The summer Olympics kick off this week in Paris. The occasion marks 100 years since an Ohioan made history in that city.
With a running start, William DeHart Hubbard long-jumped more than 24 feet at the 1924 Paris Olympics, becoming the first Black athlete to win a gold medal in an individual Olympic event.
“He thought that records were established to be broken and he put the effort and work against breaking records,” said DeHart Hubbard’s nephew and former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell.
But DeHart Hubbard’s path to victory wasn’t always smooth.
DeHart Hubbard’s journey to the Olympics
As a student at Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati, DeHart Hubbard was an all-star athlete.
“In his first football game at Walnut Hills, he ran five touchdowns,” Blackwell said.
But his talent led to friction. Blackwell says rival teams protested DeHart Hubbard’s inclusion on the football team because of his race, so the school board suspended him.
“His whole team said, ‘If he doesn’t play, we’ll forfeit the season,’” Blackwell said. “And they did.”
DeHart Hubbard played other team sports at Walnut Hills too, but he really excelled at track and field. His success in the sport caught the attention of a University of Michigan booster, who helped DeHart Hubbard secure a $3,000 scholarship to the school by selling subscriptions of the Cincinnati Enquirer.
From there, DeHart Hubbard qualified for the 1924 Paris Olympics.
Of 299 U.S. athletes headed to the games that year, only four were Black — a disproportionately small number compared to the racial makeup of America at the time.
“One of the keepsakes of our family was a photo of him on the ship going from the U.S. to France,” Blackwell. “It was always interesting to hear about what his experience was on that ship.”
The boat was segregated, Blackwell said, but DeHart Hubbard befriended Hispanic boxers a few levels up and spent a lot of his time with them.
Then, when the ship arrived in France, Blackwell said DeHart Hubbard found out he wasn’t allowed to participate in two events. Although he qualified to race in the hundred-meter dash and the high hurdles, Blackwell said the International Olympic Committee decided those events were for white athletes only.
Still, DeHart Hubbard competed in the long jump and took home the gold — the first Black athlete to do so in an individual Olympic event.
DeHart Hubbard’s post-Olympic career
One year after the 1924 Paris Olympics, DeHart Hubbard set a world record for the long jump with a leap of more than 25 feet and 10 inches.
Not long after, another athlete with Ohio ties — Jesse Owens — broke it.
“You see that continuum of attitude and determination to be better,” Blackwell said. “Human feats, whether they be intellectual or athletic, are established to be broken.”
DeHart Hubbard went on to work with the Cincinnati Recreation Commission as the supervisor of Colored Work. He founded the Cincinnati Tigers, a professional baseball team which played in the Negro American League. In 1942, DeHart Hubbard moved to Cleveland, where he served as the Racial Relations Advisor for the Federal Housing Authority.
“My uncle was a big champion in saying, ‘We must create an opportunity society,’” Blackwell said. “We must make sure that every American has an opportunity to do his or her best. That doesn't necessarily mean that they will always come in first place, but they must have an opportunity.”
