), Stephens explains that, in light of the scarcity of other role models, even watching Serena’s career trajectory will help Stephens determine her own possibilities.

Stephens’ comments highlight her desire for a role model to help navigate both possible future motherhood and an athletic career. In the same way, many Black women and girls need mentors to help them succeed in a society that marginalizes them for both their gender and racial identities. To complicate this situation even further, for Black women who have achieved acclaim, there is such a high demand to mentor the next generation. So much so that oftentimes successful Black women report feeling themselves spread too thinly, with demands on their time and attention that others do not experience to the same degree. Another factor that impacts Black girls’ access to mentors is the fact that, because a history of racial segregation in America and housing discrimination, many live and attend schools in low socio-economic areas, where the resources to pair students with mentors are more limited than for children in middle or high socio-economic areas. According the human development expert Marilyn Price-Mitchell’s

215 research on youth mentorship, youth “grew intellectually, interpersonally, and emotionally from supportive mentors” (“Mentoring Youth Matters”). Although mentorship matters for children and young adult, according to Doyle McManus of The Los Angeles Times, “fewer than 40% of poor children reported any mentoring” (“‘Social Air Bags’ for Rich Kids”). In contrast, two-thirds of children raised in affluent families have mentors available to them (McManus). Access to mentors is another area where the gap of opportunity is highly dependent on socio-economic status.

A lack of mentors as well as visible role models can lead to Black girls struggling to imagine different possibilities for their future, including in sports. Reflecting on her own experiences, Christina Walker-Jones, a Black female teenager, in an interview with Essence magazine in 2002, explained it this way:

I think a lot of the problems African American girls face are caused by the way we

see ourselves. There are so many negative images put out before us, whether in

the media, at home, what we see our friends doing, our mothers, our sisters. At

times it is hard to fight to the negativity. Many girls I know feed into it because

they think that that’s what they are supposed to do. Many of us are trapped in this

state of ignorance because no one is telling us what we need to know. (Qtd. In

Lindsay-Dennis et al 66)

While many Black girls face the same challenges that Walker-Jones identifies here, mentorship can help girls challenge negative stereotypes. It can help them to confront inaccurate beliefs, which other hold and they themselves may begin to hold. Acknowledging their lived experiences, mentorship can offer Black girls guidance in facing both sexism and racism that they encounter.

216 Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy in “Group Mentoring with Urban African American Female

Adolescents” found that mentorship has the potential to greatly impact Black girls’ ability to cope when they face challenges. In order for mentorship to have a lasting impact, Lindsay-

Dennis, Cummings, and McClendon argue, those relationships must be based in culturally responsive practices. In their research on youth mentorship, they found that “many researchers fail to include theories that provide an accurate representation of how macrolevel influences such as racism, sexism, and classism work simultaneously to influence the behaviors and expectations of African American adolescent girls” (Lindsay-Dennis et al 68). As they explain, the result is that “research-based interventions often fail to develop programmatic themes that address the unique challenges that African American girls encounter in their daily lives” (Lindsay-Dennis et al 69). Discussing the problematic lack of culturally responsive mentorship of Black girls, Sikivu

Hutchinson states: “Many African American women agree on the urgent need to provide mentoring, leadership, and community development for black girls” (“We’re Failing Black

Girls”). She adds: “Unfortunately, there are limited resources and limited will to do so. In many schools, high stakes tests, criminalizing discipline policies and sheer faculty burnout preclude sustained attention to and support of culturally responsive programs for black girls and girls of color” (Hutchinson). The mentorship needs of Black girls frequently go unmet hence the need for children’s literature to provide them with access to role models.

Firebird: Ballerina Misty Copeland Shows a Young Girl How to Dance Like a Firebird

Literature cannot replace the need for relationships with flesh-and-blood advisors. In light of the dearth of culturally authentic mentorship, though, they can help to draw Black girls’ attention to role models. Mentorship is comprised of many different aspects, including an

217 investment into the life of a mentee. Books are not able to fulfill this need. Especially in the context of a lack of role models for Black girls, however, children’s texts can offer one important aspect of mentorship to young readers by showing them role models and offering them specific advice. Although unable to take the place of in-person relationships, children’s books can support Black girls in imagining possibilities for themselves as ballerinas and athletes. The role models presented in the literature can acknowledge the reality of sports participation for Black

American women and offer hope for a future where Black girls find fulfillment in athletics.

One such text is Firebird: Ballerina Misty Copeland Shows a Young Girl How to Dance

Like a Firebird. Published in 2014, the narrative non-fiction text is written by Misty Copeland and illustrated by the prolific African American children’s author and illustrator Christopher

Myers. Especially in the context of recent calls for marginalized characters to be written by marginalized authors with the #ownvoices campaign, this picturebook is a powerful example of text in which a Black woman is speaking about her own experiences. In this book, she is able to share with readers how she views herself and her journey to success in ballet. The publication and reception of the book signify a desire for this type of authenticity in texts within the publishing industry and the field of children’s literature. Since its publication, Firebird has received many different prestigious awards and critical accolades, such as the 2015 Coretta Scott

King Illustrator Award, the 2015 Ezra Jack Keats Book Award New Writer Honor, and was chosen as the NPR Best Book of 2014. The text was Misty Copeland’s debut children’s book and one of many highly successful publications for Christopher Myers. The lyrical text and bold watercolor paintings work together to make the story of Misty Copeland come to life in a way that ballet-lovers and non-ballet-lovers alike can appreciate. The dust jacket of the book describes the text this way: “An affecting story echoing Misty Copeland’s own remarkable and

218 meteoric rise in ballet, paired with vibrant, memorable art with plenty of style of flair” (dust jacket). It refers to the illustrations as “some of Caldecott Honoree Christopher Myer’s best work” (dust jacket).

Unlike many of the other picturebooks examined in this project, Firebird does not mainly focus on Copeland’s story as she grows from a young child to a successful adult athlete. From the very first page of the text, readers see an image of Copeland as an adult ballerina. While

Copeland as the narrator mentions her childhood, the story does not center on her coming of age.

As the subtitle of the text suggests, the narrative focuses on Copeland instructing a younger ballerina to dance the part of the Firebird. Written in 1910 for a Parisian ballet company, The

Firebird is a ballet created by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky and is often considered to be one of the most iconic ballets.

Many name American Ballet Theatre’s casting of Copeland as the prima ballerina in The

Firebird as one of the ballerina’s most notable career successes. Copeland’s author biography on the dust jacket of Firebird explains to readers: “Performing in a variety of classical and contemporary ballets, Misty’s most important part to date is the title role in The Firebird”

(Author’s Bio). Reflecting on this momentous experience, Copeland recalls: “It was the night I danced The Firebird at the Metropolitan Opera House in June 2012. I had never seen an audience that was 50 percent African-American. It was overwhelming to know that so many of them were there to support what I stood for” (“Misty Copeland”). Copeland centralizes this event as one that especially makes the young fictional character admire her.

A theme of mentorship of a younger generation permeates the narrative. As People magazine describes the book, Firebird, as being about “finding inner confidence.” In the article,

Copeland explains that her advice through this book to any young aspiring ballerinas is “‘Don’t

219 let other people’s negative words define you’” (Ward). A Booklist review, which also highlights this aspect of the text, calls the text “[a]n inspirational picture book for children daunted by the gap between their dream and their reality” (“Firebird”). Copeland’s peritextual author biography also mentions this focus in her career, noting: “Misty’s passion is giving back, especially by mentoring children. She has worked with many charitable organizations and has been honored with an induction into the Boys & Girls Club National Hall of Fame” (Author’s Bio). As these reviews and the peritext assert, Copeland’s aim through this book was offering mentorship.

Copeland has spoken about this topic in many other platforms as well, making it an important component of her career. In her conversation with former President Barack Obama for

Time magazine, for example, Copeland unpacks what she believes to be her responsibilities as a prominent Black female ballet dancer and a representative on former President Obama’s Fitness

Council. She explains: “I feel like people are looking at me, and it’s my responsibility to do whatever I can to provide opportunities” (Time). Former President Obama also affirmed that young girls, including his own daughters, look up to Copeland. “You know, as the father of two daughters,” he shares, “one of the things I’m always looking for are strong women who are out there who are breaking barriers and doing great stuff. And Misty’s a great example of that”

(Time). In this interview, Copeland notes the message she hopes that her example teaches to younger girls:

I think it couldn’t be more positive for a young black girl to see that it’s okay to

be yourself, it’s okay to not have to transform and look like what you may see on

the cover of a lot of magazines. That you are beautiful, that it’s possible to

succeed in any field that you want to, looking the way that you do. With your hair

220 the way it is. I think all of that is so extremely important and something that I’m

constantly celebrating. (TIME).

Explaining the importance of Copeland’s role on the Fitness Council, former President Obama asserts: “[E]very study shows that young girls who are involved in sports, dance, athletics end up having more confidence generally. And across the board in everything that they do end up being more assertive, happier” (Time). As he notes, athletics can be highly impactful for girls.

Being able to see Copeland as an example and a mentor has many significant benefits for

Black girls in light of the importance of sports involvement. With her realization that she had never heard of the historical accomplishments of Black women in ballet, Copeland has centered much of her career around ensuring that younger Black girls do not have the same experience. In an interview with Women’s Health, she was asked about what serving as a role model meant to her. She responded: “It’s not just about what I am doing on the stage and working towards everyday, but giving these kids an image of someone that they can connect with and relate to, and really change the course of how they see their lives and their futures” (“Misty Copeland

Becoming Role Model”). While she has participated in inspiring youth in many different outlets, her role in creating Firebird accomplishes her mission of serving as a role model for Black girls.

A Theme of Culturally Responsive Mentorship through the Intratextual Narrative

Firebird begins with an image of Copeland dancing in her role as the firebird, and a young Black girl—who remains nameless throughout the text—to her right (See Figure 37). The latter is striking the same dance move as Copeland. The first page reads: “[T]he space between you and me/ is longer than forever” (Copeland). Copeland and the girl are not, in reality, dancing next to one another, and the distance between them seems immense. In the next illustration, the

221 young girl is watching Copeland dance in a different role (See Figure 38). Picturing Copeland in an all-white ballerina outfit, she sees the famous ballerina dancing over a river with a city featured in the background. Myers depicts the girl sitting on the sidewalk, feet in the street (See

Figure 39). Her eyes shift downward, closed, hopelessness apparent on her face and in her slumped shoulders. The distance continues to seem disheartening to the girl. Copeland gives insight into the girl’s thoughts. A shift in font to italics lets readers know that the young girl is now narrating. “Me? I’m gray as rain/ heavy as naptime, low as a storm pressing on rooftops,” she thinks to herself, “I could never hope to leap/ the space between” (Copeland). Copeland is kneeling down in front of the girl, who is still appearing hopeless (See Figure 40). She tells the girl: “darling child, don’t you know/ you’re just where I started/ let the sun shine on your face/ your beginning’s just begun” (Copeland). Connecting her experience to the girls’, she says:

“[B]efore the curtain rises/ before the spotlight falls/ before the fireworks of costumes/ before it all/ I was a dancer just like you” (Copeland).

As is important in mentorship, Copeland does not minimize the challenges that she herself faced and that other girls will also have to face in order to succeed in ballet. Myers illustrates images of Copeland practicing different ballet moves (See Figure 41). Each depicted pose shows her in a different outfit, indicating a lapse in time. Through these pictures, Myers highlights the hard work of practicing these ballet moves. Accompanying the visual narrative,

Copeland explains: “there I am/ sweating at the barre/ I had a thousand leaps and falls/ switching worn-out slippers/ swift as applause” (Copeland). Her advice not only mentions the obstacles.

Copeland also offers encouragement, another important aspect of mentorship. “Even birds must learn to fly/ like me, you’ll grow steady in grace/ spread an arabesque of wings/ and climb,” the text reads (Copeland). Copeland refuses to shelter her readers from just how much time and

222 effort have been required for her success. Instead, she presents her lived experiences and offers encouragement so that others can follow in her footsteps.

Responding to Copeland’s mentorship, Myers depicts the young girl in variations of her own bright yellow ballet costume, practicing similar ballet moves (See Figure 42). The illustrations of her parallel those of Copeland on the previous two pages. She is attempting what

Copeland has modeled. In all of the images, Myers portrays the girls’ face intensely focused, with a few of the depictions of her having her eyes shut tightly. On this page, the girl then interacts with Copeland. She asks: “each position one through five/ stair steps to the sky?”;

Copeland responds: “that’s right” (Copeland).

In the illustration that follows, Copeland is pirouetting, the girl performing the move in an almost identical way to her left (Figure 43). Copeland’s eyes are shifted over to the girl, watching as she dances next to her. The narrator switches back to the elder ballerina as she again offers encouragement: “you will soar/ become a swan, a beauty, a firebird for sure/ soon with the same practice/ you’ll join me/ in this dancing dream” (Copeland). Emphasizing the importance of hard work, Copeland expresses faith in the young girl. In contrast to the previous images where the girl’s countenance and posture indicate a sense of hopelessness, the girl is clearly confident as she dances next to her inspiration, her role model, and her mentor.

The next pages then alternate between the novice and experienced ballerinas’ narration.

They both speak optimistically about their futures. One image shows Copeland and the young girl performing a move (See Figure 44), while the girl narrates: “in a pas de deux/ a music box for two/ we will wrap our hearts/ careful as ribbons on pointe shoes” (Copeland). The depiction of the two ballerinas together is particularly meaningful considering the rarity of female ballerinas partner-dancing. Ashley Bouder, American ballerina and principal dancer at the New

223 York City Ballet, unpacks the sexism of this pattern in choreography. She asserts: “You don’t see two women in a duet very often. You see two, three, four men quite often – but the language of two females working together, side by side, is not a language many choreographers have explored” (qtd. in “Ballet Has a Sexism Problem”). Because two women dancing a duet is so uncommon in a ballet, this image is notable. Firebird suggests the importance of women metaphorically and literally dancing next to each other, in support of one another. In the image that follows, readers see the young girl on a stage. Copeland stands next to the stage, watching the girl as she appears to take a deep breath before a performance (See Figure 45). “We’ll make the night sky our starry curtain/ the moon our silver spotlight/ as we spin across the planets/ pirouetting tightly as the curls on our heads,” Copeland narrates. She continues to inspire the girl both expressing her belief in the young girl and modeling self-belief. Using the pronoun “we,”

Copeland shows that she is dreaming of her own future as much as that of the young girl.

The famous ballerina also calls on an aspect of their shared identity with the metaphor of pirouetting as tightly as the curls in their Black hair. It is especially significant that she uses their hair as a metaphor, as Black women’s hair has historically and continues to be an aspect of their identity that is scrutinized in their acceptance as ballerinas, as many often do not allow it to fit into Eurocentric ideas of beauty. Daphne Lee, an Afro-Latino ballerina, has spoken in multiple outlets about perceptions of her hair. In an interview with Allure, Lee was asked about the politicizing of Black ballerina’s hair. She recalls pressure as a young girl to chemically relax her hair. She saw “other people in the industry, or on TV in general” and noticed how her hair did not conform to the appearance of other dancers’ hair. “The more people can see black women with their natural hair – it’s normal!” she asserts, “So when I do photoshoots, I make sure that I show that yes, I’m a black ballerina, but I can show unique styles that can benefit staying true to

224 myself” (Egozi). In the interview, Lee was asked whether or not she considers her hair to be a political statement. She responds: “[B]lack bodies became political. There’s always been something that we’ve needed to conform to in order to progress. So I don’t want to say that I’m using my hair to make a statement. It happens because it’s still not the norm. I’m just wearing my hair a regular way, you know” (Egozi). Myers depicts natural Black hair in Firebird. This artistic choice reaffirms Afrocentric beauty. As Wanda Brooks and Jonda McNair in “‘Combing’ through Representations of Black Girls’ Hair in African American Children’s Literature” argue,

African American children’s literature has been celebrating Black women and girls’ hair for decades now. Myers’ images follow in the footsteps of many other African American illustrators who reaffirm Black women and girls’ beauty. At the same time, his affirmation of Afrocentric beauty stands out because depictions of natural Black hair have not been the norm in children’s books portraying Black female athletes – nor in the field of ballet.

After a beautiful image without any text depicts Copeland dancing in her firebird costume, we then see the young girl performing. The image of her is centered across two pages

(See Figure 46). Young children, many of whom are Black and Brown, are watching her on the stage. Referring to this audience, Copeland tells the girl: “then they’ll look to you in wonder/ lighter than air and swift as/ sunlight turning over the day.” She explains that those watching will then remark on her progress toward success. The next page shows both ballerinas again dancing together, this time surrounded by the silhouetted images of other dancers (Figure 47). They are not alone but moving in the shadows of other women who are experiencing similar struggles.

