Top 100 momentsNo. 59
Wilma Rudolph in Rome
Rudolph wins three golds in Rome after childhood polio. A Black American sprinter becomes the Games’ face, in a country watching on a new scale.
Wilma Rudolph had worn a brace as a child. In Rome she wins the 100, the 200, and the 4x100. The European press calls her a black gazelle, which says as much about 1960 as it does about her stride. She is the star of the first widely televised Summer Games.
Clarksville, Tennessee, wants a segregated homecoming. She insists on one celebration. The town has to sit together to claim her.
Every later American sprint heroine is running in a lane Rudolph opened: speed, grace, and a refusal to let the hometown split the parade.