Originally posted as #SistoryLessons newsletter, July 1, 2026
I often enjoy watching the ESPYs. Even in these times of grimmer and grimmer headlines, it's a moment to celebrate life, skill, swag, happiness, and excellence—another form of resistance. This edition of #SistoryLessons honors five Foremothers whose contributions opened the doors for women and girls in sports today: trailblazers Althea Gibson, Mamie "Peanut" Johnson, Tidye Pickett, and Victoria Manalo Draves, and a legislator who inscribed equality into federal law, Patsy Mink.
Althea Gibson: The First Black Grand Slam Champion
Althea Gibson was born on August 25, 1927, to a family of poor sharecroppers in Silver, South Carolina. She became New York City's paddle-tennis champion at age 12, which earned her a junior membership at Harlem's Cosmopolitan Tennis Club. In 1950 she became the first Black player to compete in the U.S. Nationals. She broke Wimbledon's color line in 1951, then won the French Championships in 1956, becoming the first Black athlete, woman or man, to win a Grand Slam singles title. The following year she won Wimbledon outright, with Queen Elizabeth II placing the trophy in her hands, and took both Wimbledon and the U.S. crown again in 1958—eleven Grand Slam titles over her career, and the first Black player ranked number one in the world.
In 1964, at thirty-six, Gibson became the first Black woman on the LPGA professional golf tour. Two cerebral hemorrhages in the late 1980s and a stroke in 1992 wiped out her finances; her former doubles partner Angela Buxton alerted the tennis world and helped raise close to a million dollars to keep her afloat. Gibson died on September 28, 2003. In 2019, a statue of her went up at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, near Arthur Ashe's own statue.
Reflection: Who gets credited in your community, and who gets erased?
Mamie "Peanut" Johnson: A Woman Pitcher in the Negro Leagues
Mamie Belton was born on September 27, 1935, in Ridgeway, South Carolina, and taught herself baseball with tree-branch bats, taped rocks, and pie plates for bases. After being turned away from an all-white women's professional league tryout in 1953 due to segregation, she was signed that same year by the Indianapolis Clowns of the Negro Leagues. From 1953 to 1955 she posted a 33–8 record over forty-one games—Hall of Fame numbers. Her nickname came from an opposing batter who scoffed that she was "no bigger than a peanut"; she struck him out.
After retiring from baseball in 1955 at nineteen, she earned a nursing degree and served as a nurse for thirty years in Washington, D.C. Mamie "Peanut" Johnson died on December 18, 2017. In 2020, Major League Baseball folded the Negro Leagues into its official records and recognized her, along with fellow players Toni Stone and Connie Morgan, among the players it had shut out for generations.
Reflection: Where have you shut up the "haters" with your amazing skills?
Tidye Pickett: First Black Female Olympian
Tidye Ann Pickett was born on November 3, 1914, in Chicago's Englewood neighborhood. In 1932, she and fellow athlete Louise Stokes became the first Black women named to a U.S. Olympic team. Facing severe discrimination from teammates and officials on the way to the Los Angeles Games, both women were left off the final relay roster and replaced by white runners. Undeterred, Tidye returned for the 1936 Berlin Olympics and became the first Black woman to actually compete in the Games, running the 80-meter hurdles, though she broke her foot in the semifinal.
After her competitive career, she barnstormed with the Chocolate Co-Eds, an all-Black women's basketball team, then earned her health and physical education degree from Illinois State in 1941 and became a teacher, later serving as principal of Woodlawn Elementary for twenty-three years. She died on November 17, 1986, in Chicago Heights.
Reflection: What victory do you hold close, even if no one applauded?
Victoria Manalo Draves: First Asian American Olympic Gold Medalist
Victoria Manalo was born on December 31, 1924, in San Francisco, the daughter of a Filipino immigrant father and English-born mother. She didn't begin diving until sixteen, and her coach initially had her compete under her mother's English maiden name, "Vicki Taylor," due to anti-Filipino prejudice in the clubs that controlled the pools. After marrying coach Lyle Draves in 1946, she reclaimed her full name.
At the 1948 London Olympics, Victoria won gold in both the 3-meter springboard and the 10-meter platform, becoming the first American woman to sweep both diving events at a single Games and the first Asian American to win Olympic gold of any kind. She was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1969. In 2006, San Francisco named Victoria Manalo Draves Park in her honor—the first city park named for a Filipino American and the first named for a woman.
Reflection: When have you had to hide or compromise who you are just to access opportunity?
Patsy Mink: The Architect of Title IX
Patsy Matsu Takemoto was born on December 6, 1927, on the island of Maui. Rejected by every medical school she applied to, several bluntly citing her gender, she turned to law instead. In 1964, voters sent her to the U.S. House of Representatives, making her the first woman of color and the first Asian American woman in Congress. In 1972 she co-authored and drove through Title IX of the Education Amendments, the thirty-seven-word law that barred sex discrimination in any school receiving federal money and remade school sports for girls and women across the country.
"No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance."
Patsy Mink died on September 28, 2002. Weeks later Congress renamed Title IX the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act, and in 2014 President Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Reflection: How do you relate the idea of "recognizing difference" to the practice of ending "colorblindness"?
Reflection and Action
As you think about Althea Gibson, what would it feel like to be booed and jeered by the public? Where do you think she got her resolve from?
Celebrating the spirit of Mamie "Peanut" Johnson: how do you break barriers in spaces where you're not expected?
In honor of Tidye Pickett: how have you been the first, the only, or the overlooked?
Remembering Victoria Manalo Draves: whose name has been left off a victory you know about, and how can you elevate her in your circles?
Considering Patsy Mink: who are some young sports she-roes you particularly admire?
What These Women Knew, and What We Must Remember
Althea Gibson won Grand Slam titles in a sport that built its clubs to keep her out, and Mamie "Peanut" Johnson pitched in a league that didn't think women belonged anywhere near the diamond. Tidye Pickett ran for a nation that had not yet learned how to honor its talented Black women, and Victoria Manalo Draves won two Olympic golds after reclaiming her own name and heritage. Patsy Mink wrote the law that finally ensured equipment, training, and access were not hoarded by the boys alone. We commemorate these women and their audacious refusal to accept rules built to exclude them. Their refusal opened a door that we all must continue to hold open—no one needs permission to be excellent, or simply good, or joyful.
Thanks for reading this edition of #SistoryLessons, a biweekly newsletter that uses the lessons from Foremothers who led the way as encouragement and guide for these times of resilience. The series is based on stories from my award-winning book, Our Brave Foremothers: Celebrating 100 Black, Brown, Asian, and Indigenous Women Who Changed the Course of History, and other, ongoing research.