The font changes once again, as the girl chimes in with Copeland to explain what observers will say about her. “The space between you and me is longer than forever,” she narrates, “and I will show them that forever is not so far away” (Copeland). The text here echoes the language found

225 the girl’s observation at the beginning of the book that the gap between Copeland and herself feels so far. This ending highlights what Copeland has provided for her: mentorship. As

Heinecken asserts in her analysis of the picturebook, through the illustrations, “Firebird reassures girls of their own potential, inspiring them to see themselves as active agents with the capability to achieve the idealized femininity of the ballerina” (10). The focus of the book’s narrative offers this message to Black girl readers. It invites them to see hopeful possibilities for themselves in ballet.

Culturally Responsive Mentorship through Peritext

The narrative of Firebird centers around offering encouragement to a young aspiring ballet dancer. Misty Copeland as the author also supplies mentorship not just to one fictional aspiring dancer. She also offers it to the readers of the narrative through the peritext. Without the supplementary information, the picturebook would simply offer Black girl readers an inspirational role model. The peritext, however, allows Copeland to break a barrier, making the book more than just an example of a role model. She speaks directly and candidly to her audience. According to an interview with NPR about Firebird, Copeland explains that she has witnessed the need for mentorship for Black girls in ballet. Many girls come to her, she notes, who are frustrated “because they’ve been told no so many times” (“Misty Copeland Seeks to

Inspire”). She describes the journey of one girl she was able to encourage. Copeland says:

“There’s a young girl that I’ve known since she was maybe 3 years old, a mixed race like I am, half black and half white. And when I met her, she just – she was considering going into a contemporary and modern company, and now she dances with Dance Theatre of Harlem”

(“Misty Copeland Seeks to Inspire”). As she recalls, her mentorship has helped to open up

226 opportunities that Black girls see for themselves in ballet. One of the main tenets of her career has included seeking out opportunities to serve as a role model and mentor to the next generation of Black girls.

In her author’s note at the end, she discusses her struggles as the first Black female ballet dancer to be accepted to the American Ballet Theatre. She begins by explaining: “I was once a little girl searching for my voice. Quiet, scared, unique, yet alive and vibrant. I struggled, caught among five siblings, desperate to be noticed. I never felt that I fit in anywhere” (Author’s Note).

Copeland acknowledges the scant representation of Black ballerinas. “When I opened up ballet books,” she recalls, “I didn’t see myself. I saw an image of what a ballerina should be, and she wasn’t me, brown with tendrils sweeping her face. I needed to find ME” (Author’s Note).

Explaining her motivation in penning this narrative, Copeland shares: “I hope to pave a more definitive path than the one that was there for me but was just a little too hidden” (Author’s

Note). She adds: “I want to bring many with me to trace and create an even more vivid road to acceptance of yourself and from others” (Author’s Note). Concluding, she writes an invitation:

“Join me.” This sentence is singled out by itself, highlighting the statement’s imperativeness

(Author’s Note). With this ending, she metaphorically reaches out her hand to take the hands of younger Black girls.

Copeland also references the guidance that she herself has received. In her note, she explains: “Raven Wilkinson, African American ballerina with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, and other amazing women took my hand and led me” (Author’s Note). Wilkinson has impacted

Copeland, so much so that the latter mentions the mentorship here and also dedicates the book to

Wilkinson (Dedication Page). In the documentary A Ballerina’s Tale, which tells of her journey to success in ballet, Copeland discusses her struggles upon joining ABT. “It all kind of hit me at

227 once,” she narrates, “moving to New York, realizing I was the only African American woman in a company of 80 dancers. I felt like I was sinking for a while. I felt alone in a world that had become my home” (A Ballerina’s Tale). These feelings led to a period of depression and associated emotional eating where she recalls: “I was overeating because I felt so bad about myself” (“A Ballerina’s Tale). Susan Fales-Hill, a Haitian-American television producer, author, and screenwriter is interviewed in the documentary, explaining that the executive director of

ABT, Rachel Moore, had approached Fales-Hill, asking her to reach out to Copeland. Moore’s invitation, according to Copeland, marked her first experience with guidance from a ballerina who could relate to Copeland’s own experiences.

Noticing Copeland’s loneliness, Fales-Hill began mentoring Copeland. In particular, she started connecting her to other women who could advise her. “I began introducing her to women

I knew who had been first, whether it was Diahann Carroll or Veronica Webb, who was the first

Black model to have her own cosmetics contract,” Fales-Hill explains, “Women who had blazed trails, to help her understand that she had the same potential, to give her a kitchen cabinet of women who could help her face these hurdles” (“A Ballerina’s Tale”). These women – and

Wilkinson who she would later meet – helped her. Copeland recounts that they guided her through the challenges that come with being in a field that continues to discriminate against

Black women. As the peritext highlights, mentorship from other Black women played a huge role in helping Copeland to succeed. Thus, it is appropriate that both the peritext and intratext of

Firebird contextualize Copeland’s achievements with the importance of the culturally authentic mentorship from other Black women. Through these elements of the text, Copeland focuses on the importance of mentorship and offers herself as a role model to aspiring young Black ballerinas.

228 Trailblazer: The Story of Ballerina Raven Wilkinson

Published more recently, in 2018, Trailblazer: The Story of Ballerina Raven Wilkinson also offers encouragement to a young Black female audience. Trailblazer was written by Leda

Schubert and illustrated by Theodore Taylor III. The picturebook tells the story of Wilkinson, the first Black female ballerina to dance with a major American touring troupe. Unlike Firebird, the text is not written by the dancer herself. Trailblazer works to offers mentorship to young Black girl readers in a different way. Author Schubert is an award-winning children’s author, who has previously written a non-fiction picturebook about ballet, entitled Ballet of the Elephants (2006).

Although she has experience writing about the topic, Schubert is white, and Trailblazer is a text whose narrative focuses on a Black character. The book’s artist, Taylor, an Black illustrator, has received awards previously for his work on African American children’s texts. In 2014, he won the Coretta Scott King John Steptoe New Talent award for his work on the picturebook When the

Beat Was Born: DJ Kool Herc and the Creation of Hip Hop. Schubert’s written text and Taylor’s animation-style pictures work together to honor Raven Wilkinson and her trailblazing career as a ballerina. Because of the author’s identity, the text’s written narrative offers cross-cultural mentorship.

Cross-Culturally Responsive Mentorship through the Intratextal Narrative

From the beginning of the text, readers learn that Wilkinson’s success in ballet sprang from her passion for the art. In the first line, Schubert introduces Wilkinson’s birthdate and home city and then explains: “From the time she was a little girl, all she ever wanted to do was dance”

(Schubert). Accompanying this narration, the first image depicts Wilkinson as a young girl, seated between her parents in an auditorium (See Figure 48). Wilkinson is pushing herself

229 forward in her seat, joy clearly expressed on her face and through her body language (Taylor).

Schubert narrates that Wilkinson’s parents had taken her to the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo when she was only five years old, and that was a life-changing moment for Wilkinson as “[f]rom that moment on, her passion for dance only grew deeper” (Schubert). Readers also learn on this first page of the challenges that awaited Wilkinson, despite her passion for ballet. Schubert explains: “No black ballerina had ever danced with a major American touring troupe before”

(Schubert). Through mentioning this detail at the beginning of the text, Schubert centers this as a conflict of the narrative, rather than as a sub-plot as many other authors of picturebooks about

Black female athletes tend to characterize these obstacles. Schubert makes it clear from the beginning: the racism that Wilkinson experienced will be a main focus of this narrative.

The next pages showcase Wilkinson’s first ballet lessons, lessons that she received as a gift from her uncle. Taylor depicts a scene where Wilkinson is entering the ballet studio where she would begin training for her career (Figure 49). In this image, her body language differs considerably from the obvious joy portrayed on the previous page. As she enters the door to the studio, she glances over at two other young ballerinas, both of whom are white, as they practice dance moves. Wilkinson clearly feels out of place here, as she “arrived for her first class wearing shorts and sneakers, with her knobby knees sticking out” (Schubert). On this page, the text also introduces readers to Wilkinson’s ballet teacher, Madame Maria Swoboda (Figure 51). Taylor shows her walking Wilkinson through a ballet move by moving her arms into a correct position.

Adding text to this image, Schubert writes that Madame “didn’t know what to make of the light- skinned Raven” (Schubert). While the text identifies Wilkinson immediately as Black, she is depicted with light brown skin, leading to possible ambiguity for others in identifying her racial identity. Madame even asks her “‘Are you French? Or maybe Spanish?’” (Schubert). Madame

230 recognizes that Wilkinson is not the typical ballet dancer. Accentuating this observation are two white girls depicted dancing in the studio to whom Madame seems to be referring. This scene highlights racism that Black Americans often face when others inquire about their nationality.

The assumption is that being non-white means that one is not American.

In spite of these problematic questions about Wilkinson’s race, Madame immediately notices Wilkinson’s talent. Madame even communicates this to Wilkinson’s parents, telling them

“‘Raven is very talented. She will dance before kings and queens’” (Schubert). While Schubert describes Wilkinson as talented, she has already described Wilkinson as passionate, emphasizing passion over a natural talent. This portrayal contrasts from many of the other biographical texts about Black female athletes. Many non-fiction picturebooks connect the athletes’ success to a natural talent, which is often suggested as resulting from their racial identity. The athletes are not credited with their achievements. The success is attributed to factors outside of their control.

Wilkinson is depicted dancing in the front of the studio, her body clearly different from the bodies of the other girls—all of whom are white (See Figure 50). Despite her obvious passion and talent, the text reads: “[F]or the next several years, Raven danced only for Madame”

(Schubert). Schubert calls attention to the inequities Wilkinson was facing, even as a child. Her passion and talent obviously rivaled other girls’ at the studio; yet, she went uncast and unseen in ballets. The discrimination is further emphasized on the next page when we see Wilkinson as a young adult. Taylor illustrates Wilkinson dancing in a studio. This time Wilkinson is at the back of the room, but again surrounded by only white women. Schubert narrates that Wilkinson was attending college at Colombia University, and that “[w]hile a student, she auditioned twice for the Ballet Russe” (Schubert). Such stereotypes and discrimination that Wilkinson experienced

231 are explicitly named here. A friend tells Wilkinson that the Ballet Russe would not accept her

“because of [her] race” (Schubert).

Schubert highlights Wilkinson’s persistence, explaining: “Raven wouldn’t give up.” It is this persistence that eventually results in a third audition where the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo finally agree to accept her. Wilkinson is then depicted on the next few pages traveling and performing far and wide with the troupe (See Figures 52, 53, 54). With a few background details, the text then contextualizes her feats in the socio-political climate in America. On one page,

Schubert discusses the Brown v. The Board of Education U.S. Supreme Court case, which ended legal segregation of schools in America. “Across the country, many people rejoiced,” the text reads (Schubert). On the page directly following this one, though, Taylor depicts a horde of Klu

Klux Klan members in their white hooded robes, marching with torches (See Figure 55). “But not everyone celebrated,” Schubert narrates, “The Klu Klux Klan, an organization that hated the idea of integration, grew more violent, burning crosses and bombing homes of black families.”

Taylor then depicts Wilkinson sitting in front of a mirror as she is powdering her face, her cheek turning significantly whiter than her natural skin tone through this application (See Figure

56). In light of the previously described dangers, Wilkinson’s family and friends were scared for her safety because “In some states, it was illegal for black dancers and white dancers to share the stage” (Schubert). Accompanying this image, Schubert writes: “Sometimes Raven lightened her skin with makeup” in order to avoid the vitriol of audiences. They would have been infuriated to see a ballet dancer with brown skin sharing the stage with white dancers.

These pages of background information emphasize the importance of drawing attention to the context of the racism Black girls experiences in ballet. Many texts rely on a default understanding that America as a nation was working to overcome a historical exclusion of

232 racially minoritized athletes in sports. Trailblazer, on the other hand, explicitly unpacks that not only was it slow progress challenging Wilkinson’s ability to participate. Many were trying to prevent it. The text creators explicitly state the realities that Wilkinson was facing, including a daily threat of terrorism from hate groups such as the Klu Klux Klan. As discussed in the previous chapters, in offering children stories of encouragement and mentorship, adults tend to underemphasize the true realities of racism. In Trailblazer, Schubert and Taylor create a story that acknowledges the dangers that Wilkinson was facing, challenges to which Black children can still often relate.

Schubert and Taylor depict additional events where Wilkinson experienced racial discrimination and terrorism. The first instance, which took place in 1957, happened when

Wilkinson was staying in a hotel in Atlanta, Georgia. The hotel manager “asked Raven if she was black.” (Schubert). When Wilkinson confirmed that she is Black, the manager “then ordered

Raven to leave, afraid that the building might be bombed if she remained” (Schubert). Taylor shows the ballerina walking out of the hotel. The hotel manager stands behind the desk, with a cross look on his face (See Figure 57). Two other ballerinas are also depicted behind Wilkinson, one of them looking sheepishly at Wilkinson and the other trying to stop her from leaving.

The next page depicts Wilkinson being protectively surrounded by four other ballerinas

(See Figure 58). They are blocking Wilkinson from others, and Schubert explains that “[d]uring the same tour, at a performance in Alabama, men rushed onstage shouting, ‘You all got a nigra in the company?’” (Schubert). When the other ballerinas refused to get out of the way, the men left.

Schubert then returns to descriptions of the particular threats Wilkinson faced because of the Klu

Klux Klan. Accompanying this information, the illustration depicts Wilkinson sitting and dining with another ballerina at a hotel (See Figure 59). At a table behind the two, we see KKK robes

233 laying on a chair. Watching families eating dinner at the same hotel, she realizes that these parents, KKK members, were “‘teaching children they loved to become instruments of hatred’”

(Schubert). With this recognition, Wilkinson chooses to stay safe in her hotel room that evening.

The next illustration depicts her watching out the window (See Figure 60). A cross is burning outside, which “could be seen for miles” (Schubert). These instances of experienced racism are highlighted as significant details in Wilkinson’s career. Both the visual and textual narrative of

Trailblazer show support that Wilkinson feels from other ballerinas in the troupe. The text also explicitly addresses how a societal terrorism and discrimination of Black Americans is impacting her involvement in ballet.

In addition to accurately reflecting challenges that Wilkinson face, Trailblazer offers encouragement to readers by acknowledging the discrimination that often forces girls out of sports. The statistics of girls leaving sports is significantly high, especially for Black girls. In fact, as Kimm, Glynn, Kriska, Barton, Kronsberg, Daniels, Crawford, Sabry, and Liu found, while an attrition rate is high for all girls between elementary school and high school, Black girls are leaving sports during this time as twice the rate as white girls (“Decline in Physical Activity”

712). This disheartening attrition rate is often attributed to girls losing interest in a sport. More often than not, the racism and sexism that they experience become too significant. Girls are left feeling overwhelmed with the unrelenting obstacles that they face. Trailblazer acknowledges this reality. Schubert details an event when Wilkinson’s troupe dances one of the most famous ballets, Swan Lake. Wilkinson, despite being one of the most talented ballerinas in the troupe, is passed over for both of the main roles in the ballet: the white swan and the black swan. “Though

Raven had danced solo roles,” the text explains, “one of the company’s ballet mistresses told

Raven that a black dancer would never do Swan Lake in the Ballet Russe” (Schubert). Raven is

234 then quoted saying: “They weren’t going to have black dancer portray a white swan, […] but I never understood why they couldn’t have a black dancer be a black swan” (Schubert). This type of resistance to including racially minoritized women and girls into sports often leave the individuals feeling unhopeful that things will ever change.

While Wilkinson’s talent was unmistakable, her career’s longevity was short. The text explains that “In 1962, after spending six years with the Ballet Russe, Raven knew it was time to go” (Schubert). Wilkinson had reached her limit. As a Catholic, Wilkinson felt called to join a convent. She left to “seek a clarity she was never able to achieve in performing” (Schubert).

Because of the resistance Wilkinson experiences, not being welcome to share her talents in her home country, she is not able to fully know herself or to find a clarity in her life. Having to continually defend her identity and her right to being respected as an equal to white Americans prevented her from achieving that peace. Through sharing Wilkinson’s experience, Schubert and

Taylor are explicitly addressing one of the main ways that Black girls continue to be pushed out of sports.

In their research at an inner-city American high school, detailed in “‘Ballet It’s Too

Whitey’: Discursive Hierarchies of High School Dance Spaces and the Constitution of Embodied

Feminine Subjectivities,” Matthew Atencio and Jan Wright found that the school tended to structurally exclude Black girls from their ballet program, while simultaneously blaming the lack of ability to participate on the girls. They argue: “[t]he school ignored its own role in excluding

‘black’ young women even as it systematically excluded them” (37). As they point out, “this exclusion of ‘black’ young women was linked with the school’s desire to position itself as an elite-level dance programme through the intake and privileging of ‘white’ middle-class young women” (37).

235 While the ending seems to be a disheartening follow-up to such a promising career for

Wilkinson in Trailblazer, the story does not conclude there. The text then skips ahead a few years to 1967. Taylor depicts Wilkinson dancing in front of royalty (See Figure 61). Wilkinson had been offered an opportunity in the Dutch National Ballet in Holland. She is quoted explaining that, in this context, “‘people were far more interested in who I was rather than what I was’”

(Schubert). Schubert refers back to her first ballet teacher’s prediction. As is depicted in the illustration, Wilkinson “danced before royalty: Queen Juliana of the Netherlands” (Schubert).

