Exercises & DBQs

Question

Based upon the documents provided below and your knowledge of the time period, discuss the extent to which racial attitudes changed in American society during the 1940s and 1950s.

Document A

Three Events Won by Stella Walsh; Cleveland Star First in 200, Broad Jump and Discus at National A. A. U. Games; Team Title to Tuskegee; Negro Institute Victor for the Sixth Year in Row—Polish Olympic A. C. is Second

Ocean City, N. J.—Miss Stella Walsh, still without a peer among women athletes despite her 31 years, captured three events today in the National A. A. U. women's track and field championships, but her efforts were not enough to stop Tuskegee (Ala.) Institute from winning the team crown for the sixth straight year.

The former Polish Olympic star, holder of more track and field marks than any other living woman, first regained her title in the 200-meter dash, then won the broad jump and discus throw—a performance which won her the trophy awarded to the meet's outstanding individual.

Miss Walsh accounted for 30 of the 64 3-5 points scored by the Polish Olympic Women's A. C. [athletic club] of Cleveland, but better balance enabled the Negro athletes from Tuskegee to continue their reign.

Source: New York Times, 5 July 1942, sec. V, p. 5.

Document B

Tuskegee Takes 6th Straight; Ala. Girls in Victory at AAU Track Carnival

Ocean City, N. J.—Paced by Alice Coachman, national indoor and outdoor jumping champion, who captured two titles in addition to running the anchor leg on the championship relay quartet, the Tuskegee Institute women’s track team retained its national AAU team crown for the sixth consecutive year at Municipal Stadium here on Saturday.

Miss Coachman, who retained her high jump title, also won the 100-meter dash in 0:12.1, clipping three-tenth seconds from the time set by Miss Jean Lane, Wilberforce University speedster, last year’s winner, who did not defend her title. Miss Coachman was far below the mark of last year—5 feet 3 inches—when she was credited with a winning jump of 4 feet 8 inches.

Showing a remarkable sense of timing and balance, Miss Lillie Purifoy of Tuskegee captured the 80-meter hurdle title to nose out her teammate, Miss Lelia Perry, the defending champion, whose time she nipped by four-tenths of a second to win in 0:12.6.

The Tuskegee Institute varsity team, composed of Leila Perry [different spelling from above in original], Rowena Harrison, Lillie Purifoy, and Alice Coachman, retained its 400-meter relay title in 0:50.7 seconds.

Source: Baltimore Afro-American, 11 July 1942, p. 23.

Document C

Miss Walsh Wins Easily; Takes 200-Meter Title Dash but Fails in Record Attempt

Harrisburg, Pa.—Miss Stella Walsh of Cleveland’s Women’s Olympic Club, today won the 200-meter dash at the women’s national A. A. U. track championship but fell short of the world record.

Trying to better her own mark of 0:23.6 set in 1935, the Cleveland star was clocked in 0:26.6 for the distance.

The record-holder was given little competition, finishing ten yards ahead of Miss Nell Jackson of Tuskegee Institute, with Miss Gwendolyn Taylor of Harrisburg third.

Source: New York Times , 1 July 1945, sec. III, p. 3.

Document D

Alice Coachman Crowned National Sprint Queen; Tuskegee Lass Lifts Crown From Head of Stella Walsh at Harrisburg Women’s Meet

Harrisburg, Pa.—Alice Coachman, sensational Tuskegee Institute woman athlete, reached the acme of her brilliant career here Saturday as she dethroned Stella Walsh, generally recongnized as one of the all-time greats of feminine history, in the featured 100-meter dash of the National AAU women’s track and field championships.

The 22-year-old Tuskegeean, for four years the most serious contender for Mis[s] Walsh’s sprinting honors, highlighted a sparkling all-round performance with a 12-second triumph over her Polish rival. She led all the way from the break to topple Miss Walsh, who, only a few minutes before had told the press she was accepting a challenge from Helen Stephens of St. Louis, to run a match race “to settle who was the fastest woman runner.”

Miss Coachman had previously scored in her 50-meter sprint speciality and had captured her seventh straight high-jump title with a leap of 5 feet, six inches better than her nearest competitor.

In copping the 50-meter crown in 6.5 seconds, Miss Coachman was only one-tenth of a second away from the world's record set by Miss Walsh in 1933 and equalled by Miss Coachman last year at this same track.

In scoring a triple, thus taking down individual honors for the afternoon, the comely Tuskegeean led her mates to their ninth team title in 10 years of competition.

Source: Baltimore Afro-American, 7 July 1945, p. 18.

Document E

Alice Coachman Wins High Jump; Albany Negress is Olympic Champ

Albany, Ga.—Alice Coachman, a 26-year-old Negro girl born and raised in this South Georgia metropolis, Saturday became the second native Georgian and the third representing a State institution to win an Olympic championship.

