"Through the stories of six athletes--Alice Coachman, Ora Washington, Atlhea Gibson, Wilma Rudolph, Wyomia Tyus, and Jackie Joyner-Kersee--Jennifer H. Lansbury deftly follows the emergence of Black women athletes from the African American community; their confrontations with contemporary attitudes of race, class, and gender; and their encounters with the civil rights movement. Uncovering the various strategies the athletes use to beat back stereotypes, Lansbury explores the fullness of African American women's relationship with sport in the twentieth century."--Book jacket.

Queen of the courts: Ora Washington and the emergence of America's first black female sport celebrity --"The Tuskegee flash": Alice Coachman and the challenges of 1940s U.S. women's track and field -- "A nationwide community project": Althea Gibson, class, and the racial politics of 1950s black tennis -- "Foxes, not oxes": Wilma Rudolph and the de-marginalization of American women's track and field -- "The Swiftie from Tennessee State": Wyomia Tyus and the racial reality of black women track athletes in the 1960s and 1970s -- "A Jackie of all trades": Jackie Joyner-Kersee and the challenges of being the world's greatest female athlete -- Performance-enhanced athletes and "ghetto Cinderellas": black women athletes enter the twenty-first century.