After seven years in Europe, Wilkinson then returns to the U.S. There, the text details, she joined the New York City Opera and danced until she was fifty years old.

At the end of Trailblazer, when Wilkinson’s career is ending, the text’s creators again focalize the theme of mentorship. An illustration shows another Black ballerina, Misty Copeland, dancing as the white swan in Swan Lake, the role that had been denied to Wilkinson many years before (Figure 62). Readers learn that, in 2015, “Copeland became the first African American principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre” (Schubert). Schubert explicitly mentions that

Copeland “credited Raven as being instrumental in helping her find her place in the ballet world”

(Schubert). Akin to the peritext of Firebird, Trailblazer emphasizes the influence that Wilkinson had upon Copeland. Wilkinson, Schubert notes, “took [Copeland’s] hand” and mentored her. In this monumental performance for Copeland, Wilkinson “was at the performance to celebrate”

(Schubert).

Following this scene, Taylor portrays Wilkinson presenting Copeland with flowers at the end of her performance (See Figure 63). Schubert adds the detail that the two women “joined hands” (Schubert). Copeland is quoted saying “‘She was a mentor in my life even before I met her’” (Schubert). Through this reflection, Copeland is explaining the importance of finding role

236 models, even when they are not available to guide you in person, such as through reading or watching their stories in literature and other media. Many Black girls do not have in-person mentors. Finding guidance through figures in literature, then, becomes even more important. The ending line of the book showcases Wilkinson’s role as a mentor. “Raven Wilkinson,” it states,

“with her talent and courage, had led the way” (Schubert). Wilkinson’s impact on Copeland had led the way for the latter ballerina to become one of the most successful dancers. The text emphasizes the importance of culturally responsive mentorship for Copeland’s success. Through this theme, it offers cross-cultural mentorship to Black girl readers.

Culturally Responsive Mentorship through the Peritext

Trailblazer’s peritextual elements also focus on Wilkinson’s connection to Copeland. The back matter explains Wilkinson’s success in shattering borders that kept Black women from participating in ballet and calling her “an inspiration to ballet dancer Misty Copeland” (Back

Matter). The text description on the dust jacket highlights that her relationship to Copeland is one of the main focuses of the text. It reads: “This beautiful picture book tells the uplifting story of the first African American ballerina to ever dance with a major American touring troupe and how she became a huge inspiration for the pioneering ballet dancer Misty Copeland” (Dust Jacket).

These peritextual elements, which would often be read before the intratext, position the book as one that focuses on mentoring relationships.

Before the narrative begins, readers encounter a foreword, penned by Copeland herself, introducing this story about Wilkinson. In this note, Copeland specifically explains Wilkinson’s impact on her. “When I was twenty-three years old,” she writes, “I watched a documentary called

Ballets Russes. This was the day my life and my purpose changed. I discovered a black ballerina

237 named Raven Wilkinson, and it was in her that I saw myself and what was possible” (Foreword).

Copeland explicitly names the power that representation has had in her life, representation that had been missing early on in Copeland’s journey. In Wilkinson’s example, which she only discovered a few years into her career, Copeland witnessed a successful ballerina. Wilkinson not only looked like her, but also came from a similar background with similar challenges to overcome because of her gender, race, and socio-economic class. Discussing the lack of diversity in classical ballet, Copeland offers that she wishes that she “could have known [Wilkinson’s] story when [she] was a little girl” (Foreword). Copeland then expresses her hope that, because of

Trailblazer, other Black girls encounter Wilkinson’s story at an earlier age.

At the end of the foreword, Copeland explicitly states the impact that Wilkinson has had upon her, saying: “I’m honored to call Raven my mentor and friend, and I’m so grateful that her impact and legacy are being shared” (Foreword). A picture of Copeland and Wilkinson is included opposite the foreword. Copeland is in a ballet costume, presumably having immediately finished a ballet performance. Wilkinson stands across from her, presenting her with a large bouquet of flowers. Copeland’s expression and the way that Wilkinson is gently placing her hand on Copeland’s arm show the mutual respect.

The intratext is surrounded by two different pieces of textual mentorship, one from

Copeland at the beginning and one from Wilkinson at the end. In a letter penned to her “Dear

Young Friends” at the conclusion of the picturebook, Wilkinson writes directly to her young readers. She describes the narrative as “the story of a little girl who loved to dance and wished with all her heart to become a ballet dancer” (Author’s Note). Wilkinson specifically explains that the journey has been a difficult one for her. Reflecting on her younger self, she writes: “As she grew up and was trying very hard in her ballet classes, she realized that there were lots of

238 obstacles in the way of her ever becoming a ballet dancer” (Author’s Note). A necessary element of culturally responsive mentorship is acknowledging a mentee’s challenges. Wilkinson assumes that young Black girls who are reading this text are likely—despite dancing many years after herself—still facing similar challenges. Not only does she acknowledge these obstacles, she offers hope based on her own experiences.

Explaining the difficulties that she faced, Wilkinson pens: “[T]his is the story of her overcoming those obstacles by always following her dream and never giving up on the hope in her heart and the faith in herself” (Author’s Note). She quotes Eleanor Roosevelt, who offered this piece of inspirational advice: “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams” (Author’s Note). Wilkinson then reveals that this girl that she has been describing,

“[w]ell, that little girl was me!” (Author’s Note). Writing directly to her young readers through this inspirational letter, Wilkinson shares with them her own experiences, accurately representing the effects of racism and sexism on her career. She offers herself as a role model by encouraging young girls who face similar obstacles to “never giv[e] up on the hope in [their] heart[s]”

(Author’s Note).

The Cultural Authenticity of the Creators of Firebird and Trailblazer

The text of Firebird would, without much controversy, be categorized by most critics as culturally authentic;⁠ Copeland writes from her own experiences. Trailblazer, written by a white woman, is not authored by the subject of story or by someone who share her racial identity.

Theodore Taylor III, the illustrator, is a Black American. Because the textual narrative is told by a white woman and illustrated by a Black man, neither creator’s identity fully matches the subject-of-story’s identity. While neither have experienced American society or athletics in the 239 same way as Wilkinson, they each bring insider perspectives—Schubert in her experiences with gender oppression and Taylor in his experiences with racial oppression. Michelle Martin’s scholarship in “Brown Girl Dreaming of a New ChLA” coins the term “crossover scholarship.”

This term refers to when writers and researchers are “crossing racial, ethnic, geographic, socioeconomic, gender, and other identity boundaries to write about people who live and look differently than the scholar does” (98). This definition can also apply to the research needed to write a text about a historical figure, as Schubert and Taylor have done in Trailblazer. In her article “Who Can Tell My Story,” Jacquelyn Woodson discusses the importance of cultural authenticity in children’s literature. “Some say there is a move by people of color to keep whites from writing about us,” she notes. (Woodson). Explaining the resistance to white people telling stories outside of their experiences, Woodson explains: “We want the chance to tell our own stories, to tell them honestly and openly. We don’t want publishers to say, ‘Well, we already published a book about that,’ and then find that it was a book that did not speak the truth about us but rather told someone on the outside’s idea of who we are.” The peritext in Trailblazer works to add a culturally authentic element by foregrounding the biography with the voices of

Copeland and Wilkinson, both Black ballet dancers. It also includes direct quotes from both of them all throughout the intratext. By doing so, the picturebook does not only tell the experiences of a Black woman from an outsider’s perspective. It makes space for Black women to speak

“honestly and openly” (Woodson).

From the outset, Firebird offers mentorship to young Black girl readers that would be considered culturally authentic because the role model is a cultural insider. While not writing directly from their own experiences, Schubert and Taylor devote space in the book where Black ballerinas speak directly to young readers. In light of the recent debates of the need for more

240 cultural authenticity in children’s literature, Schubert and Taylor foreground their understandings of Wilkinson’s story through prioritizing the voices of Wilkinson and Copeland in both the peritext and intratext of Trailblazer. Although the level of cultural authenticity varies between the two texts, both picturebooks are able to offer to young Black girl readers depictions of role models who emphasize the importance of culturally responsive mentorship.

Viewing Black Girls as Agentic Readers

As I discuss in Chapter 1, the girls of Title IX Story Club were agentic readers and were engaging not just with the intratext of picturebooks, but also thinking critically about peritextual elements. Peritext is an important part of most picturebooks. From his research with South

African children’s literature, Elwyn Jenkins notes that authors’ credentials are often highlighted in the peritext. He suggests that, oftentimes, this inclusion is more for the benefit of skeptical adult readers than for child readers. For example, Jenkins asserts that, when it comes to the peritext specifically of fairytale narratives, “[e]thnographic studies, while constituting the background to the writing of many books of folktales for children, are irrelevant for the child’s enjoyment of the stories. Yet mediating adults seem to expect authors to supply an ethnographic peritext to folktales” (120). There are some elements of the peritext of Trailblazer that seem to be more directed toward an adult rather than child audience. At the end the text, following the glossary is listed the “Partial Bibliography.” This page includes sources that the picturebook creators used as research in writing and illustrating the text. Listed references include an interview that Schubert conducted with Wilkinson, as well as personal emails, films, books, and news articles that discussed topics related to the ballerina.

241 Because most of the peritextual notes in both text specifically address child readers, the majority of the peritext in both Firebird and Trailblazer, are directed toward a child audience, not just for the benefit of an adult audience. The added information was created, in fact, with a particular audience in mind: young Black girls who may have aspirations in ballet. The use of peritext reflects an understanding of young Black girls as agentic readers, who are not only engaging with the intratext, but also with the peritext. Educational dialogue frequently characterizes Black girls as “struggling readers” and disengaged learners. Gholnecsar E.

Muhammad and Marcelle Haddix in their review of the literature of Black girls’ literacies in

“Centering Black Girls’ Literacies: A Review of Literature on the Multiple Ways of Knowing

Black Girls” refute this belief about Black girls. They contend that much of the research on

Black girls’ literacies do not center their “ways of knowing and being” (317). My own research with the girls in the Title IX Story Club highlighted specifically when reading Firebird that

Black girl readers are engaging with ideas in peritext much like they are reading the intratext.

Findings that continually characterize Black girls as deficit in literacy not only impact how educators view Black girls in the classroom, but impact how Black girls view themselves.

They explain: “if African American youths’ reading achievement scores or percentages are always reported as low or substandard, then the score can subsequently become a part of their academic identity. Even though these youth may receive poor instruction, the focus is typically on youth rather than the instructional context” (317). On the other hand, Traci Baxley and Genye

Boston’s study bringing together text analysis of books about Black girls and analysis of Black girls’ literacy, that Black girls are active in literacy expressions when they engage with texts to which they can connect. They found that, when the girls read a book with characters with whom they could identify, the girls “connected with the story, reflected on the protagonist’s feelings

242 about self-worth and self-image, and encouraged the protagonists through reading responses”

(322). Muhammad and Haddix call for more studies such as this that highlight the literacy of

Black girls and center their knowledge and expertise in the research.

Choosing to speak directly to young Black girls in the peritext of the two picturebooks examined here, the creators make it clear how they view Black girls: as readers. The peritext engages Black girls as critical readers who are able to not only interact with the words and images, but also as capable of engaging with ideas surrounding the text, such as issues of racial and gender discrimination, the importance of aiming high in setting goals, and reliance on mentors in achieving success. The picturebooks are based on an assumption that Black girls will read these books and be willing to think critically. In light of a dominant norm of dismissing

Black girls as thinkers and learners, these picturebooks speak directly to an audience who is viewed as highly capable of reading, thinking, and succeeding in ballet.

Conclusion

In another video Under Armour created, Copeland is again featured dancing. For this advertisement, Copeland is modeling a clothing line for the brand. Replacing music that might usually accompany an ad is a spoken word poem, written by American rapper, actor, and poet

Saul Williams. Copeland’s ballet moves flow to the rhythm of the poem. The poem reads: “The systemic structure/ built to keep me in place/ is the stage I dance on./ Black and Woman./

Motherships, my mother’s hips/ beheld deep space/ Astronaut of corporal grace” (“Principal

Ballerina Misty Copeland”). This poem highlights not just the personal obstacles Copeland has overcome in her success in ballet. It also names the systemic structure of oppression that has created barriers for her. The video identifies that as both “Black and Woman,” this intersectional

243 oppression has meant that she has had to take on stereotypes and discrimination because of both her gender and racial identity.

Later, the poem says: “To match my strength/ is to feel your own” (Principal Ballerina

Misty Copeland). This line highlights the beneficial influence that a role model can have on younger dancers. As the verse suggests, for young girls to witness the power of a strong woman can build the feeling of empowerment. Copeland, as a successful ballerina, serves as role model to many young Black girls. Her own achievements, as she discusses in Trailblazer, have been greatly impacted by Wilkinson’s example. By seeing Wilkinson’s strength, Copeland felt her own. Copeland, in turn, is helping other girls to find theirs, as well.

More recently, several notable campaigns and organizations have also recognized the potential impact that mentorship can have for young girls. For example, the Instagram account

Brown Girls Do Ballet, with more than 100,000 followers, is dedicated to spotlighting Black women and girls who participate in ballet, working to further dismantle perceptions of who belongs in ballet. A division of Brown Girls Do, Inc., the account reposts submissions from

Black girls and women all over the world who are participating in ballet. These posts serve to highlight more famous Black female ballerinas to Instagram users. Through a focus the stories of

Black dancers, the account offers encouragement to Black girls that ballet holds possibilities for them. As stated on their website, the mission of Brown Girls Do Ballet is to “promote diversity in the arts by providing annual scholarships, a mentor network, and community programs to empower young girls” (“Brown Girls Do”).

The Swan Dreams Project is another organization working to promote possible opportunities for Black women and girls in ballet. Listed on the website is their mission: “to convey the message that beauty and talent are not constrained by race or socio-economic status”

244 (“Mission”). The mission is accompanied by an image that has become iconic within the ballet community. It depicts ballerina Aesha Ash in what appears to be a low socio-economic area. Ash is dressed in her ballerina tutu, and she is modeling a ballet move for two young Black girls, who are attempting to imitate her. The website quotes the ballerina saying: “Through the use of imagery and my career as a ballet dancer, I want to help change the demoralized, objectified and caricatured images of African-American women by showing the world that beauty is not reserved for any particular race or socio-economic background” (“Mission). Ash adds: “I wish for this message to infuse the ballet world and project to the entire world” (“Mission”).

Black girls, especially those who come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, can reap significant benefits from mentorship. Providing guidance with a lifelong impact, many organizations, particularly those within Black American communities, are taking steps to include

Black girls in ballet. Mentorship is a much-needed step in supporting girls in order to close the opportunity gap in dance. American society still upholds many daunting barriers that young

Black ballerinas have to overcome. These challenges include lack of funds and time in order to participate in ballet, discrimination when they do participate, and lack of recognition when they achieve success. Effective guidance must acknowledge these realities, while providing support in engaging with institutions and individuals that would hold them back.

However, opportunities for connections with mentors are often limited for Black girls. In this context, children’s literature serves as a promising outlet for offering role models to Black girls as a form of mentorship. The examples of Firebird and Trailblazer highlight the flexibility and potential impact of African American children’s literature. For centuries, African American children’s book authors and illustrators have been working to most effectively encourage the next generation. They have offered specific guidance in how to survive in a world of oppression

245 in which most Black children live. The field of education may just be beginning to acknowledge the ways in which we have institutionally failed Black girls. This realization is not new to many

Black American communities. Many Black families are highly aware of the lack of accessible mentors for their daughters. As has been the case since its inception, African American children’s literature addresses a need when white society is failing Black children. Unlike the broader body of children’s literature, which is dominated by white supremacy, African American children’s literature views Black girls as agentic readers. With this acknowledgement, Black text creators view books as an effective way to connect children with mentors. The two picturebooks here work to offer guidance to Black girls in the context of a dearth of culturally responsive mentorship.

While the two texts have differing degrees of cultural authenticity, through both the intratext and peritext, they manage to allow young Black girl readers to hear the voices of Black ballerinas. Copeland speaks directly to young Black girls through both the intratext and peritext.

While the subject of story does not write the story herself in Trailblazer, both Copeland and

Wilkinson’s voices are still centralized in the text through the utilization of peritext. Trailblazer serves as a powerful example of how a white author can amplify the stories and voices of Black women through the use of peritext. Although this text’s creator does not write as a cultural insider herself, she still creates space within the text where Black female athletes speak directly to young Black girl readers, offering them guidance. Especially in a context where many Black girls are denied culturally authentic mentorship, these picturebooks work to reach out a metaphorical hand, as the Black ballerinas remind their readership that “to match my strength is to feel your own.”

