By: Keir Simmons and Corky Siemaszko
DeHart Hubbard was the first black athlete to win an Olympic gold medal in an individual event. Hubbard studied at the University of Michigan starting in 1921, and the following year he won the first of six straight AAU long jump titles. He also won the AAU triple jump in 1922 and 1923 and at the NCAA he won the 100-yard dash in 1925 and the long jump in 1923. In 1925 he set a world record of 25-10⅞ (7.89) when he took the NCAA title for a second time, and then in 1926 he confirmed his ability as a sprinter when he equalled the world re-cord of 9.6 for 100-yard dash. Although injured, DeHart Hubbard won the 1924 Olympic long jump comfortably; he was again injured in 1928 when he finished 11th. Between these two appearances he had the best mark of his career in 1927 when he jumped 26-2¼ (7.98), but the mark was not recognized as a world record, because the take-off board was one inch higher than the landing pit. In all, Hub-bard bettered 25 feet on eleven occasions and was undoubtedly the greatest jumper of the pre-Owens era.
A century ago, at a small stadium just outside Paris, a college track and field star from Ohio named William DeHart Hubbard took a dramatic leap forward for him-self and for all African Americans back home in the segregated United States of America. By defeating the best long jumpers in the world at the 1924 Paris Olympics, Hubbard became the first Black athlete to win an individual gold medal at the Games. Hubbard’s nephew Kenneth Blackwell, the former secretary of state of Ohio, told NBC News his uncle recognized that he was carrying the hopes and dreams of millions of Black Americans on his muscular frame when he raced down a track toward a sand pit and leaped into history. “He wrote his mother a letter that I now have framed, and the letter simply said that he was going across the ocean to become the first Negro to win an Olympic medal in track and field, to make her proud, but also to show there are no boundaries that cannot be broken,” said Blackwell, who was once mayor of Hubbard’s hometown, Cincinnati.
A copy of that letter will be on display this month at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England, at an exhibition celebrating the centennial of the 1924 Olympics. While the language Hubbard used is slightly different from the way Blackwell described it, the point the young athlete was trying to get across is the same. “Tell Papa I got his letter, but have been busy traveling etc., and have not had the time to answer. Tell him I’m going to do my best to be the FIRST COLORED OLYMPIC CHAMPION,” Hubbard wrote. Hubbard underlined the uppercase words for extra emphasis.
Blackwell said his uncle also qualified to compete in the 100-meter dash and the high hurdles but was denied the chance because of racism. “When he got here, he was told that the 100 and the high hurdle were white-only events,” he said. “He couldn’t compete. And he won the gold medal on the long jump.” Camille Paddeu, a curator at the Musee Municipal d’Art et d’Histoire in the city of Colombes, where the main stadium for the 1924 Paris Olympics is located, told NBC News her research confirms that Hubbard was blocked from competing in other events because he was Black. Hubbard’s victory was one of several Olympic firsts at the 1924 games, which were held in and around the City of Lights as the Roaring ’20s were underway.