Alice set a new record in winning the high jump, final track and field event in the Olympic games in London. She cleared the bar at five feet, 6 1/8 inches, same as Mrs. D. J. Tyler, of Great Britain, but the Georgia Negress missed one less time at lower heights than her opponent and was named champion accordingly.

Alice’s leap was the only first place captured by the entire American women's track and field team. More than 70,000 spectators, greatest ever to witness a high jump exhibition, stayed until nearly dark to see the contest decided.

The Georgia Negress started her athletic career in grade school when her teacher, Cora Bailey, noticed that she possessed a great amount of athletic ability. Cora carried her prize pupil to a few track meets at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama and there she attracted the attention of athletic authorities who persuaded her to enter Tuskegee when she finished high school.

She transferred to the Albany State College campus in January, 1947, and kept up her track work despite the fact she had nothing but a grass-covered football field on which to work.

Alice won her first major championship in 1939 when she captured the National AAU high jump and she's retained the title every year since.

She qualified for the Olympic team as a sprinter as well as a jumper, but once in England was advised to devote all her attention on the latter, to forget about the sprints. It proved good advice.

An all-around athlete, Alice is an outstanding forward on the basketball team at college, but her instructors say confidentially that she’s “just a fair student” in home economics.

Source: Atlanta Constitution , 8 August 1948, p. 11.

Document F

America’s 400 meter women’s relay team was eliminated in the third preliminary but Alice Coachman, student at Albany (Ga.) Teachers college, saved the United States girls from a shutout when she won the high jump, setting an Olympic record of 5 feet 6 1/8 inches.

Sixty thousand of the crowd remained in the arena as the track games drew to a close in darkness and a drizzling rain altho’ earlier the sun finally dispersed a week long chill and rain. Coachman and Mrs. Richard Tyler, mother of two boys, cleared the same height but Coachman was awarded the title for the least number of attempts at all heights. The former record was 5 feet 5 1/4 inches.

Thus the track meet started as begun eight days ago, with victory for an American and the Star Spangled Banner of the United States providing the closing music.

Source: Chicago Tribune, 8 August 1948, sec. 2, p.4.

Document G

Source: Chicago Tribune , 7 July 1957, sec. 2, p. 1.

Document H

Sports Fans Come to the Defense of Althea Gibson

Dear Editor: In a sports story, “Has Net Queen Althea Gibson Gone High Hat?”, appearing in your July 17 issue, sports writer Wendell Smith gives Althea Gibson a “dressing down.” The manner in which he does it is repulsive not only to me but to many other tennis players and followers. Restraint, good taste, fair play and sportsmanship are qualities sports writers should possess as well as the sports performers they write about.

My general impression of these men of journalism is that they do measure up. But how do we explain this exception? In general the press has been fair and helpful and I believe will continue to be because Althea Gibson merits such treatment. Smith should rely on first-hand information, especially when it is so easily obtainable. Above all, he should try to see the Gibson epic in its relationship to the big cause—the cause for which we all struggle and fight—individually and in groups. Only a few of us are gifted and fortunate enough to break through.

Whoever recommended Miss Gibson for the goodwill tour sponsored by the State Department, which she made last year with three whites, must have done so with confidence in her fitness. Tennis is still one of the few sports that take one into select circles. The record states clearly that Miss Gibson deported herself admirably in carrying out the objectives of the tour. In this and many other achievements, the Wimbledon champion has done her country, race, family and friends proud. She does not go on the tennis court to represent her race and any question put to her along this line can only be a subtle trap. I am sure she would be very happy to accept an invitation to play on the Wightman Cup team as a representative of the United States. Yours in sports, Hilton L. Mayers.

Source: Pittsburgh Courier, 10 August 1957, p. 24.

Document I

Few athletes in the city’s history have been tendered the unstinting adulation of any group as was Althea Gibson when she stood on the steps of City Hall last July 11 at the end of her ticker tape parade up Broadway.

For here indeed was the culmination of a dream, the climax of a nationwide Negro community project. A Harlem urchin, discovered by Negroes, nurtured by Negroes, trained by Negroes, educated by Negroes, was now the best in the world in “the game for ladies and gentlemen.”

And pride knew no bounds when the poised, smiling Wimbledon champion responded to the tribute offered by Mayor Wagner “as an humble New Yorker” by observing that:

“This is my finest hours. The victory I won was through the help of you all, through your encouragement and well wishes. With God’s help, I will continue to try to wear with honor and dignity the crown I won.”

It was a great and rewarding moment.

But less than two weeks later thousands of her most ardent racial supporters were shocked to find Althea the target of the most virulent attack ever aimed at any Negro athlete by the same sections of the press which had done so much to establish her early reputation. And this at a time when she had just annexed her highest American title—the Clay Court singles championship—at the swanky Lake Forest Club in Chicago.

Source: Pittsburgh Courier, 26 Oct. 1957, magazine section, p. 3.