246 Chapter 6: Rising to Rio Together: Sport, Sisterhood, and Activism in The Golden Girls of Rio

"I'm not the next Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps. I'm the first Simone Biles." - Simone Biles

During the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, female athletes, such as American gymnast Simone Biles, made history. Biles garnered much acclaim during these Olympics, and for good reason. More women than ever in the history of the games competed in Rio. According to Zachary Crockett of Vox, although the ratio of women to men had been steadily increasing over the years, the number of female athletes competing in Rio sharply contrasts from previous years. In 1900, only 2.2% of participants were women; in 1960, only 11.4% were women, and even, more recently, in 2000, only 38.2% were women (Crockett). Even within the past twenty years, the number had significantly increased. Crockett reports that, in Rio, women comprised

45% of the total number of competitors (Crockett). He credits this gained equality for women to the “increased efforts by the IOC [the International Olympic Committee] and other advocacy groups to lobby for more women’s sports” (Vox). The U.S. women did not disappoint in their historic representation. They earned 34 medals during the Olympics, with 16 of them being gold.

The U.S. men earned 32, with only 9 of them being gold. The female athletes not only competed.

They completely dominated in Rio.

According to The Guardian, news coverage of women’s sports at the Olympics tends to follow media focal patterns outside of the games. Men’s sports take the focus, and women’s sports are often a mere afterthought in comparison. Eileen McDonagh and Laura Pappo in

Playing with the Boys: Why Separate Is Not Equal in Sports assert: “After all, it has been drilled into our heads that female athletes are not as good as male athletes, that female sports are less interesting, that female sporting events are less worthy of promotion or public interest” (3). 247 American media has frequently perceived women’s sports as undeserving of significant notice.

During the Rio Olympics, however, an estimated 58.5% of NBC telecasts were dedicated to it

(The Guardian).

While women’s sports received more airtime than men’s sports during the Rio Olympics, equality in time of media coverage did not necessarily mean equality in the quality of media coverage. The reporting of female athletes in Rio was marked with sexism. For example, after the Hungarian female swimmer Katinka Hosszú broke a world record in the 400-meter individual medley, NBC covered her accomplishment by immediately focusing the camera on her husband. NBC commentator Dan Hicks referred to him as “the man responsible” for

Hosszú’s success (The Washington Post). Likewise, in a tweet reporting on the bronze-medal winning Olympian Corey Cogdell-Unrein, a member of the USA shooting team, the Chicago

Tribune posted: “Wife of a Bears’ Lineman Wins a Bronze Medal Today in Rio Olympics.” The tweet referenced her husband in the story’s title instead of naming Cogdell-Unrein herself

(@chicagotribune). In both instances, instead of focusing on the female athletes’ historic accomplishments, the news sources re-centered the attention to the women’s husbands.

Along the same lines of sexist reporting of the Olympics, Fox News dedicated an entire on-air panel discussion to debating whether or not female Olympians should wear makeup while competing in their respective sports. This discussion included comments such as Fox News contributor Bio Dietl’s rhetorical question: “Would you put money behind a gal that won the gold medal that looks like a washed out rag?” (The Splinter). With this question, Dietl was implying to audiences that the female athletes’ performance was not considered worthy of notice unless they met a certain normative standard of cisgender hetereosexual attractiveness (The

Splinter). These examples were just a few of the more notable instances of sexist coverage from

248 the Rio Olympics. They were not the exception. In her article for The Splinter, Taryn Hillin identified 23 instances such as these that occurred during the Rio Olympics, such as commentators referring to the women’s Judo final as a “catfight” and describing swimmer Katie

Ledecky’s swimming talent as “swimming like a man” (Hillin). Sexism was fully on display in the media’s treatment of the female athletes. The biased reporting exemplified that, even during what was hailed as a historic moment of progress for female athletes deserving of notice and celebration, overwhelming sexism continued to taint the reception of women’s athletic success.

In this chapter, I analyze a picturebook about the women who competed in Rio: The

Golden Girls of Rio. This narrative non-fiction text was written by Nikkolas Smith and published in 2016. It represents the adaptability of African American children’s literature in working to specifically meet the needs of a Black child readership in multiple ways. While most texts, even ones that I have argued in previous chapters offer positive portrayals for Black American girl readers, tend to display Black women and girls in sports in uniform ways: they are slender, with small muscles peeking out of their slender frames. A lack of diversity does not represent the different bodies that are present at events such as the Olympics. In contrast to these previous texts, The Golden Girls of Rio represents many different body figures, highlighting that all of these body types are both acceptable and have the potential to be successful. Through a wider representation of what a female athlete might look like, this text offers many different girls the opportunity to envision themselves in the shoes of a successful woman in sports. It reflects shifting cultural widening of physical beauty standards. The text’s celebration of many different bodies as beautiful and capable highlights shifts between some of the earlier texts discussed and more contemporary texts and the ways in which notions of universal beauty standards are being challenged.

249 I also discuss how this text breaks the narrative about female athletes from most other arenas of literature and media which constructs them through the text and illustrations as “catty.”

Creators of children’s literature often represents women as unable to support one another without simultaneously trying to undermine each other. The inclusion of any Black women in texts for child readers has historically been rare, far less the inclusion of multiple Black women who support one another. Examples of powerful Black female friendships in children’s literatures are grossly underrepresented. The Golden Girls of Rio, however, makes central to the narrative female athletes who are literally and figuratively leaning on each for support in sports. While women and girls alike are often sold the story of needing to tear each other down in order to succeed themselves, sports often rely on the exact opposite, requiring cooperation skills of players. Real-world sports offer girls opportunities to deny narratives that pit them against their same-sex peers and instead collaborate. I argue that children’s literature also has the potential to help girls encounter different stories of what relationships with other women and girls can look like. The Golden Girls of Rio focuses on the diverse backgrounds, efforts, relationships, and attitudes that have played roles in these women succeeding, and, throughout the text, emphasizes that the women were standing together, supporting one another, in order to dominate at the

Olympics. Furthermore, the picturebook offers a message of the importance of sport in allowing collaboration across many kinds of human differences. The text goes further than just suggesting the need to collaborate in sport. It is as a form of activism in encouraging these relationships.

Yet, I question the representation of a fully achieved sisterhood, drawing on the example of the racist and sexist media coverage of Gabby Douglas during the Rio Olympics.

Ultimately, I discuss how The Golden Girls of Rio represents an improvement in how both American society as a whole and specifically children’s literature is conceptualizing the role

250 of Black female athletes. The text’s creator, Nikkolas Smith, a Black American artist, utilizes this picturebook to speak back to negative narratives that Black women in particular face in

American sports. In light of the constant barrage of criticisms that Black female athletes face,

Smith works to empower women in athletics by honoring the stories of successful Olympians. As

I contend, this text demonstrates multiple aspects of refusing stereotypes and expectations coming together to offer an inspirational tale that offers possibilities for collaboration, support, and success for young girl readers -- in sports and beyond. The Golden Girls of Rio accomplishes the goal of showing young Black girls the importance of using their imagination and relying on each other in order to reach their goals and ambitions.

Sport-Specific Stereotypes

In addition to containing rampant stereotypes of Black women, many of the children’s texts examined in the previous chapters contain stereotypes about the exact sports in which Black women will have a chance to become successful. While books such as the examples discussed are widening the horizons for Black girl readers in many ways, many of them still perpetuate the idea that, while the presence of the female athletes is allowed in American society, they are only permitted within certain contexts. Historically, Black female athletes have been encouraged or allowed to participate and gain recognition only in certain sports.

In part, Black women’s participation in only some sports is due to the sex segregation of athletics that still withholds particular avenues, such as football, from all female participants, no matter their racial identities. Sports in America for children and adults alike continue to be segregated based on gender rather than one’s athletic abilities. Thus, with only a few notable exceptions, women with more athletic skills in any given sport would be barred from

251 participating on a male team, simply by virtue of her gender. As McDonagh and Pappano argue,

“sex segregation is such an ingrained part of athletics at every skill level that it rarely draws attention, much less protest” (8). According to McDonagh and Pappano, out of the 500 court cases dealing with issues of sex discrimination in sports programs, only 10 percent of those cases have focused on sex segregation of sports. Sex segregation of sports has been maintained in

American society with minimal challenges.

In addition to more girls participating in athletics, Black children are more likely to compete in particular sports. Angela Lumpkin explains: “… a disproportionate number… of

African American males and females choose to compete on football, basketball, and track and field teams” (“Critical Events” 59). Economic class is one factor impacting the sports in which

Black Americans participate. As discussed in previous chapters, resulting from centuries of oppression, many Black Americans historically have lived in poverty. According to the

Economic Policy Institute, in 2010, “27.4% of Black Americans were found to be living in poverty.” Athletics such as football, basketball, and track have historically required less substantial financial investments in order to compete. In contrast, other activities, such as tennis or golf, often require more sport-specific equipment or memberships to expensive clubs. While sports such as football are played overwhelmingly by Black male athletes, others such as hockey or golf remain almost solely filled with white players. These are the physical recreations that are most often, for many different reasons, the only ones available for Black American children.

There are many factors influencing their choice of athletic involvement, including a lack of acceptance of Black athletes in certain arenas. The race disparities in certain physical activities span from childhood all the way through to adult professional sports.

252 Stereotypes specific to Black women and girls also impact which sports are available to them. Ellen Staurowsky in Women in Sport: Continuing a Journey of Liberation and Celebration points out that “[. . .] hegemonic notions of femininity and masculinity are used to categorize sports as masculine and feminine” (106). Thus, some are seen to be more appropriate for men, and some are seen to be more appropriate for women. Staurowsky notes that stereotypes about these sports rely assumptions that “[f]eminine sports exude delicacy, flexibility, and artistry (e.g. gymnastics and synchronized swimming), while masculine sports exude strength, power, and aggressiveness (e.g. football and basketball)” (106). The sports that are considered to be more masculine are not always even available to girls as an option for involvement. Competing in these sports often is not an option for girls – even if they were available. Even when sports considered more feminine are available, however, that does not mean that they are accessible to all girls.

Staurowsky notes that the gender stereotyping of different sports is particularly complex.

It especially excludes women of color on multiple levels. They are marginalized because of perceptions of them as lacking “feminine” traits. Involvement in physical activities that are traditionally considered areas appropriate for women, such as ballet or gymnastics, also frequently require more of a financial investment. As a result of centuries of economic disadvantaging of Black communities by white America, Black families often sacrifice more in allowing their daughters to participate in the sports that are considered more traditionally feminine. Many Black women have turned to competing in sports that are considered more masculine, yet are more financially accessible, such as track and basketball. Black women’s involvement — and success— in these sports, as Staurowsky asserts, is often used to justify the stereotyping of Black women as unfeminine. She argues: “[T]he success of African American

253 women in these [more traditionally considered masculine] sports reaffirmed racial and gender stereotypes of African American women as emasculating, racial and gendered hegemonic notions of their intellectual inferiority and athletic superiority, and perceptions of them as amazons or lesbians” (106). Black women often have to choose between participating in traditionally

“feminine” sports that are more expensive or in sports that are considered more masculine.

In “Representations of Female Athletes in Young Adult Sports Fiction: Issues and

Intersections of Race and Gender,” Mary Jo Kane and Kimberly D. Pearce examined the representation of African American female athletes specifically in young adult sports fiction.

Analyzing these texts, they found that participation in sports, such as swimming or gymnastics, which require significantly more time and financial commitments, often see an underrepresentation of African American women in real sports contexts. They attribute this mainly to the fact that “… increasingly large numbers of people of color (particularly women and children) live in poverty” (86). At the same time, literature, such as some of the texts that they examine within the young adult sports fiction genre, can challenge notions that “… African

Americans are only from a particular economic class, or only able to excel in certain sports”

(86). Literature has the potential to create worlds in which members of society challenge the crippling racism in sport. Through the creation of these stories, children’s text creators can invite both racially minoritized and white readers to imagine Black female athletes’ success in any sport of their choosing.

Female Collaboration and Individual versus Team Sports

Another factor that influences what sports Black girls can participate in is perceptions of participants’ particular needs. Oftentimes, girls are encouraged to engage in individual rather

254 than team sports. When only allowed to compete individually, girls lose out on benefits that can be only gained from team sports. In their report entitled “Her Life Depends on It,” the Women’s

Sports Foundation documents that benefits that American women and girls gain from sports participation. They assert: “athletes tend to enjoy a greater sense of self-esteem and feel less depression than their sedentary peers” (40). Akin to these findings, Sara Pedersen and Edward

Seidman, in their research with urban adolescent girls discovered that “higher levels of achievement in team sports predicted higher self-reported global self-esteem” for girls (“Team

Sports Achievement” 419). They stress the particular importance of opportunities for girls to participate in team sports in order to “[enhance] the positive development of girls and young women in their communities” (420).

Competing in team sports offers benefits that participation in individual ones cannot. Yet, both forms of involvement are much-needed outlets for girls. The University of Wollongong in

Australia conducted a study of girls’ involvement in team sports. They identified that “girls who take up a team sport before the age of eight and continue for at least two years are likely to be healthier, have better relationships, and do better at school” (Fireman). The impacts, the study asserts, are even more significant for girls than for boys. Team sports can have far-reaching effects for girls. The Forbes article “The Secret to Being a Power Woman: Play Team Sports,” journalist Jenna Goudreau highlights the impact that team sports for young female participants.

Documenting the effects of athletic involvement in a team context, she cites the “shocking” statistic that “82% of women in executive-level jobs [have] played organized sports in middle, high, or post-secondary levels” (Goudreau). Goudreau quotes Sue Rodin, the founder of Women in Sports and Events explaining: “In team sports, you learn to share roles and work together towards a common goal, which is a tremendous lesson in the workplace. [. . .] It increases the

255 possibility that you will be very disciplined and focused, knowing that other people are depending on you” (Goudreau). Neither individual or team sports is more wholly beneficial to girl participants. Both have much to offer, and both should be an option for all girls

In spite of the importance of being involved in both categories of sports, girls of all identities participate less frequently in team sports than do boys. In their research on children’s participation in organized activities, Janie E. Jacobs, Margaret K. Vernon, and Jacquelynne

Eccles in “Activity Choices in Middle Childhood: The Roles of Gender, Self-Beliefs, and

Parents’ Influence” found that “boys were involved in a larger proportion of team sports than girls” (244) and “girls were involved in a greater proportion of individual sports than boys”

(244). Girls are not competing in team sports, and gaining the same benefits from them, to same degree as boys. When girls are allowed to participate in athletics, they are often encouraged to participate in individual ones. American society does not view girls as capable of the degree of collaboration that team sports require.

Although both individual and team sports are important for girls, individual sports is more likely than team activities to negatively impact girls’ self-image. This impact is, in part, due to the particular attention that is often given to women’s bodies when they are the sole focus of a sporting event. Anna Kessel in her Guardian article “Let’s Get Physical: How Women’s Sport

Can Conquer Body Image” aptly asserts: “While sport can be liberating for women, too often it has been our oppressor” (Kessel). Sports can have many benefits for participating. However, societal expectations for them as female athletes can also have negative effects on their well- being. For example, in her text Little Girls in Pretty Boxes: The Making and Breaking of Elite

Gymnasts and Figure Skaters, Joan Ryan has explored the detriments to women's physical, mental, emotional health that happen as a result of the focus on image in two of the more

256 common sports for girls — figure skating and gymnastics. Ryan describes her work to uncover the effects that these sports have on women. She explains that she found that “[i]n the dark troughs along the road to the Olympics lay the bodies of girls who stumbled on the way, broken by the work, pressure and humiliation” (3). While she argues that these sports are “potentially wonderful and enriching” (4), the form which they currently take often leaves lasting negative marks on girls who participate in them. One of the main reasons being that girls and women’s’ bodies and appearances oftentimes become a centralized focus in the sport. She notes: “In figure skating especially, we want our athletes thin, graceful, defential, and cover-girl pretty,” (4) so much so in the sport that scores for appearance oftentimes count towards a final score for performance as much as actual talent and abilities.

American society places much emphasis on the importance of appearance in individual sports. As a result of a sexist focus on their appearance instead of their abilities, individual athletics can negatively impact girls’ self-esteem. Participating more independently does not inherently cause insecurities. Instead, it is the social norm of unrealistic body expectations for athletes that unduly places this pressure on athletes. Viewers of team sports often do not place the same degree of criticism on female participants. However, competing on a team is frequently not an option for girls. Oftentimes, American society views girls as less capable of succeeding in a team format. A narrative of girls’ competition with one another often means that girls are not perceived as being able to fully support other players in a team sport context. Psychologist Lyn

Mikel Brown suggests that “[t]he reason books and reports that depict girls as nasty, catty, and mean are so provocative is that they relay something both disturbing and familiar. It shouldn’t be, but it is so true, we think. We women know this, don’t we?” (1). She argues:

257 Fundamentally, it’s a political story about battling the surveillance and control of

girls’ bodies, minds, and spirits; a story that varies with social context, with race,

class, and sexual orientation. It’s a story about containment and dismissal that gets

acted out by girls on other girls because this is the safest and easiest outlet for

girls’ outrage and frustration. (2)

Society tells girls to never stop competing with one another. Girls are seen as never fully support one another without an underlying desire to undermine others’ successes. As a result, team sports are seen as counter-productive. Girls and women are more frequently encouraged to participate in an arena that does not ask them to collaborate but to isolate themselves in focusing on improving themselves (both in regard to their appearance and abilities).

