Wilma Rudolph's 75th Anniversary after her Birth
Icons will always be remembered eternally. Wilma Rudolph was an icon of not only track and field. She was an icon of civil rights and human rights in general. She overcame a strong illness to be one of the greatest athletes of all time. When we think about the 20th century, there was much bad events from wars to genocide from the Vietnam War to the Red Summer pogroms against innocent black human lives. Yet, it is important recognize the positive news of the 20th century too like the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 2 three peats of the Chicago Bulls by the 1990s. Wilma Rudolph lived in the 20th century from the early parts of it to the end of the century filled with light and an inspiration to educate people on the truth. When she was on the track and field locations, she wanted to win. At a young age, she won many gold medals and was blessed to compete in two Summer Olympic Games in Melbourne, Australia in 1956 and in Rome, Italy in 1960. She was steadfast to witness freedom, and she helped to inspire her community in Tennessee to end Jim Crow apartheid. Jim Crow apartheid is evil, because it restricts human rights, it causes disparities based upon color, and it is against the Golden Rule to treat your neighbor as you would like to be treated among other reasons. United States Postal stamps, documentaries, films, books, magazines, and other items celebrate her achievements. Having great achievements is excellent. Also, one lesson in life is to do good in an unsung fashion (not because you have to do it, but you do it because it's the right thing to do without seeking fame or fanfare). Wilma Rudolph loved her life, loved athletics, and fulfilled her destiny as a human being. That is why the story of Sister Wilma Rudolph is important to see the best in ourselves, so we can be inspired to bless others.
Overcoming Illness
Wilma Rudolph was born prematurely to Blanche Rudolph at 4.5 pounds on June 23, 1940, in Saint Bethlehem, Tennessee (now part of Clarksville). She was the 20th of 22 children from her father Ed Rudolph's two marriages. Shortly after Wilma's birth, her family moved to Clarksville, Tennesse, where she grew up and attended elementary and high school. Her father, Ed, worked as a railway porter and did odd jobs in Clarksville. Ed died in 1961. His brother, Blanche, worked as a maid in Clarksville homes and died in 1994. Wilma Rudolph had many early childhood illnesses, including pneumonia and scarlet fever, and she contracted infantile paralysis (caused by the poliovirus) at the age of five. Rudolph recovered from polio but lost strength in her left leg and foot. Physically disabled for much of her early life, Rudolph wore a leg brace until she was 12 years old. Because there was little medical care available to African American residents of Clarksville in the 1940s, Rudolph's parents sought treatment for her at the historically black Meharry Medical College (now Nashville General Hospital at Meharry) in Nashville, Tennessee, about 50 miles (80 km) from Clarksville.
For two years, Rudolph and her mother made weekly bus trips to Nashville for treatments to regain the use of her weakened leg. Rudolph also received subsequent at-home massage treatments four times a day from members of her family and wore an orthopedic shoe for support of her foot for another two years. Because of the treatments she received at Meharry and the daily massages from her family members, Rudolph was able to overcome the debilitating effects of polio and learned to walk without a leg brace or orthopedic shoe for support by the time she was 12 years old. Rudolph was initially homeschooled due to the frequent illnesses that caused her to miss kindergarten and first grade. Rudolph began attending second grade at Cobb Elementary School in Clarksville in 1947 at age seven. She attended Clarksville's all-black Burt High School, where Rudolph excelled in basketball and track. During her senior year of high school, Rudolph became pregnant with her first child, Yolanda, who was born in 1958, a few weeks before her enrollment at Tennessee State University in Nashville. In college, Rudolph continued to compete in track. She also became a member of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority. In 1963, Rudolph graduated from Tennessee State with a bachelor's degree in education. Her college education was paid by her participation in a work-study scholarship program that required Rudolph to work on the TSU campus for two hours a day.
