Systemic racism created barriers for Black American women to compete in distance races, but a new documentary is bringing attention to their stories.
“It’s good to see Black women and any other ethnic group run well in the marathon,” Bevans said. “That wasn’t always the case. You go through history and you were told, you couldn’t run if you’re female, and you couldn’t run if you’re Black.”Growing up in Fairfax County, Va., Alisa Harvey idolized Wilma Rudolph, the Olympic champion sprinter in the 100-meter and 200-meter dash. But Harvey quickly found success in the middle-distance events while competing at Thomas Jefferson High School.
“Anything extracurricular was all White,” Harvey said. “There were no African Americans, literally. So I figured since I had started to get prominence in my sport, I was going to use that to break some barriers.” in the 800 meters and 1,500 meters, and turned to distance road racing in her 30s because “it was lucrative.”She ran the 1999 Richmond Marathon — her debut at the distance — in 2:49:28, a time that qualified her for the 2000 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in Columbia, S.C. While she didn’t make the Olympic team, her appearance at the race receivedbecause the course passed by the South Carolina State House, which flew the Confederate flag.
“For me to see a Black woman out there crossing the finish line … would’ve been way more motivating,” she said. “If I had known of Marilyn Bevans back in the 1980s, heck yeah, I would have done a marathon, and I would have done it right probably, too.”When Kemp was growing up, her distance-running role models were mostly White. Learning about trailblazers such as Bevans and the Black female marathoners featured in the documentary in recent years has fueled her fire.
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