Women have dedicated themselves to competing and not being satisfied with anything but the highest levels of athletic excellence. As David Ogden and Joel Nathan Rosen assert in

Locker Room of Her Own: Celebrity, Sexuality, and Female Athletes:

In spite of the ongoing rhetoric to the contrary female athletes have long shown

themselves to be fiercely competitive, wholly committed, and seeking fame if not

fortune by the same drive to excel as exemplified by their father and brothers who

too sweated and bled and left pieces of themselves scattered on playing fields

from which they hailed (xx).

The women who have been explicitly competitive or who have outwardly demonstrated that they have the highest of aspirations are often not viewed as being models to emulate. Those traits that helped them succeed do not conform to notions of white femininity. Even within the realm of individual sports, competitiveness is not considered appropriately “womanly.” As such, it should not be encouraged. Women, especially Black women, are seen as poor team players if they

258 demonstrate a desire to succeed individually. Because of the marginalization they face in terms of their race and gender, Black women frequently cannot afford to challenge expectations for them based on their gender. According to Eurocentric standards, competitiveness is to be encouraged in women and girls, even if that desire to win would be considered “healthy” for male athletes.

The Golden Girls of Rio

In the context of this lack of encouragement for women to participate in team arenas, The

Golden Girls of Rio celebrates female athletes supporting one another — with a positive representation of competition among them as well. Nikkolas Smith is a Black concept artist and theme park designer for Disney Imagineering. He penned this picturebook to celebrate the

American female athletes who dominated at the Rio Olympics. Smith’s art explores many different topics, such as the refugee crisis in Syria, Black Lives Matter protests, and perceptions of Black athletes’ in American sports. Many of these topics have been deemed highly political and inciting arguments. For example, Smith artistically reimagined the Obama family as the cartoon characters of The Incredibles film. “I thought the Obama thing was not going to be controversial,” Smith explained (Ohanesian). Many online viewers took offense, however, at seeing popular cartoon characters being reimagined as the president and his family. Smith reflected: “Just making an image, turning the Incredibles into a black family, that’s too controversial” (Ohanesian). Racism is so entrenched in how America views its media that the reimagining of white fictional characters as a Black family enraged many white Americans.

In the wake of the murder of Trayvon Martin, the 17-yeard old Black teen was shot by a neighborhood watch volunteer, Smith released a more explicitly political illustration. The image,

259 which quickly went viral, depicted Martin Luther King, Jr. in a hoodie. Smith explained about this piece that “[p]eople thought, why are you turning him into a thug? Proving my point, to say, why does a hoodie make somebody a thug” (Ohanesian). In an interview with KCET, Smith explained that it was with this particular creation that he felt that his activism began to more explicitly come through in his art.

According to Smith, his inspiration to write the picturebook The Golden Girls of Rio stems from a personal relationship with the family of the Olympic gymnast Simone Biles. He had attended high school with Biles’ brothers in Spring, Texas — a suburb outside of Houston. “I had been talking to [Biles’ brothers] prior to the Olympics about making some fun and inspiring art during the Olympics,” he explains. “So I created one quick Simone painting when she first won a gold medal. At the request of the interwebs, that quickly turned into a two-Simone painting, which turned into an 11-girl gold medal painting—all within two days” (qtd in Karlin).

Many social media users, including Black American author and civil rights activist Shuan King, shared the illustrations. King posted an image that became the cover of The Golden Girls of Rio with the caption “Loving this art from Nikkolas Smith” (qtd in Ohanesian). Tracee Ellis Ross, the Black actress perhaps best known for her role as Dr. Rainbow Johnson in the ABC comedy television show Blackish, also reposted some of Smith’s artwork, particularly an image of

Simone Biles fist-bumping another Black female Olympian, the swimmer Simone Manuel. Ellis

Ross posted the image on Instagram, tagging both Biles and Manuel with the hashtags

#Olympics #rio2016, as well as #blackgirlmagic and #skillz (Ohanesian). According to an interview with KCET, “Smith's images gained so much online popularity that he was fielding requests to illustrate more of the athletes” (Ohanesian). Sky Pony Press, an imprint of Skyhorse

Publishing, contacted Smith about using the illustrations to create a picturebook to honor the

260 female athletes of the Rio Olympics. He then penned and illustrated the picturebook as commissioned by the publisher within a two-week period.

On their “About Us” page, the publisher explains their mission in printing children’s texts: “Since we do not view our potential readers as generic age groups, but rather as individual children, each with specific talents and needs, we publish in a broad range of subject matter to celebrate their diverse interests” (“About Us”). Their recently published books include multicultural children’s and young adult texts, such as Day of the Dead (2018), Food Fight

Fiesta (2018), and The Summer of Jordi Perez (2018). As Sky Pony Press discusses in their stated mission, they are working to release texts that address the interests of particular children.

They do not simply rely on assumptions of what they perceive that all children might want. Such assumptions often are based on notions of who child readers are: white, middle-class, heterosexual children. With the history of white supremacy in children’s literature, mainstream publishers infrequently prioritize an increasingly diverse child population’s needs. Sky Pony

Press’s publication of The Golden Girls of Rio highlights their dedication to filling a gap in children’s literature. They have printed a picturebook aimed toward girls of diverse identities who are involved in sports.

The Golden Girls of Rio was author Smith’s first picturebook. Since its publication, it has received much acclaim, including being named the recipient of the NAACP Image Award. In an interview discussing The Golden Girls of Rio, Smith describes that he wanted to send a particular message through the text’s creation. He asserts: “I think one of the things that people wanted to express was that America was already great. America is diverse. America is amazing. Having that image of all those girls from all different backgrounds being so triumphant and succeeding, that was something that people wanted to see” (qtd in Ohanesian). “There’s not always an outlet

261 for people to see these images and when something like the Olympics happens,” he added, “it’s the perfect time to show the world that America is awesome, despite what a bunch people have to say about it” (qtd in Ohanesian). Smith references the recently highlighted animosity toward diverse American and international populations with slogans such “Make America Great Again.”

Through The Golden Girls of Rio, as he explains, Smith is highlighting who he believes truly makes America great: a diverse group of strong, confident women.

The origins and publication of The Golden Girls of Rio highlight a way in which

American publishing is progressing to value more diverse stories. Specifically through the use of social media, Americans were able to demonstrate that Smith’s images were ones that they wanted to see in literature. The number of likes and shares of Smith’s artwork demonstrated that these images were going viral because they were speaking to social media users. The popularity of the illustrations then prompted Sky Pony Press to view these images, and the story that they could tell, as marketable. Many readers appreciated the initial illustrations and would buy and support a book that included them. In this way, Americans were able to show the publishing industry that realistic images of diverse female athletes were needed. The publication and reception of The Golden Girls of Rio demonstrates ways in which Americans can advocate for an inclusion of more stories that tell about the experiences of Black female athletes. It also highlights changes within the field of children’s literature over the last few decades in a willingness to write, publish, and market books that honor Black women and girls in sports.

The Inspirational Text

According to the peritext, The Golden Girls of Rio is about “how a group of very different little sporty girls—from around the country and from varying backgrounds—became

262 the premier women athletes of today. And how these gold medalists—Golden Girls—captured the world’s attention by their miraculous athletic achievements at the Rio Olympics” (dust jacket). It celebrates female athletes’ abilities and accomplishments by putting a spotlight on some of the different women who dominated in Rio. The Golden Girls of Rio begins by introducing the women who competed in the Olympics for the United States with an image of

Michelle Carter at the front, as women stand in a v-formation, smiling, some of them with arms exuberantly outstretched (See Figure 64). Smith writes: “We Are Girls. We Are Golden. We Are

America” (Smith). While the rest of the text is written in white, the word “Golden” appears in gold-colored text, emphasizing the winning color that defined the American female athletes’ participation in the Olympics. To further emphasize this theme, Michelle Carter is standing with

10 golden medals around her neck. Moreover, she holds out another gold medal around her wrist.

In her hand holding up this medal is a shotput ball, as she was the first woman from the United

States to win gold in the sport.

“But their golden path to the Olympics began many years ago, when they were . . .,” the text reads (Smith). Readers have to turn the page to find out what the girls were when this story is beginning. The next page explains: “very YOUNG!” Both the capitalization and exclamation point help to emphasize this aspect of the story — the women are young girls in the beginning of this story of their Olympic success. Smith adds that the girls are “full of dreams” (Smith). Smith introduces the context that, for many women, their competition in sports is a fairly new phenomenon. “Across America, many young girls were discovering new sports and LOVING it,” he writes (Smith). The same eleven women appear on the page, this time illustrated as being much younger. Michelle Carter remains in the forefront of the lineup of girls, and underneath each of the girls are their names.

263 The next page explains that the girls were different “in many ways,” but Smith emphasizes that the girls “ALL had one thing common… they wanted to be the best” (Smith).

Smith acknowledges the girls’ competitiveness. However, Smith does not present this as a negative aspect, as many texts do. The arc of the story is not how the girls learn to overcome their competitiveness. In fact, Smith shows how competitiveness is bringing the girls of the

United States teams together. Instead of portraying the female athletes as competing with one another, he shows them collaborating.

Smith depicts all of the girls as they are playing together, striking poses that represent their specific set of athletic skills (See Figure 65). Michelle Carter, balancing on a board of wood, holds up another board of wood with three of the other girls. She is beginning a squat to carry the weight, and her strength is a focal point of the illustration. Gymnasts Gabby Douglas and Aly Raisman are illustrated doing backflips, as Simone Biles sinks into a deep lunge, a spyglass in her hand. She is pointing off into the distance, adding a playful element to the illustrations as it gives the sense that the girls are playing while being active. To the left of

Carter, Smith illustrates swimmer Katie Ledecky and gymnast Laurie Hernandez pounding each other’s fists, with the suggested inference being that the two female athletes are presumably congratulating each other on an accomplishment. To Carter’s right is another gymnast Madison

Kocian, as she swings on the edge of the wood which Carter is holding. Illustrated swimming in the water are then swimmers Kathleen Baker, Simone Manuel, Lily King, and Dana Vollmer. The four swimmers are depicted as being responsible for holding up and moving the board of wood on which Carter is standing. Manuel is pushing the board from the back, Baker and King are holding up the board from underneath the water, and Vollmer is at the front swimming with a rope connecting her to the board of wood as she swims the backstroke.

264 The illustration across these two pages is playful. The girls are all smiling as they conduct their various movements. Smith emphasizes their different strengths through a focus on their muscles or movement. For example, Carter’s biceps appear to be flexed as she holds up three of the other girls. Manuel’s legs are painted with shadows to highlight the quick movements as her legs kick in the water. Bubbles surround all of the girls in the water to show the movement of water occurring as they swim. The text also acknowledges that the girls are not just playing; they are training. Smith narrates: “They understood that they must train, work hard, and never give up, in order to win!” (Smith). Again, the author does not convey the girls’ desire to win as a negative aspect of their sports performance. It is an important part of each of their journeys — and something that brings together in a way that supports one another, whether literally (such as holding each other up as they balance) or metaphorically (through encouragement).

Smith then introduces each of the eleven female athletes as young girls, sharing details about each of them. He begins with Biles and Ledecky, who were “born three days apart” and were “both so very full of energy and life” (Smith). Smith illustrates both of the girls in action

(See Figure 66). Textured paint next to Ledecky highlights her fast movement. Unlike some of the previous texts which have referred to female athletes as “wild,” Smith categorizes their activity levels as universally a positive trait about both of them. He refers to both Biles, a Black female athlete, and Ledecky, a white female athlete, as being “so very full of energy and life”

(Smith). Their activity level is not due to their race, as other texts have insinuated. Instead of relying on racist assumptions of Black girls as “wild,” Smith represents Biles’ and Ledecky’s energy level positively as being full of “life.”

The next page focuses on Michelle Carter, who is depicted sitting with her father (See

Figure 67). He is holding a shotput ball, and Carter is holding up a picture. Smith shows a close-

265 up of the image in the picture. Carter’s father is holding a shot, with a medal around his neck.

The story details how influential Carter’s father was in her desire to participate in shot put. He writes: “Out west in San Jose, CA, little Michelle Carter was always looking up to her father. As a professional athlete and Olympic medalist himself, she followed in his footsteps, day by day”

(Smith). This illustration demonstrates to readers that families are often an important influence for all girls, including racially minoritized girls. Smith chooses to emphasize this aspect of

Carter’s journey to highlight an example of how a Black parent is supporting and encouraging and inspiring his daughter in her athletic career.

The narrative returns to Biles’ story, depicting her watching a gymnast as she does a backflip (See Figure 68). Her mouth is open in awe, and Smith illustrates a thought bubble coming from her head. Within the thought bubble is an illustration of the older Biles as she leaps into the air, smile on her face, and gold medal in hand. Accentuating her movement, red streaks extend from her red, white, and blue leotard. Smith explains that when Biles was six years old, she had gone on a field trip and “was introduced to the world of gymnastics” where she learned that “she could be small but still quite powerful.” Further details demonstrate the effects upon

Biles of seeing this inspirational gymnast: “Her goal from that moment forward was to jump, flip, and fly higher than any boy or girl” (Smith).

Smith then introduces Katie Ledecky, stating: “Young Katie Ledecky was born into a family of swimmers.” He asks: “Would she be as great as her big brother?” and tells readers that she decided to trying swimming “simply because she loved to swim” (Smith). At the edge of the water sits a young Ledecky (See Figure 69). Her arms are spread out wide as one foot is raised.

She is stepping into the water. Her brother is depicted swimming the breaststroke, and her parents are both facing Ledecky, their arms also in the air, presumably encouraging her. Smith

266 connects Ledecky’s inspiration from her brother to a young Simone Manuel on the next page.

She is running after her brother on a diving board as he does a cannonball jump off of it, while another brother swims in the water already (See Figure 70). Accompanying this image is the detail that Manuel’s brothers were also swimmers. Manuel “started going to the pool with them” when a “coach saw her talent and began training her” when she was only three years old. In both of these images, Smith credits both talent and inspiration and encouragement from the swimmers’ families for their success.

The narrative then returns to Biles, moving the story forward with the detail that she “was now eleven years old and tumbling all over Texas, with the goal to one day compete for an

Olympic gold medal” (Smith). Smith adds: “She met friends along the way who shared the same dream” (Smith). This textual detail is complemented with the image of the gymnast as she lays on her stomach on a balance beam and waves to another girl (See Figure 71). Laurie Hernandez, on the opposite end of the beam. Outstretched, she is lying on the beam legs. The next page illustrates Hernandez in motion doing a back flip off of the balance beam (See Figure 72).

Sweeping lines of purple, like Hernandez’s leotard, accentuate her speed. In addition to this image, Smith also writes: “Like all the other girls, Laurie worked very hard to be perfect on all of her events” (Smith).

The text then revisits Ledecky’s story with the detail that she had “grown much taller

(and faster!) than most kids her age” (Smith) and she had also “started to meet many talented swimmers who were also very fast” (Smith). Ledecky is standing next to water, waving down at

Simone Manuel (See Figure 73). The latter is in the water, waving back at Ledecky. A speech bubble tells readers that Manuel is introducing herself to Ledecky. Following his focus on the

267 cooperation of the female athletes, Smith portrays the two swimmers meeting as a highlight of their athletic journeys instead of a negative competition.

Following this detail, the text shows Carter again holding a shot ball (See Figure 74). She is looking up a tall tree that extends diagonally across the page, with the top of the tree narrowing to accentuate the height of the tree. On a top branch hangs a gold medal. Another girl, although the identity of the girl is not immediately clear, is climbing one of the branches of the tree. Smith utilizes this metaphor to demonstrate the women metaphorically climbing to success in their respective sports, with the end goal being the gold medal at the top of the tree. “These girls knew it would be tough to rise to the top,” the text reads, “but they remained focused. No matter what obstacles threw them off track, they worked hard to reach their goal. They worked hard to reach their gold” (Smith).

Smith then shows two girls as they are balancing what appear to be large plates of gold

(See Figure 75). Smith writes: “The girls were competing all across the nation and winning shiny awards” (Smith). After establishing the fact that gold was the goal for the girls, the visual narrative shows the lineup of girls (See Figure 76). Carter is again at the center. The Black athlete is a main focus on the page. Across two pages are bright colors with spotlights, which readers can infer means that they are standing in the Olympic stadium in Rio. Smith shows that the girls are receiving well-deserved accolades for their performances. The girls “were thrilled to see so many other USA athletes who also shared their golden dream” (Smith). Competition, the readers learn, is a positive thing for the girls. They are excited about it and looking forward to it during these Olympics. Unlike most other texts about women in sports, The Golden Girls of Rio does not show female athletes threatened by others’ achievements or trying to undermine one another.

268 Smith again emphasizes the female athletes’ dedication and hard work on the following page. He illustrates three of the girls from their shoulders to their knees, two of them with their arms crossed and the other with her hands on her hips (See Figure 77). Through the girls’ body language, readers can tell that the girls are determined. “The competition was strong,” Smith writes. “Butterflies were floating in their stomachs, as they realized that all of their training and competition led to this exciting moment” (Smith). Although the text acknowledges that the women would have been nervous with “butterflies floating in their stomachs,” it brings readers back to the fact that they had spent much time training for this moment. Previous competitions had adequately prepared them.