Rudolph loved to be in organized sports at Burt High School. That high school was the center of Clarksville's African American community. She had many years of medical treatments to regain the use of her left leg. Rudolph followed in her sister Yvonne's footsteps and played basketball when she was in the 8th grade. She continued to play basketball in high school, where she became a starter on the team and began competing in track. In her sophomore year, Rudolph scored 803 points and set a new record for high school girls' basketball. Rudolph's high school coach, C. C. Gray, gave her the nickname of "Skeeter" (for mosquito) because she moved so fast. While playing for her high school basketball team, Rudolph was spotted by Ed Temple, Tennessee State's track and field coach, a major break for the active young athlete. The day that Temple saw the tenth grader for the first time, he knew Rudolph was a natural athlete. She had already gained some track experience on Burt High School's track team two years earlier, mostly as a way to keep busy between basketball seasons. As a high school sophomore, Rudolph competed at Alabama's Tuskegee Institute in her first major track event. Although she lost the race, Rudolph was determined to continue competing and win. Temple invited 14-year-old Rudolph to join his summer training program at Tennessee State. After attending the track camp, Rudolph won all nine events she entered at an Amateur Athletic Union track meet in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Under Temple's guidance, she continued to train regularly at TSU while still a high school student. Rudolph raced at amateur athletic events with TSU's women's track team, known as the Tigerbelles, for two more years before enrolling at TSU as a student in 1958.
The Olympics
Wilma Rudolph was 16 years old when she was a junior in high school. She attended the 1956 U.S. Olympic track and field team trials in Seattle, Washington, and qualified to compete in the 200m individual event at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia. Rudolph was the youngest member of the U.S. Olympic team, being one of the five TSU Tigerbelles to qualify for the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. The Tigerbelles track and field women team included legends like Wilma Rudolph, Madeline Manning Mims, Edith McGuire, Wyomia Tyus, Willye White, Margaret Matthews Wilburn, and Chandra Cheesborough-Guice. These athletes earned 16 gold medals and more than 30 national titles and 23 Olympic medals from 1950 to 1994. Rudolph was defeated in a preliminary heat of the 200-meter race at the Melbourne Olympic Games but ran the third leg of the 4 × 100 m relay. The American team of Rudolph, Isabelle Daniels, Mae Faggs, and Margaret Matthews, all of whom were TSU Tigerbelles, won the bronze medal, matching the world-record time of 44.9 seconds. The British team won the silver medal. The Australian team, with the 100- and 200-meter gold medalist Betty Cuthbert as their anchor leg, won the gold medal in a time of 44.5 seconds. After Rudolph returned to her Tennessee home from the Melbourne Olympic Games, Rudolph showed her high school classmates the bronze medal that she had won and decided to try to win a gold medal at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, Italy. In 1958, Rudolph enrolled at Tennessee State, where Temple continued as her track coach. At the Pan American Games in Chicago, Illinois, the following year, Rudolph won a silver medal in the 100-meter individual event, as well as a gold medal in the 4 × 100-meter relay with teammates Isabelle Dan, Barbara Joe, and Lucinda Williams. She also won the AAU 200-meter title in 1959 and defended it for four consecutive years. During her career, Rudolph also won three AAU indoor titles.
The 1960 Olympics in Rome, Italy, changed Wilma Rudolph's whole life forever. She was a sophomore at Tennessee State during that time. Rudolph competed in the U.S. Olympic track and field trials at Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas, where she set a world record in the 200-meter dash that stood for eight years. Rudolph also qualified for the 1960 Summer Olympics in the 100-meter dash. At the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, Italy, Rudolph competed in three events on a cinder track in Rome's Stadio Olimpico: the 100- and 200-meter sprints, as well as the 4 × 100-meter relay. Rudolph, who won a gold medal in each of these events, became the first American woman to win three gold medals in a single Olympiad. Rudolph ran the finals in the 100-meter dash in a wind-aided time of 11.0 seconds. (The record-setting time was not credited as a world record, because the wind, at 2.75 meters (3.01 yd) per second, exceeded the maximum of 2 meters (2.2 yd). Rudolph became the first American woman to win a gold medal in the 100-meter race since Helen Stephens did so in the 1936 Summer Olympics. Rudolph won another gold medal in the finals of the 200-meter dash with a time of 24.0 seconds, after setting a new Olympic record of 23.2 seconds in the opening heat. After these wins, she was hailed throughout the world as "the fastest woman in history" during that time. On September 7, 1960, the temperature climbed toward 40 °C (104 °F) as thousands of spectators jammed the stadium. Rudolph combined efforts with her Olympic teammates from Tennessee State—Martha Hudson, Lucinda Williams, and Barbara Jones—to win the 4 × 100-meter relays with a time of 44.5 seconds, after setting a world record of 44.4 seconds in the semifinals. Rudolph ran the anchor leg for the American team in the finals and nearly dropped the baton after a pass from Williams, but she overtook Germany's anchor leg to win the relay in a close finish. Wilma Rudolph wanted to pay tribute to Jesse Owens, the celebrated American athlete and star of the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany, who had been her inspiration.