The text leads up to this climactic moment when the women are participating in the

Olympics. Smith begins by showing Carter, arm outstretched, throwing a shot ball. She has one foot behind her. Her other hand is outstretched at her side to help her balance. Adding to these visual details, Smith writes: “Michelle took a deep breath, and launched her shot into the sky …

Golden!” The word “Golden” is again written in gold text to send the message that it was a gold medal that Carter won through this performance. The next two pages feature then the performance of the gymnastics and the swim teams. Smith writes: “The swim team raced…

Gold, gold, gold!” and “The gymnastics team performed… Gold, gold, gold!” (Smith). Images of the women swimming and tumbling accompany these descriptions (See Figure 78). Smith blurs the lines around the women’s bodies to signify their powerful movements.

As the result of these performances, Smith narrates that the “five girls [of the gymnastics team] received more gold medals than any other gymnastics team in the history of America”

(Smith). In the next portion of the narrative, four of the women are congratulating each other

(See Figure 77). Wearing gold medals around their necks, Carter and Ledecky bump fists on the

269 page on the left. Biles and Manuel also bump fists as they hold their gold medals in their hands.

Spanning the two pages, Smith writes: “They are the Golden Girls! They made America proud”

(Smith). Each of the women’s names appear in bold next to them. Descriptions of their accomplishments are underneath their names. Michelle Carter is listed as the “First American woman to win gold in shot put.” Katie Ledecky as the “World record holder in the women’s 400-

, 800-, and 1,500-meter freestyle,” Simone Biles as the “Most decorated American gymnast of all time,” and Simone Manuel as the “First African American woman to medal in an individual swimming event” (Smith). The women smile as they congratulate one another on these accomplishments.

The narrative concludes with an image of a sky (See Figure 78). Words printed in gold font say: “You’re never too young or old to reach your gold” (Smith). Akin to the previous image of the tree, the illustration of the sky symbolizes a metaphor for achieving one’s dreams. Both illustrations highlight the gravity of the goals that female athletes have set and are achieving through their domination at the Olympics. On the last page, Smith not only textually informs readers that their dreams are within reach, but also visually suggests that the sky is the limit for them. The determined, passionate female Olympians “reach[ed] their gold,” and so can aspiring young readers.

The Golden Girls of Rio celebrates the success of the female athletes. Furthermore, it complexly portrays how the women have achieved their goals: through a combination of talent, family support, inspiration from other athletes, and hard work. While many texts tend to attribute

Black women’s success in sports to their presumed natural abilities, Smith depicts the athletes in

The Golden Girls of Rio as being influenced by many different factors. Instead of following the usual pattern of discounting Black women’s hard work in athletics, Smith draws readers’

270 attention to it. He focuses on the different sacrifices that the women have made in order to procure their spot at the Olympics. While collaboration is a main theme of the text, the text celebrates each of the women’s achievements – not their coaches, their husbands, or their families.

Smith also breaks the pattern of negatively depicting women’s competition. He refuses to portray the female athletes’ aspirations to collectively win as negatively impacting their success.

The Olympians both desire to be the best in their sports and support one another. Through this representation, Smith invites girl readers to interpret competitiveness as an important part of reaching their goals. Motivation to win helps the “Golden Girls of Rio” to become a more skilled athletes, and competition does not isolate them. In fact, it is a uniting force that brings them together in supporting one another.

Body Image and Diversity

The Golden Girls of Rio’s message regarding the complexity of a female athlete’s success asks readers to view possibilities for themselves within sports. It also demonstrates the requirements for them to be achieve goals within that realm. In The Golden Girls of Rio, Smith offers a story that encourages girls to imagine a future in athletics through diverse representation.

From its origins, the Olympics have often been a site where organizers work to ensure that white competitors and spectators do not have to encounter much appearance of diversity, in terms of both race and class. For example, at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico, those volunteering at the

Games were “overwhelmingly light-skinned, upper-middle-class women” who, the International

Olympic Committee had chosen “over their darker-skinned counterparts” (Pilon). In 1996, when

Atlanta, Georgia, hosted the games, the IOC offered homeless citizens of the city “one-way bus

271 tickets to any place in the country where they said they had family members or could find a place to sleep” (Pilon). The modern day Games are often touted as producing an economic boost to their host cities. While the host locations often gain publicity during the Olympics, economically disadvantaged citizens often suffer when the Games come to their home city. Discussing the one- sided benefits for cities, The Huffington Post asserts: “[T]he major beneficiaries of the Olympics are the local and international developers in charge of these projects, as well as the host city’s wealthy residents. The poor lose out” (Waldron & Maciel). The Rio Olympics were no exception. According to Vox journalist Johnny Harris, the money spent in preparations for the

Olympics had serious consequences for Rio’s lower socio-economic status citizens. Between the

2014 Word Cup and 2016 Olympics, there were “77,000 forcibly evicted citizens” (Harris). With the upcoming millions of visitors, the city often sees a complete renewal, including a destruction of low-income housing. “The huge sum of money that was supposed to benefit the poor ended up, once again, hiding them from view,” Harris asserts (Harris). In their article entitled “Why

Hosting the Olympics is Bad for Cities,” CityLab argues, the preparations for the Games takes place is not conducive to rational, effective planning. Sports venues and stadiums must be built and infrastructure serving those edifices takes priority” (CityLab). Oftentimes, the economically disadvantaged citizens are the ones who lose their homes in order to make way for the rapid development of Olympics-related venues and transportation. Poverty was effectively hidden from visitors both in order to make room for Olympic guests and to shield visitors from experiencing the reality in Rio.

The Games, especially the Winter ones, have historically been known for their lack of racial diversity, as well. Martin Rogers of USA Today explains: “The power base of winter sports has always been in Europe, but in the United States, too, many of the sports featured on the

272 Games program have been dominated by children of white families, many of them fairly wealthy” (Rogers). Originating as an event for Greek men, the history of the games has included a very gradual inclusion and celebration of any athlete who was a not a middle-class white man.

It was not until 1908 that the first Black athlete, track and field athlete John Taylor, was allowed to participate. Racial and class positioning in America still greatly impacts the possibilities of

Black athletes competing in the Olympics. According to Peter Berlin of Politico, “[I]n a world where race remains inextricably meshed with class, a look at the medals table reveals just how much stands in the way of would-be [Black athletes]” (Berlin). He notes that this issue is akin to one found in other countries with “large post-colonial immigrant populations,” such as France and Britain. As Berlin asserts, these obstacles for non-white people continues to mean that the

Olympics include mainly white participants.

In this context of historical and current minimization of diversity at the Olympics,

Smith’s text shows a variety of stories. His realistic illustration style accentuates and celebrates differences among the Black, Latina, and white girls. Through both the visual and textual narrative, the picturebook emphasizes the differences in appearance that do not hold them back from competing. Particularly for Black girls, American media and literature has widely depicted their bodies as undesirable. In her article for ESPN, Paula Giddings notes: “Racialized descriptions that debase black women's bodies -- and body parts, including flat noses, large buttocks, and mannish or animal characteristics -- have been recorded since the 16th century when European travelers encountered them on the African continent (“Dominance of Black

Female Athletes”). These racist depictions, Giddings argues, continues to impact how Black female athletes are visually constructed in American media. A join project conducted by The

Undefeated and Morgan State University studied the stereotypes that Black women face when

273 they enter sports. As one of the main findings from the research, the study claims: “The politicization of black women’s bodies that began in slavery has yielded in our day portrayals of black female athletes as alternately mannish or overly sexualized” (Jones). In this context,

Smith’s unstereotyped depictions of the Olympians, particularly the Black women, in the text are rare.

Most children’s books, even the ones that I argue in previous chapters offer positive portrayals for Black American girl readers, tend to display Black women and girls in sports in uniform ways. The women’s bodies are slender, with small muscles peeking out of their thin frames. This lack of diversity does not represent the different bodies that are present at events such as the Olympics. In contrast to previous picturebooks, The Golden Girls of Rio portrays many different body figures, highlighting that all of these appearances are both acceptable and have the potential to be successful. Smith’s images going viral on social media highlighted the need for realistic depictions of diverse female athletes, as well as an appreciation for the medium of painting he utilized to facilitate the portrayal of the women this way.

According to research conducted by Texas Tech, “every day female athletes see, hear and internalize a variety of conflicting messages about their bodies” (“Mirror Image”). The study found that female athletes benefit from support in facing expectations for their appearance. “We find a lot of times female athletes in the locker room feel a certain way – powerful, athletic and strong,” researcher Dayna McCutchins is quoted explaining, “and then they get amongst the general society women and feel big and not comfortable in their own skin because they look different” (Texas Tech Today). On top of general perceptions of how female athletes’ bodies should look, American society also frequently perceives Black women as unfeminine. Black female athletes’, in particular, are often criticized on multiple layers based on sexist and racist

274 beauty norms. Through a wider representation of what a female athlete might look like, The

Golden Girls of Rio combats unrealistic expectations of women’s bodies in athletics. It offers girls with many different body types the opportunity to envision themselves in the shoes of a successful woman in sports.

On the first page, the image, which is replicated on the cover of the text and the title page, Smith illustrates the women all together. They are standing in a v-shaped line-up. Carter is at the center with the swimming team to her right and the gymnastics team to her left. The women are depicted with different body types, each sporting muscles across their bodies in varied proportions. The swimmers are all shown to be slightly taller, and the gymnasts are all slightly shorter. Carter is illustrated as bulkier and more ostensibly muscular than the other girls.

According to an interview with People, while Carter has gained many fans who appreciate who she is and her abilities, she received much criticism for her body. She explains, she has encountered people “doubting that she could be an athlete at her size” (Mazziotta).

Diagnosed a few years before the Olympics with a condition called hypothyroidism, Carter rapidly gained 100 pounds. She describes struggling with body image initially, although she was able to keep going because of “medicine — and shot put” (Mazziotta). “I regained my confidence by just accepting what my body is now,” she recalls, “because I kept thinking, ‘Oh

I’ll lose the weight, I’ll get back to where my body used to be,’ and in actuality, I have a whole different body now. And I have to relearn my body and what it does for me now, and not what used to work for me” (People). While the change in her appearance was an adjustment, the

Olympian reflects on her attitude toward female athletes bodies. She asserts: “Athletes can not look the same, and be great in their individual sport. The example I like to use is Gabby Douglas.

She could not flip in the air if she was built like me, but then Gabby Douglas couldn’t throw the

275 shot put” (People). As Carter concludes, “I was built like this because I was made to throw the shot put” (People).

This sentiment is one that Smith celebrates in the text. On the dust jacket, the description of the text reads: “Michelle Carter, in high style, changed the perception of strong women, and was the first American woman to win gold in the shot put” (dust jacket). The illustrations of

Carter throughout the text represent her as being the epitome of strength. In the image where all of the girls cooperate in holding up one another in the water, Carter is at the center. Kessel notes the inaccuracy of the assumption that female athletes will have one particular body type. She explains: “The message that exercise and sport creates a particular body shape is propaganda.

Small waist, toned arms, pert bottom, wobble-free thighs and perky breasts: it is a myth that if only we did more exercise we would look this way” (“Let’s Get Physical”). Appearing “fit” looks different for every woman. In The Golden Girls of Rio, Smith represents the women as having diverse bodies that enable them to perform well in their sports. A shift in societal perceptions is critical to gender equality in America. Kessel argues:

Once we accept that we needn’t look a certain way, we can start to share our

euphoria about exercising or playing sport rather than a perfectly poised

appearance, contrived post-workout pouting, critically staring into our phones. [. .

.] Maybe exercise and sport can be something we do for ourselves. For fun! For

happiness! For clear thinking! Because physical activity should be something

integral to our being alive. And it is the essential part that really concerns us here,

not the bit about how many millimetres it might shave off your thighs.

Smith illustrates the women in The Golden Girls of Rio as strong, beautiful, and capable of impressive feats. He also demonstrates that those qualities appear differently for each athlete.

276 In addition to portraying diverse bodies, Smith takes care to utilize a variety of textures on the women to represent different types of hair. Many of the illustrators in the other texts examined here, with the exception of The Quickest Kid in Clarksville, do not emphasize Black female athletes’ hair. The artists frequently do not use textures to accurately depict how the athletes wore their hair. In her research on Black women’s hair in Hair Matters: Beauty, Power, and Black Women’s Consciousness, Ingrid Banks asserts: “[B]lack women’s hair, in general, fits outside of what is considered desirable in mainstream society” (2). She further points out that, oftentimes, straighter and softer hair is “described as ‘good,’ while nappy hair […] is ‘bad’” (2).

As a result, “kinky and nappy hair [. . .] goes uncelebrated among a race of people still nursing the wounds of slavery” (Banks 2). While American society often privileges Eurocentric hair, hairstyles can be an important aspect of Black women’s identity. Banks found that “black girls and women use hair as a medium to understand complex identity politics that intersect along the lines of race, gender, class, sexuality, power, and beauty” (148), whether they choose to alter their natural hair or leave it natural. However, their choice of how to wear their hair is often met with much criticism.

At the Rio Olympics, Black women’s hair was a topic of much controversy. Many spectators critiqued the Black female athletes no matter how they wore their hair during competitions. These critiques, as Jill Hudson for The Undefeated, points out, “[…] elicits in every American black woman a particularly dehumanizing and existential dread — a fear, a state of mind, a poison distilled from over 400 years of not having ‘good-enough’ hair” (Hudson).

Hudson notes that the critics often seem to express a feeling that the Black female athletes

“‘failed’ the respectability optics test” (Hudson). A common reaction online was that Black women who chose to compete with natural hairstyles did not represent Black Americans well

277 enough. In spite of these controversies, Smith chooses to represent the Black female athletes’ hair as they wore it at the Olympics. His illustrations do not focus on soothing those worried about whether or not the women would be seen as “respectable” enough.

Within the text’s illustrations, and not just with the depiction of their hair, Smith works to center the images of Black women. Men are more often than not at the forefront of coverage of athletes followed by white women. Black women often are simply an afterthought. Instead of following the commonplace minimization of the accomplishments of Black female athletes,

Smith refuses to relegate them to the margins in his illustrations. The title page features a page with a white background, and the only images on the page are the title “The Golden Girls of Rio” and an image Simone Biles as she leaps into the air. Biles takes up the center of the page.

Furthermore, on each of the pages where the women are illustrated all together, Carter, a Black woman, is featured in the middle. She appears closer to readers than the other woman, which accentuates her importance in the story by helping readers to focus their attention on her. While this is a story that celebrates all women, Smith particularly chooses to centralize the stories and accomplishments of the Black female athletes.

Through both the visual and textual narrative, The Golden Girls of Rio is a refusal to journey alone. It is a statement about the importance of women locking arms. Because more important than winning medals is gaining equality. It is a book with both text and illustrations that celebrate, as Tracee Ellis Ross captioned it, #blackgirlmagic. Smith refuses to credit others with the success of Black women. Instead, he celebrates the potential for Black girls when all girl and women in sports lock arms to rise together. On display is the message that the potential for women of all identities to work together makes America great. This reality has not often been how Black women and girls have experienced sports in America. Nevertheless, the picturebook

278 highlights the possibility, as exemplified by the women at the Rio Olympics, of what can be achieved when women choose to support one another.

Sentimentalizing Sisterhood?

While messages of unity are uplifting, they raise the question of the accuracy of the representation of sisterhood in The Golden Girls of Rio. Because the text is non-fiction, it tells about the lives of female athletes that actually happened. Non-fiction certainly can point readers to what might be possible for female athletes. Analysis of the representation within the text must arise when analyzing non-fiction in particular. The genre bears the unique burden of factually portraying events and people.

Gabby Douglas and the Case of the “Unpatriotic” Golden Girl

The Rio Olympics were certainly groundbreaking for progress for women. Yet, were they equally groundbreaking for all women? A member of the women’s gymnastics team, Gabby

Douglas, an African American woman, arguably experienced the Rio Olympics quite differently than The Golden Girls of Rio suggests that most women encounter them. In spite of a stellar performance at the Olympics, Douglas found herself the subject of not only criticism, but significant cyber-bullying during her time in Rio. The gymnastics team had just won gold for their country, and they lined up with their medals as the national anthem played. Douglas stood in respect toward the American flag; however, she did not place her hand over her heart. White

Americans berated her for a perceived lack of patriotism. Their criticism of the athlete became so vitriolic that, according to an interview with The Guardian, Douglas removed herself from online spaces for her own safety.

279 Reflecting on this treatment, Douglas explained: “I mean, you do [Olympics] for your country, and you do it for yourself, and you do it for other people … and I step back and I’m like: wait, what did I do to disrespect the people? [. . .] I’m coming out there representing them to the best of my abilities, so how would I be in disrespect?” (The Guardian). She found this treatment perplexing after winning fame and glory for her country. Nevertheless, the response to her victory followed a long history of, even when Black Americans give everything they have to their country, a refusal from white America to acknowledge or honor their sacrifices.

The criticism of Douglas did not stop at just an attack on her perceived lack of display of adequate patriotism. Her hair was a common subject of attack. Candace Buckner, in her article for The Washington Post entitled “On Gabby Douglas’ Hair, Black Women, Why We Care and

Why We Shouldn’t,” unpacks the criticism of Douglas’ hair as a case that reflects a common reaction to Black women who are active. She explains:

Our hair is complex. Well-defined wavy. Corkscrew-curly. Chemically-enhanced

straight. Break-a-comb nappy. And for many black women with relaxers, sweat

can be their hair’s Kryptonite. A 30-minute workout in the gym is only the

preamble to the two-hour workout later that night in front of the bathroom mirror.

(Buckner)

Buckner quotes Joseph Jefferson, a high school track and field coach from Kansas City, who asserts that he “can’t count the number of times his athletes have skipped practice to get their hair done” (Buckner). Buckner analyzes that this is because “Society has designated long, straight hair as beautiful. And for generations, instead of embracing what grows naturally out of roots, so have we” (Buckner). Douglas refuses to do this, though. Instead, she embraces, as

Buckner calls it, #blackgirlmagic.

280 As a result, the athlete received vicious criticism of her hair. Douglas reflects: “[P]eople just attacking you and your hair, blah, blah, blah. I mean, did I choose my hair texture? No. And

I’m actually grateful, you know, having this hair on my head. Sometimes it’s like: ‘wow!’” (The

Guardian). She was on the highest possible platform for female gymnasts by participating in the

Olympics. Yet, this position did not shield her from attacks on her for aspects of her identity such as her hair, as well as public misconstruing of her actions — actions that many other athletes had also done but escaped public notice— as being “unpatriotic.” White Americans do not want to believe that this instance represented women’s experiences in sports. It unfortunately represents Black women’s realities as much as the acclaim portrayed in The Golden Girls of Rio.

Illuminating progress for female athletes, the Rio Olympics was a historic moment. It also highlighted that the institution of American sports continues to marginalize Black women.

The Golden Girls of Rio and Sisterhood: Optimistic or Unrealistic?

The Golden Girls of Rio serves as a form of activism in celebrating the tremendous accomplishments of female athletes in a culture that oftentimes undervalues them. Smith offers a narrative that shows that the female athletes at Rio were connected across lines of difference by their overwhelming desire to achieve their goals. Furthermore, the picturebook suggests that their ability to support one another worked to help them each achieve their goals. In their edited collection examining how women oppress one another, editors Susan Ostrov Weisser and

Jennifer Fleischner explain in their introduction to their text that the creation of their collection of essays was a controversial publication. They describe: “During the early stages of soliciting essays for this collection, one of the editors encountered the following reaction: ‘This is a book that shouldn't be written. Feminists should concentrate on how men oppress women, not how bad

281 women are to each other’” (1). Even suggesting that not all American women have experienced discrimination in the same way is a controversial position.

Is it accurate to claim that white women have had similar journeys as Black women?

Unlike Black female athletes, their training for sports has not historically been considered a criminal offense. For example, when Simone Manuel won gold in swimming in Rio, her win was particularly notable in the context of the statistic that “64 percent of African-American children don’t know how to swim” (Essence). According to Zeba Blay in an article for the Huffington

Post, “What [Manuel] has managed to accomplish during her time in Rio is most definitely historic — but it’s also weighted with meaning that extends far beyond the Olympics”

(Huffington Post). Blay’s article includes a photo from 1964 in which a hotel manager is pictured pouring acid into his Florida hotel’s swimming pool. According to Blay, Black and white protestors had “attempt[ed] to integrate the segregated pool,” and the photograph shows them

“scream[ing] in shock and fear” as the manager attempts to injure them (Huffington Post).

America has a history of forcefully segregating pools, meaning that many Black

Americans have not learned to swim. Thus, when Manuel won gold in Rio, she did so within the context of this history. In an article Manuel penned for Essence, she writes: “Hopefully, there will be a day where there are more of us — not just ‘Simone, the Black swimmer” (Essence).

However, her achievement, in light of the history of lack of access to pool for Black Americans, carried weight differently than it might have if Manuel was white. While the sisterhood that

Smith proposes between Manuel and the other female athletes in The Golden Girls of Rio celebrates Manuel’s accomplishments, it also seems to equate them. Achieving what she did meant that Manuel had overcome significantly more barriers than other white female athletes. In light of the fraught history of Black swimmers, this sisterhood that Smith proposes in The

282 Golden Girls of Rio is a forced sisterhood. It fails to acknowledge the ways in which Black women uniquely encounter resistance in sports.

White feminists historically have equating the experiences of Black women and other racially minoritized women. Activism that works to bring about equality for all women must also acknowledge that Black women have experienced America much differently than white women, and, for Black women to succeed, they must overcome more challenges than they would have to if they were part of the racial majority in America. Weisser and Fleischner point out:

Sentimentalizing sisterhood has [. . .] opened feminists up to charges of

parochialism and, ironically, elitism. Thus, identity politics, the basis for feminist

politics and one of its strengths, is also its greatest weakness. The realities of

everyday life, shaped by unshapely, complex identities, are left to the unnuanced,

unanalyzed portrayals in the women's magazine exposé of another ‘Mommy

Dearest,’ or the sitcom about catty friends, or the popular novel in which the bitch

figure appears as a regular feature.” (7)

In July 2018, a 17-year old Black teenager, Nia Wilson, was murdered on public transit in the

Bay Area by a white man. In an Instagram post, Black feminist Rachel Cargle posted an image of the text “I am still waiting for your favorite white feminists to say a single word about

#NiaWilson” (Instagram). In the post, she also wrote: “Tag the prominent white feminist account you’ve been waiting to hear from” (Instagram). She added: “Just as the suffragettes routinely discarded black women from [their] movement. White feminists have historically only acknowledged black women when they need them for numbers (aka the marches, the votes, etc.) but when it comes to returning the sisterhood…. It’s rarely ever there” (Instagram). The comments section of the post was then filled with names of white women who are self-

283 proclaimed feminists, such as Lena Dunham, Amy Schumer, Glennon Doyle, and Emma

Watson. These white women, up until that point, had remained silent about Wilson’s murder. In response to being tagged as silent on the matter, a few of the women feminists did post about

Wilson. As Cargle highlighted, though, many white women, in this instance and many others, choose to remain quiet in the wake of the constant barrage of violence against Black women in

America.

Cargle argues that white women often promote unity among all women, but only when it is convenient for them. The sisterhood, as it is represented in The Golden Girls of Rio may be too simplistic. Would the white female athletes be willing to stand up for the Black female athletes if it were not for the fact that they were fighting for a common goal? Would the white female athletes be there if they were standing up for an issue such as police brutality directed at Black women that may not have impacted them directly? As Cargle suggests — and the silence of so many white feminists in the wake of Wilson’s murder also suggests — perhaps they would not be. The sisterhood, as represented by Smith, might be something to work toward. Yet, it might be currently categorized more as hopeful fiction than realistic non-fiction.

Conclusion

An awareness of the relationships between gender and sport is vital in the fight for equality for women across all domains of society. McDonagh and Pappano assert: “Many see sports as a static system reflecting social and gender realities rather than constructing them” (3).

As they point out, sports are not just one avenue in which to see stereotypes and biases against women demonstrated. Instead, they are frequently a place where they are being created and reproduced. Furthermore, as McDonagh and Pappano note, sports hold such a crucial role in our

284 society that they must be scrutinized for how they are influencing how gender and racial identities are positioned. They argue: “Sports are too vital not to hold them to principles of fairness, justice, and equality demanded in other sectors of society” (McDonagh and Pappano 7).

The representation of Black female athletes in books such as The Golden Girls of Rio is an encouraging step toward promoting equality for Black women in all arenas of society, not just sports. As Ramona Bell argues in her dissertation Competing Identities: Representations of the

Black Female Sporting Body from 1960 to the Present, “Rudolph, Thomas, and Williams make visible black presence and accomplishments in the national culture” (161). Their representation in literature signifies progress in the valuing of Black women and the ways that they contribute to society. However, as Bell notes,

[. . .] their images are no guarantors of progressive projects for racial justice.

Indeed, these representations of Black sporting bodies can just as easily be used to

support political projects that deny any specific claim or warrant on the part of

Black women to experiencing disproportionately the effects of social injustice,

economic inequality, and racism. (161)

When texts suggest that Black women experience similar or the same obstacles as white women, they downplay Black female athletes’ accomplishments. Sisterhood across lines of racial difference, as it is depicted in The Golden Girls of Rio, should be an aim for all women in society. That reality has not been reached. Many times, while Black women enter into the sisterhood in order to support white women, this support is not reciprocated. Black women such as the athletes depicted in The Golden Girls of Rio are often seen as having the same struggles as white women, when, they encounter oppression not just from men, but oftentimes from white

285 women, as well. Only when, as a whole, white women consistently choose to engage in a united sisterhood, can female athletes truly rise together.

While The Golden Girls of Rio conveys a more universal experience for female athletes, the book is a powerful example of just how far books about Black female athletes have come since the first publications in the twentieth century. Smith’s images, originally intended just as stand-alone artwork, went viral on social media within days. The popularity of the images, and the picturebook that followed, highlight a growing societal desire to see realistic representations of Black women in sports literature—and the willingness of Americans to support the creation of those stories. It also demonstrates the ways in which contemporary readers are advocating for more diverse stories, through the use of tools such as social media. The Golden Girls of Rio demonstrates that stories about Black female athletes have the potential to connect with a large readership and that the scholars, creators, and readers of texts can all advocate for the importance of diverse texts within children’s literature.

286 Conclusion

In a moving open letter penned for “all incredible women who strive for excellence,”

Serena Williams wrote: “When I was growing up, I had a dream. I’m sure you did, too. My dream wasn’t like that of an average kid, my dream was to be the best tennis player in the world.

Not the best ‘female’ tennis player in the world” (Williams). Reflecting on her good fortune that her family supported her goal, she shared that they encouraged her to pursue it no matter what.

“Too often,” Willaims noted, “women are not supported enough or are discouraged from choosing their path” (Williams). She explained the resilience that it took for her because of the discrimination and doubt that she faced from others because of her race and gender, with many viewing her identity as negatives attributes.

Williams concluded her letter by sharing a hope for the future: “It is my hope that my story, and yours, will inspire all young women out there to push for greatness and follow their dreams with steadfast resilience. We must continue to dream big, and in doing so, we empower the next generation of women to be just as bold in their pursuits” (Williams). As she so passionately observed, encountering stories of Black women who have succeeded in sports can help young Black girls to see possibilities for their futures. Conversely, when we offer stories that minimize or hide the challenges for Black girls in particular, we inadequately prepare girls for the obstacles that they will likely face. Akin to Williams, they also will likely have those who view their identities as something that will hold them back if left unchanged in sports. Literature has the unique possibility of preparing young Black girls for the challenges that they may face — which many Black women have faced before them — yet encouraging them to break barriers, not just for themselves but for generations to follow them.

287 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, a retired American NBA player and social justice activist, also unpacks this lack of support for women because of how they are viewed. In a Time article, he notes that opinions of women as fulfilling a role in society only as beautiful objects holds them back often from succeeding in sports. “This beauty standard translates in sports to women being more concerned with a marketable image than athletic ability” Furthermore, Adbul-Jabbar details the effects that phenomena has on women’s sports careers: “This reluctance to push themselves physically because they reduce their marketability as women results in some women athletes never striving to be the fully realized athletes they could be.” Girls, and Black girls in particular, are up against some weighty odds when they engage in sports. As Abdul-Jabbar acknowledges in his article, we must confront these challenges in order to support a new generation of Black girls to help them dream up new imagined futures where they are judged on their abilities and skills as athletes rather than their beauty.

Implications for Black Girl Readers

Seeing themselves either ignored or misconstrued in literature has a significant negative impact on young Black girls. As Jennifer E. Bruening reports in Phenomenal Women: A

Qualitative Study of Silencing, Stereotypes, Socialization, and Strategies for Change in the Sport

Participation of African American Female Student-Athletes: “It is crucial to the development of young athletes to see people who look like them participating and succeeding at sports” (47). It affects how children view their potential abilities in sports and their motivation to participate in sports-related activities. An absence of models can also mean a feeling of lack of support for children. Black women historically have been discouraged from entering into sports. As a result,

Black American girls may not have friends or relatives who are athletes, leaving books to show

288 them possibilities for athletic endeavors. The problem arises when they turn to the texts about athletes and they cannot find themselves within any of the pages. Limited representations sends a message to young readers that Black female athletes do not have stories worth sharing, that their experiences do not matter. It tells them that they do not belong within the white and male- dominated institution of sport.

The inclusion of them in literature that perpetuates stereotypes harms Black girl readers as much as limited representations. As Charisse Jones and Kumea Shorter-Gooden point out in

Shifting: The Double Lives of Black Women in America, "Stereotypes based on race (and) gender... set confusing parameters on who you are and who you think you are, and what you believe you should or can become. They often dictate what you expect, what seems real, and what seems possible" (3). Many representations of Black female athletes in children's literature invite Black girl readers to believe that their options are limited. While some Black female athletes are portrayed in literature for children, text creators often rely on racist and sexist stereotypes. These depictions further inhibit the hope for being recognized for athletic ability that is not tainted by inaccurate beliefs about their identities. The result for many Black girls is the same, as they are forced to “... [stash] away their dreams” (Jones & Shorter-Gooden 11).

Black girls and women are infrequently portrayed as taking part in sports or any other type of physical activity. This absence reflects beliefs by creators and publishers of children’s books. They assume that Black girls are not active — nor do they want to read books about people who share their identity being active. Not only are these stereotypes harmful to Black

American girls’ view of themselves, but also their physical health, with effects stretching far into their adulthood. In research conducted between 2011 and 2012, Ogden, Carroll, Kit, and Flegal found that 82% of African American women were considered obese compared to the 63.2% of

289 Caucasian women and 69.2% of African American men (“Childhood and Adult Obesity”). Black

American women face more health risks and concerns than most other minority groups.

According to the Center for Disease Control, in 2009 “African Americans had the largest death rates from heart disease and stroke compared with other racial and ethnic populations” (“Black or African American Populations”). Abundant research has shown the correlations between physical activity and increased healthfulness of individuals and conversely, lack of physical activity and decreased healthfulness. The American Heart Association asserts that “people who enjoy regular physical activity have lower death rates than people who have no risk but who aren’t physically active” (“What’s the Link”). They identify benefits of regular exercise to be: lower blood pressure, increased HDL cholesterol, improved blood sugar, reduced feelings of stress, controlled body weight, and positive feelings about oneself (“What’s the Link”). The detrimental effects of lack of opportunity to participate in sports and other physical activities is highlighted by the discrepancy between Black American female’s average health and the health of their male counterparts and most other groups. The Center for Disease Control estimates that, while the average life expectancy of the average white American in 2011 was 78.8, the average for African Americans was 75.3 (“Black or African American Populations”). Children’s literature is reinforcing stereotypes that certainly affect them mentally. Texts with negative portrayals of

Black female athletes—or no portrayals at all—are also having a palpable impact on their physical health, and, in many cases, may play a role in shortening their life expectancies.

The lack of emphasis on physical activity and participation in sports has tangible negative effects on Black American girls. This issue has yet to be sufficiently addressed in either real- world contexts or literature. William Rhoden in his The New York Times article “Black and White

Women Are Far from Equal under Title IX” sheds some light on the lack of scholarly attention to

290 this issue. He points out that the passage of Title IX, while it ensured progress in equality for white women, brought about insignificant improvements for Black women. Title IX, he explains, because of its emphasis on gender, ignores the need for people of color to receive the same degree of equality. Rhoden argues: “Race is by far the most debilitating limitation of Title IX, yet you barely hear discussion of it. This reflects an old way of thinking about inequality, in which gender was the model. The only model” (Rhoden). White women have benefited from the passage of Title IX. Because of the traditional emphasis on analyzing women’s marginalization solely because of sexism, Black American women have yet to witness to the same degree of progress in sports equality. Their access to opportunities is often still highly controversial because of their race. In an article for The New York Times, Niraj Chokshi discusses the fraught history of discrimination of Black Americans at swimming pools. “Pools are supposed to be places to relax,” he notes, “but ever since they exploded in popularity about a century ago, they have served as flash points for racial conflict — vulnerable spaces where prejudices have intensified and violence has often broken out” (“Racism at American Pools”). Chokshi cites just a few of the instances of racism during the summer of 2018. He writes: “This summer, a black boy was harassed by a white woman in South Carolina; a black woman was asked to provide identification by a white man in North Carolina; and a black man wearing socks in the water had the police called on him by a white manager of an apartment complex in Tennessee” (Chokshi).

With changing societal attitudes about who is allowed to take part in swimming exercise, white women have been welcomed to participate at pools. Black women are still often discriminated against when they try to enter those spaces.