Rudolph was one of the most popular athletes of the 1960 Rome Olympics and emerged from the Olympic Games as "The Tornado, the fastest woman on earth." The Italians nicknamed her "La Gazzella Nera" ("The Black Gazelle"). The French called her "La Perle Noire" ("The Black Pearl"), as well as "La Chattanooga Choo-Choo." Along with other 1960 Olympic athletes such as Cassius Clay (later known as Muhammad Ali), Oscar Robertson, and Rafer Johnson, Rudolph became an international star due to the first worldwide television coverage of the Olympics that year. The 1960 Rome Olympics launched her into the public spotlight, and the media cast her as America's athletic "leading lady" and a "queen," with praises of Rudolph's athletic accomplishments as well as her feminine beauty and poise.
Returning Home and Activism
Wilma Rudolph returned home to Clarksville, Tennessee, as a legend. She toured Europe too in many track and field meets (with her Olympic teammates) in London, West Germany, the Netherlands, and other venues in Europe. Rudolph's hometown of Clarksville celebrated "Welcome Wilma Day" on October 4, 1960, with a full day of festivities. Governor Buford Ellington had created these plans to welcome Rudolph home with a parade. Ellington was elected because he had old-fashioned segregationist beliefs. This was the complete opposite of what Rudolph stood for. Rudolph heard this and refused to attend her own celebration of it being segregated. Due to the concert of Rudolph not attending her own event, the parade was changed to be integrated. She makes everlasting history by standing up for what she believes in, as this marks the first-ever integrated event in her hometown of Clarksville, Tennessee. An estimated 1,100 attended the banquet in Rudolph's honor, and thousands lined the city streets to watch the parade. Wilma Rudolph and Muhammad Ali helped to usher in the modern day black superstar in track and boxing to the next level. Rudolph's gold-medal victories in Rome also "propelled her to become one of the most highly visible black women across the United States and around the world." Her Olympic star status also "gave an enormous boost to the indoor track circuit in the months following the Olympic Games in Rome." In 1961, Rudolph competed in the prestigious Los Angeles Invitational indoor track meet, where thousands turned out to watch her run. Besides, Rudolph was invited to compete in New York Athletic Club track events and became the first woman invited to compete at the Millrose Games. She was also invited to compete at the Penn Relays and the Drake Relays, among others.
Following Rudolph's Olympic victories, the United States Information Agency made a 10-minute documentary film, Wilma Rudolph: Olympic Champion (1961), to highlight her accomplishments on the track. Rudolph's appearance in 1960 on To Tell the Truth, an American television game show, and later as a guest on The Ed Sullivan Show also helped promote her status as an iconic sports star.
In 1961, Rudolph married William Ward, a North Carolina College at Durham track team member; they divorced in 1963. In the interim, Rudolph retired from track competition at age 22, following victories in the 100-meter and 4 × 100-meter-relay races at the U.S.–Soviet meet at Stanford University in 1962. At the time of her retirement, Rudolph was still the world record-holder in the 100-meter (11.2 seconds set on July 19, 1961), 200-meter (22.9 seconds set on July 9, 1960), and 4 × 100-meter-relay events. She had also won seven national AAU sprint titles and set the women's indoor track record of 6.9 seconds in the 60-yard dash. As Rudolph explained it, she retired at the peak of her athletic career because Rudolph wanted to leave the sport while still at her best. As such, Rudolph did not compete at the 1964 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan, saying, "If I won two gold medals, there would be something lacking. I'll stick with the glory I've already won like Jesse Owens did in 1936."