Title IX has improved sports opportunities more for white women than for Black women

(Rhoden). A push for more inclusion of female athletes in children’s literature has also mainly

291 benefited white women. Black women’s athletic experiences remain ignored. When portrayed,

Black women’s race is often isolated from its intersection with their gender. The texts examined in the previous chapters have received scant scholarship examining them as texts worthy of academic attention or acclaim, particularly in terms of criticism about the accuracy or culturally authentic representation of Black female athletes. Both Black girls and the texts about their athletic experiences have garnered little notice in the children’s publishing industry or from white scholars of children’s literature.

African American children’s literature emerged from the concerns of Black American communities, noting the effects that exclusion and misrepresentation were having on their children. In order for African American children’s literature to continue to grow and respond to the current controversies, it will need scholars, authors, illustrators, publishers, etc. to keep taking up these issues surrounding the literature. As Wanda Brooks and Jonda McNair argue,

“Counting on African American children’s literature to maintain its positioning as a sustainable cultural artifact will require additional scholarly interest” (“‘But This Story of Mine Is Not

Unique’” 153). African American children’s literature has the potential to continue to grow. As the latest CCBC statistics demonstrate, however, the discrepancy in inclusion of white and non- white characters remains significant. African American children’s literature needs support and critical attention to close the gap in representation. The genre requires scholars to keep examining and promoting texts that feature the stories of Black female athletes. Conversations about Black girls’ needs have long absent been in mainstream white America. Black Americans communities have been discussing issues related to supporting Black girls for decades and continue to do so today. Focus on this topic can help today’s authors and illustrators continue to

292 fill the gaps in the literature for child readers and empower the next generation of Black

American girls in new and innovative ways.

Conversations to this nature matter because, as Sims Bishop points out, “Reading

[diverse] literature has the potential to help all students understand who we are today as a society and how we might become a better society tomorrow” (xiv). The consequence of empowering regularly disempowered African American children is frequently viewed as unfairly removing white children from a place of privilege. A focus on the needs of Black girls in sports must mean that white girls in sports must go without attention. With such assumptions, resistance to this scholarship will continue to plague its progress, as concerns about the ways that the texts may disrupt an assumed post-racial society will continue to surface.

The continued commercializing of the publishing industry must keep in mind the ways that a focus on publishing quantity over quality in texts will continue to exclude diverse life experiences from being told in stories for children. If books are not viewed as being able to be quickly commercialized, publishers are hesitant to invest in the stories. In an interview with

NPR, bookstore owner Elizabeth Bluemle discusses her experience with how well diverse books sell. “I think that people will assume a book starring an African-American or an Asian-American character is going to be a niche book,” she asserts, “and that just isn’t the case for most books”

(“How to Sell Diverse Books”). Bluemle adds: “[W]e tend to narrow our definition of what will sell even before the book gets out of the gate” (Bluemle). Diverse stories about Black female athletes should not be niche books. They appeal to many readers of all racial and gender identities. These texts are so necessary for the next generation of Black girls in particular. In a

Literacy & NCTE blog post “Students Don’t Need Diverse Literature Just Because It’s Diverse,”

Latrise Johnson notes: “Students don’t just need diverse literature because it’s diverse. They

293 need literature that inspires and awakens their potential to be the narrators of their own existence and to imagine a more just world” (Johnson). African American children’s literature has the potential to help Black girls find their place in their world. It can also empower them to make their mark on the world in making it a more equitable place, a place that is more willing and able to meet their needs.

Implications for Educators and School Administrators

Historically and currently, the teaching workforce in America is prevailingly made up of white educators. According to research conducted in the 2015-2016 National Teacher and

Principal Survey, about 80% of public school teachers were white, with only 7% being non-

Hispanic Black (“Characteristics of Public School Teachers”). Bree Picower contends: “White teachers are often entering the profession with a lifetime of hegemonic reinforcement to see students of color and their communities as dangerous and at fault for the educational challenges they face” (“The Unexamined Whiteness of Teaching” 211). While American schools are becoming increasingly more diverse, most educators continue to be mainly white women.

Teahers are often unprepared to meet the needs of Black students.

White educators are especially failing Black girls. Monique Morris in her text Pushout:

The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools argues: “[T]oo many Black girls are being criminalized (and physically and mentally harmed) by beliefs, policies, and actions that degrade and marginalize both their learning and their humanity” (8). As Morris asserts, this criminalization of Black girls leads to “conditions that push them out of schools and render them vulnerable to even more harm” (8). With widespread assumptions of a post-racial society, many white teachers claim to have a colorblind1⁠ perception of their students, rather than a multicultural

294 or anti-racist one. Many argue that they do not notice the differences that society has determined separates Black Americans from white Americans (Husband). They treat all of their students equally, they claim. Children’s literature can help white educators break through barriers14 that may separate them from their students or separate the students in their classroom from each other. As Sims Bishop asserts, “The question of the role of children’s literature in the classrooms is one that is crucial in an atmosphere of high-stakes testing, re-segregation of schools, and inequitable educational resources, such as school libraries” (xiv). The need for diverse children’s texts is crucial in American society, and African American children’s literature continues to have the potential to participate in shaping possible futures for the United States.

Being aware of the gap in children’s literature can be the first step for white educators in intentionally choosing to include the experiences of Black American female athletes into their classroom libraries and curricula. Having the positive stories discussed here in this project in classroom and school libraries can offer more opportunities for young Black American girls to see the possibilities for their participation represented in literature. It allows for them to feel connected to Black American women of the past who have also struggled with obstacles in sports, whether based on their race, gender, class, or other aspect of their identity. This connection to past athletes offers the encouragement that many racially minoritized girls need to continue to challenge norms and beliefs that set limitations on their abilities and opportunities to succeed in sports.

Many texts, including some of the ones discussed here, ask Black girls to view themselves, their families, and their communities through a deficit lens. Including these books in

14 Barriers that have been created by centuries of oppression of Black Americans in society. 295 a classroom curriculum negatively affects Black girls. Picturebooks such as Wilma Rudolph utilize whitewashing as a way to suggest that Black female athletes are worthy of being honored.

Books such as Nothing but Trouble ask Black girls to view themselves as somehow morally deficient in contrast to white Americans. These texts invite a critical conversation about the history of Black women in sports. Unmediated, however, they simply serve as another medium through which Black girls are told that their identities and lived experiences do not matter.

The National Council of Teachers in English asserts the importance of text-selection. The educational organization argues:

Instructional materials are essential tools in the English language arts classroom.

They allow students to interact with words, images, and ideas in ways that

develop their abilities in multiple literacies such as reading, listening, viewing,

thinking, speaking, writing, and technology. Because instructional materials are a

primary resource for English language arts teachers, they must be selected wisely.

(“Materials in English Language Arts Program”)

Choosing texts that have an accurate representation of Black female athletes in the curriculum opens up the space for Black girls to not only explore possibilities for themselves, but also the opportunity to discuss and process their realities. When Black girls who do participate in sports interact with these texts, teachers can give them the opportunities to discuss how the books do or do not reflect what they experience in athletics. It is important for educators to open these door for communication when interacting with any sports literature, but books that feature Black female athletes open the door specifically for Black girls to connect with a text and use it as a springboard to discuss what they have experienced. Interacting with texts and giving them space

296 in the classroom to tell their own stories in terms of sports’ experiences can validate Black girls’ hopes and dreams — and also acknowledge the unique challenges that they face.

Teachers’ commitment to offer stories of possibility in the form of picture books about

Black female athletes in the classroom may make a difference for young Black girls. As the Title

IX Story Club demonstrated, equity in sports can be an important topic to engage Black girls in literacy and in giving them opportunities to share their own narratives. Picturebooks about Black female athletes can open doors for Black girls to discuss their own goals and needs. Educators and school administrators must be reflexive of the ways that they view young Black girls and their wants, needs, and hopes when it comes to physical activity and sports. This dissertation ask readers, especially white readers and educators, to interact with the history of how Black

American female athletes have been represented, both in literature and in real-world contexts, and to understand the stereotypes and deficit views that have continued to confine Black

American women and girls in sports.

Black girls feel resistance to their participation in sports — and not just on sports field, but in school spaces, as well, where teachers and school administrators make assumptions about their abilities and desires. White educators could greatly learn from reading books that positively and accurately portray Black girls in sports; additionally, they could benefit from opening up space in their curriculum to listen themselves to what Black girls have to say about their experiences through class discussions, activities, and assignments. Gholnecsar E. Muhammad and Marcelle Haddix assert: “Black girls’ narratives have been falsified or incompletely told”

(301). Black girls deserve the opportunity to share their lived experiences. Not only do Black girls benefit from getting to reflect on and share their realities, but white educators and administrators have the opportunity to let Black girls speak from themselves about what they

297 face and what they need in sports. An inclusion of texts that accurately and positively depict

Black female athletes and critical conversations about ones that do not can benefit Black girls, school administrators, and educators in promoting a world where sports are a place of equity and justice.

Final Thoughts

Examining the limited representation of Black female athletes in American children’s picturebooks discussed within this dissertation can tell us much about how Black American girl readers are currently viewing themselves being represented in literature. The texts provide insights into how they historically have been asked to view themselves through literature and how that representation has evolved (or not evolved.) It can demonstrate that much progress has happened both within the realm of sports and children’s literature. As Patricia Vertinsky and

Gwendolyn Captain contend, “… the shaping of the African American woman’s story in sport, as in other areas of her life, reveals much more about the pictures in the minds of its shapers than about the diversity and complexity of her realities” (“More Myth than History” 552). The marginalization of Black American women in sports and in sports literature tells us much about where we are as a society today and the institutional forces that are continuing to shape

America’s racial and gender ideologies. It demonstrates that white America is still significantly invested in marginalizing Black women and girls in sports, holding them back from achieving equality. Acknowledging the invisibility of Black female athletes in picturebooks can serve as a step in bringing about more equality in representation.

Creators and scholars of African American children’s literature for decades has been identifying the gaps in literature for Black child readers, and African American authors and

298 illustrators of children’s texts have been working tirelessly to create literature that fills these gaps. They have been working to combat single stories that perpetuate one dominant narrative about Black Americans’ lived experiences. Nancy Tolson in The Black Aesthetic in Children’s

Literature asserts: “Black writers are still finding new ways to express the consciousness of a

Black child who is aware of world events. The Black Aesthetic is evolving in form and format.

Yet, it is connected to the past authors because of shared Black experiences” (76). As the Black

Aesthetic evolves, Black American authors and illustrators such as Misty Copeland, Christopher

Myers, and Nikkolas Smith are working to create books that speak to Black girls and encourage them to pursue their dreams.

Just the acknowledgement that this evolution needs to happen will not bring about change. Because historic marginalization of Black female athletes in sports literature has been a systemic issue, there needs to be a demand for more inclusion of Black female athletes in children’s literature and pressure on American institutions, such as publishers of children’s literature and the schools where children might encounter such texts, to challenge a long- standing pattern of excluding and stereotyping African American women and girls in sports literature. Much progress is happening within the field of children’s literature in relation to representations of Black female athletes. In addition to texts discussed here, other recently picturebooks that include Black female athletes such as Lesa Cline-Ransome and James

Ransome’s Game Changers: The Story of Venus and Serena Williams, Howard Bryant and Floyd

Cooper’s Sisters & Champions: The True Story of Venus and Serena Williams, and Vashti

Harrison’s Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History have all been published with the past few months and include stories of Black female athletes. These texts demonstrate that the publishing industry is working to acknowledge the accomplishments of Black female athletes

299 and honor diverse stories about Black women in sports. Writers, publishers, scholars, critics, educators, and readers of all racial identities can participate in advocating for equality in representations of Black female athletes by supporting a diverse array of books that tell their stories. We can facilitate Black women and girls continuing to make strides toward equality in sports and in children’s literature.

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331

Appendix A: Chart of Picturebooks Analyzed

332

Author’s Illustrator’s

Title Author Illustrator Racial Identity Racial Identity Year Published Publisher

Wilma Unlimited Kathleen Krull David Diaz White Latino 1996 HMH Books

The Quickest Kid in Pat Zietlow Miller Frank Morrison White Black 2016 Chronicle Books

Clarksville

Nothing But Trouble Sue Stauffacher Greg Couch White White 2011 Dragonfly Books

333

Playing to Win Karen Deans Elbrite Brown White Black 2007 Holiday House

Queen of the Track Heather Lang Floyd Cooper White Black 2012 Boyds Mills Press

Touch the Sky Ann Malaspina Eric Velasquez White Afro-Puerto Rican 2011 Albert Whitman &

Company

Firebird Misty Copeland Christopher Myers Black Black 2014 G.P. Putnam’s Sons

Trailblazer Leda Schubert Theodore Taylor III White Black 2018 Little Bee Books

Golden Girls of Rio Nikkolas Smith Black 2016 SkyPony Press

Appendix B: Picturebook Illustrations

334

Figure 1 Figure 2 Wilma Unlimited Title Page Baby Wilma Rudolph with her family

Figure 3 Figure 4 Rudolph racing Relay race

Figure 5 Figure 6 Close-up Image of Rudolph during relay race Rudolph during Olympic medal ceremony

335 Figure 7 Figure 8 Alta running Alta and friends looking up at sun

Figure 9 Figure 10 Alta and friends talk with Charmaine Alta and friends look at Charmaine’s shoes

336

Figure 11 Figure 12 Alta and Charmaine are talking Alta, Charmaine, and friends are at Rudolph’s parade

Figure 13 Figure 14 Alta and Charmaine race Alta is celebrating

337

Figure 15 Figure 16 Althea Gibson is running through the street Photographs show Gibson getting in trouble

Figure 17 Figure 18 Gibson is running away from family and Gibson is walking with a bat police officer

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Figure 19 Figure 20 Gibson is playing multiple different sports Buddy Walker is watching Gibson play

Figure 21 Figure 22 Gibson is talking with Walker Gibson is playing tennis

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Figure 23 Figure 24 Gibson is depicted in a fancy dress and singing Gibson is depicted being held by her mother and her father

Figure 25 Figure 26 Coachman is running through a forest Coachman’s father is bent down talking to her

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Figure 27 Figure 28 Coachman is playing basketball with a couple of boys Coachman and her teacher are watching a high-jumping athlete

Figure 29 Figure 30 Coachman is jumping over a homemade Coachman’s mother and a man talk as they watch crossbar her jumping

341 Figure 31 Figure 32 Coachman is competing at a high jumping event The coach is talking to Coachman’s father as she looks on

Figure 33 Figure 34 Coachman is eating lunch with the other Tigerettes Young Coachman is going for a walk with her grandmother

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Figure 35 Figure 36 Coachman is playing basketball with boys Coachman is sitting on a windowsill looking outside

Figure 37 Figure 38 A young ballerina dances next to Copeland The young ballerina watches Copeland dance in the sky

343 Figure 39 Figure 40 The young ballerina sits on the sidewalk Copeland kneels down to talk to the young ballerina

Figure 41 Figure 42 Copeland is dancing over multiple days The young ballerina is practicing dance moves

Figure 43 Figure 44 The young ballerina is dancing next to Copeland Copeland and the young ballerina dance a pas de deux

344 Figure 45 Figure 46 Copeland watches the young ballerina before a Young children watch the young ballerina performance perform

Figure 47 Figure 48 Copeland and the young ballerina dance together A young Wilkinson sits in a theatre next to her mother and father

Figure 49 Figure 50 Wilkinson enters the dance studio Wilkinson dances in the front of the dance studio

345 Figure 51 Figure 52 Madame Swoboda walks Wilkinson through a Wilkinson is standing next to a bus with a dance move suitcase

Figure 53 Figure 54 Wilkinson is sitting at the front of the bus Wilkinson is performing with the rest of the dance troop

346 Figure 55 Figure 56 The Klu Klux Klan are depicted in front of flames Wilkinson is powdering her face to whiten it

Figure 57 Figure 58 Wilkinson is leaving a hotel as another ballerina Four ballerinas surround Wilkinson tries to stop her

347 Figure 59 Figure 60 Wilkinson sits at a table with Klu Klux Klan Wilkinson looks out the window at a robes in the background burning cross

Figure 61 Figure 62 Wilkinson performs for a queen Copeland is dancing a pas de deux with a partner

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Figure 63 Figure 64 Wilkinson is presenting Copeland with flowers The Rio female Olympic athletes stand in a line

Figure 65 Figure 66 The Olympians are holding each other up Manuel and Ledecky are seen on side-by- side pages

349 Figure 67 Figure 68 Carter is looking at a picture with her father A young Biles sees her future self who holds a shot competing

Figure 69 Figure 70 A young Ledecky is swimming with her family A young Manuel is diving and swimming with her family

Figure 71 Figure 72 Biles and Hernandez wave at each other on the Hernandez completes a flip balance beam

350 Figure 73 Figure 74 Ledecky waves at Manuel Carter holds a shot and looks up at a tree

Figure 75 Figure 76 Two female athletes hold up plates of gold The backs of the female athletes as they are lined up watching the US flag

Figure 77 Figure 78 Three female athletes’ crossed arms are seen The female athletes complete dives and flips

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Figure 79 Figure 80 Four female athletes give each other fist-bumps The image of the sky and the last sentence of the text

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