Her Later Life
Wilma Rudolph didn't earn significant money as an amateur athlete. Back then especially, women definitely weren't paid their fair share of income involving sports. Women continue to fight for pay equity in 2025, which is a shame. She went into teaching and coaching after her retirement from track competition. She was a 2nd-grade teacher at Cobb Elementary School, which Rudolph had attended as a child, and coached at Burt High School, where she had once been a student-athlete herself. Rudolph moved to many places over the years and lived in many places like Chicago, Illinois, Indianapolis, Indiana, St. Louis, Missouri, Detroit, Michigan, Tennessee, California, and Maine. Her autobiography is Wilma: The Story of Wilma Rodolph. The book was published in 1977. The literature was the basis for other publications and films. By 2014, at least 21 books on Rudolph's life had been published for children, from pre-school kids to high school students. Wilma Rudolph was a well-known philanthropist and humanitarian, too. She worked for numerous nonprofit organizations and government-sponsored projects that promoted athletic development among American children. In Boston, Massachusetts, she became involved in the federal Job Corps program, and Rudolph served as a track specialist for Operation Champion in 1967. In 1981, Rudolph established and led the Wilma Rudolph Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Indianapolis, Indiana, that trains youth athletes. Six years later, she joined DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, as director of its women's track program and served as a consultant on minority affairs to the university's president.
Wilma Rudolph went on to host a local television show in Indianapolis. She was a publicist for Universal Studios as well as a television sports commentator for ABC Sports during the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California. She lit the cauldron to open the Pan American Games in Indianapolis in 1987 in front of 80,000 spectators at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. By 1992, two years before her ultimate passing, she was a vice president at Nashville's Baptist Hospital. She has many relationships with people. Wilma Rudolph dated boxing legend Muhammad Ali during the early 1960s. She was married twice, with both marriages ending in divorce. On October 14, 1961, Rudolph married William "Willie" Ward, a member of the North Carolina College at Durham track team. They divorced in May 1963. After she graduated from Tennessee State in 1963, Rudolph married Robert Eldridge, her high school sweetheart, with whom she already had a daughter, Yolanda, born in 1958. Rudolph and Eldridge had four children: two daughters (Yolanda, born in 1958, and Djuanna, born in 1964) and two sons (Robert Jr., born in 1965, and Xurry, born in 1971 and died in 2025). They divorced in 1980.
Her Passing
By July 1994, which was shortly after he mother's passing, Wilma Rudolph was diagnosed with brain cancer. She also had been diagnosed with throat cancer. Her condition deteriorated rapidly, and Rudolph died on November 12, 1994, at her home in Brentwood, a suburb of Nashville, Tennessee; she was only 54 years old. Her life has been celebrated by the 1977 Bud Greenspan-produced Wilma (or The Story of Wilma Rudolph). Wilma was a made-for-television docudrama adaptation of her autobiography that starred Shirley Jo Finney as Rudolph. It costarred Cicely Tyson, Jason Bernard, and Denzel Washington (in one of Denzel's first roles). In 2015, Positive Edge Education Ltd. Commissioned Pixel Revolution Films, a United Kingdom-based film company, to produce three short inspirational dramas to be screened in schools, including one about Rudolph's life. Unlimited (2015) was written and directed by Ian and Dominic Higgins. Rudolph was named United Press International Athlete of the Year (1960) and Associated Press Woman Athlete of the Year (1960 and 1961). She was also the recipient of the James E. Sullivan Award (1960) for the top amateur athlete in the United States and the Babe Didrikson Zaharias Award (1962). In addition, Rudolph had a private meeting with President John F. Kennedy in the Oval Office. Rudolph was also honored with the National Sports Award (1993). She was inducted into the Black Sports Hall of Fame in 1973, the U.S. National Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1974, the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame in 1983, and the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1994. She was placed into the National Black Sports and Entertainment Hall of Fame in 2001.
Wilma Rudolph, in 1985, said the following words in an interview in the Black Champions series:
"... The most important aspect about anything that one wants to be is that they have to believe it first. And as long as they believe it and start working toward it then they can walk away with whatever happens and feel good about whatever the accomplishment is. I also let them know that the m-, most important aspect of being in the world of athletics is being able to trade it for a sound, solid education. The key is education, and when you build that foundation together, you have it made, because you take that discipline and that determination that comes from the world of sport and you apply it to the world of education..."
Wilma Rudolph's Legacy
Wilma Rudolph was an icon of not only track and field culture. She was an iconic humanitarian who followed the Golden Rule all throughout her life. She lived to be a middle-aged woman, but her legacy has been long and extensive, spanning the ages. She overcame polio to be a winner of multiple gold medals in the Olympics. She loved her children and the rest of her family. Wilma Rudolph also opposed racism and discrimination, so she used her role to end Jim Crow apartheid in Tennessee, which is where she was raised. She is celebrated everywhere in the world. In 1984, the Women's Sports Foundation selected Rudolph as one of the five greatest women athletes in the United States. In 1996, the foundation presented its first Wilma Rudolph Courage Award to Jackie Joyner-Kersee. On November 21, 1995, the Wilma Rudolph Memorial Commission placed a black marble marker at her grave site in Edgefield Missionary Baptist Church. In April 1996, a life-size bronze statue of Rudolph was erected "at the southern end of the Cumberland River Walk at the base of the Pedestrian Overpass" at College Street and Riverside Drive in Clarksville. In 2012, the city of Clarksville, Tennessee, built the Wilma Rudolph Event Center, located at Liberty Park on Cumberland Drive. The life-size bronze statue was moved there from its previous location at Riverside Drive and stands near the entrance of the building. The Tennessee State University named its indoor track in Rudolph's honor. On August 11, 1995 (nine months after Rudolph's death), Tennessee State University dedicated a new, six-story dormitory as the Wilma G. Rudolph Residence Center. The building, which includes a computer lab, beauty salon, and cafeteria, houses upper-class and graduate women. In 1997, Governor Don Sundquist proclaimed June 23 as "Wilma Rudolph Day" in Tennessee. The December 29, 1999, issue of Sports Illustrated ranked Rudolph first on its list of the top 50 greatest sports figures of the twentieth century from Tennessee. ESPN ranked Rudolph forty-first in its listing of the twentieth century's greatest athletes. Wilma Rudolph has been celebrated in a stamp since July 14, 2004. A school in Berlin, Germany, is named after her since the summer of 2000. Wilma Rudolph represents our excellence, our compassion, and our human gratitude for the legends that came before us.
Rest in Power Sister Wilma Rudolph.
Updates on the Trump Regime
There can be no debate. The Trump regime is the worst Presidency since Harding and James Buchanan. The lie that MAGA people and deluded MAGA Christians claim is that Trump is not a racist. Trump supported a racist AI-generated video of Schumer and Jeffries that depicts House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wearing a sombrero and mustache and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer speaking in a fake voice. There is mariachi music playing in the background. This is plain racism and bigotry. Trump called the wife of Senate leader Mitch McConnell, who is Elaine Chao, the former United States Secretary of Labor (from 2001 to 2009 with the Bush Jr. administration). Trump called COVID-19 a racist, anti-Chinese slur. Trump said that the Central Park Five are guilty, even after DNA evidence exonerated them of wrongdoing. Trump said that a Mexican American can't judge a case fairly, because he is of Mexican heritage. Trump called black progressives, especially black women progressives (who are journalists and other political leaders) "low IQ" because they disagree with his political views. Trump called Jewish people not voting for him "disloyal." Trump wants to whitewash black history in our museums and parks. He called nations like El Salvador, Haiti, and African Americans a profane word. Trump said in October 2023, that undocumented immigrants were "poisoning the blood of our country." That language is why white racists and Nazis used it to promote the racist notion of "blood purity." He said on February 23, 2024, that his mug shot in Atlanta would be embraced by the black population. He said that some immigrants are not people, not human, and animals. Trump called Kamala Harris a "DEI hire." Trump promoted the lie that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio were eating dogs and cats. On July 3, 2025, Trump used an anti-Semitic slur about certain bankers. Some of the major supporters of Trump are racists like Richard Spencer, James Mason, etc. Therefore, we know that Trump is a racist, and anyone denying that is either a liar or deluded.
Trump and the MAGA movement have made it clear that they want to destroy the progressive progress that we have made in the 20th century and the early 21st century. Trump said that he knew nothing of Project 2025, but his ally Russell Vought is part of the Project 2025 agenda. Russell Voight wants to cut programs from low-income people, end affirmative action, and repudiate liberalism completely. Vought also believes in the heresy of Christian Nationalism, when Jesus Christ condemned a man-made theocratic state (as the Gospel is meant to be expressed voluntarily, not by force against a person's will). Vought is one major architect of Trump's 2nd term agenda. Vought describes a post-Constitution era where the executive branch has supreme power when all three branches of government should have equal powers. Vought is so evil that he said that WIC could be gone, except if Democrats submit to the Republicans' demands. Also, Trump is following through in the Project 2025 agenda to a T. The Trump administration has fired federal workers without just cause and cut funding from many federal projects without just cause too. This regime of Trump is fascism and authoritarianism. Trump is beyond the bad policies of Reagan. I lived through Reagan, and I knew what he did. Trump is doing evil and tyrannical policies light-years ahead of the nefarious political policies that Reagan has enacted. ICE has been involved in terrorism in American society by assaulting innocent journalists and other innocent people, illegally detaining U.S. citizens without reasonable cause, and using racial profiling against people. There is no other way to put it.
We know have ICE acting out in inappropriate ways again. ICE has been complicit in violence against immigrants, journalists, and other innocent human beings. Many ICE members are acting like terrorists instead of law enforcement agencies. The ICE agents who violently shove journalists outside the New York City immigration court. One journalist was sent to the hospital. There is no justification for this act of fascism by some ICE agents. These violent tactics by ICE have no place anywhere in America and anywhere on Earth. This is part of the Trump agenda, as the deceiver Trump said that he wants the police to rough people up. Asylum seekers who desire to defend their immigration status should never be beaten by terroristic ICE agents. This comes after ICE has conducted lawless kidnappings of people. The ICE organization has declared war on dissent in America by attacking journalists and other innocent people. These evil acts by ICE occur every day with the cosign from Trump and JD Vance, and other acolytes. The media has every right to report on the news without being attacked violently.
We are in the aftermath of this new 2025 government shutdown. Trump and his allies desire to have federal layoffs be permanent. Also, many Republicans have promoted the lie that Democrats desire to give federal health care benefits to undocumented immigrants. The truth is that it is against U.S. federal law to give undocumented immigrants federally subsidized health care coverage via Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, the Children's Health Insurance Program, etc. Some Democrats want to return benefits for people with a lawful presence, like DACA recipients and asylum seekers. This comes after Trump said that he wants to use military force against American cities. It is no secret that Trump has an overt antagonism against political dissent against his tyrannical policies. Trump talking about confronting the "enemy within" is an open declaration of war on the American people who disagree with his agenda. Trump and Hegseth have exploited generals at their fascist meeting to try to justify massive austerity, the military occupation of American cities, the usage of ICE to use racial profiling against Hispanic Americans, the bashing of black cultural history via attacks on museums and websites, and Hegseth's extremist self talking about a ban on beards in the military.
Many black people in Chicago have been terrorized by ICE criminals recently in early October 2025. Many black American citizens were detained illegally and only released hours later. This happened in the South Shore neighborhood. The lie is that these MAGA people only want criminals to be detained, but law-abiding black citizens have been detained recently in Chicago. One witness said that one ICE agent said F those kids when the kids were crying because of the loud sounds and bangs. The ICE agents who were involved in this illegal action are barbarians and sadists. There is no justification for this nonsense and fascist behavior. This is fascism, and there can be no denying it. These fascists put guns in the faces of American citizens for no reason. They have zip-tied little kids who cried in fear. This is an outrage. Even now, many Trump followers, FBA xenophobes (I consider myself black American or African American, not some FBA cult member) try to justify ICE terrorism against black people which is treason against the black community. Trump and his administration are not only complicit in this. Trump voters are complicit in this, because they know full well what Trump stands for. This is immoral, and these actions are satanic acts done by ICE. We have the right to be outraged at this injustice.
By Timothy
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