5 Women Whose Names Were Erased

Alice Coachman won the first Olympic gold medal ever awarded to a Black woman. Four days later, the mayor of her own hometown sat on the same stage and refused to shake her hand.

She is one of five women in this episode. Each one was the first to do something in American history.

Each one was nearly erased from the record — and in one case, literally cut out of the photograph with scissors. This is the Wins Report, History Edition.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN How a woman who trained barefoot on Georgia dirt roads broke the American high jump record while injured, then won gold in London. How a woman fired by a Catholic mission at sixty-two got hired by the U.S. government for the most dangerous mail route in Montana — and never missed a day in eight years.

How the first Black woman in America to earn a medical degree had to fight her own college's trustees to receive it, then watched pharmacists refuse to fill the prescriptions she wrote. Why the first African American woman to compete in the Olympics has a school named after her that has been sitting empty since 2006 — and why her case is still open ninety years later.

How a NASA mathematician whose face was cut out of a department photo ended up running the office that handles discrimination complaints. CHAPTERS 00:00 The handshake she never got 00:20 Why this Wins Report goes backward 00:56 No. 5: Alice Coachman, Olympic gold and a side door 03:11 No. 4: Mary Fields, fired by the church, hired by the government 05:46 No. 3: Rebecca Lee Crumpler, the degree they tried not to grant 07:22 No. 2: Tidye Pickett, benched in 1932, running in 1936 09:16 No. 1: Annie Easley, erased with scissors, still flying 10:53 Five firsts, and what comes next SOURCES Alice Coachman — National Women's History Museum, New Georgia Encyclopedia, Andscape Mary Fields — Smithsonian National Postal Museum, National Park Service Rebecca Lee Crumpler — Smithsonian Magazine, Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine Tidye Pickett — Smithsonian Magazine, Illinois State University, Landmarks Illinois Annie Easley — NASA History Office, NASA Oral History Project FOR EDUCATORS Classroom discussion guides for all five women are in production and release first on Substack.

Subscribe free to get them when they drop: substack.com/@iamestherdillard Educator resources and full lesson bundles: ColorBtwLinesMarket on Etsy MUSIC Artlist.ai music license Subscribe for the next Wins Report History Edition. There are more than five, and we are not done counting.

Your story matters. So does theirs. #BlackHistory #HiddenFigures #AliceCoachman #StagecoachMary #AnnieEasley #RebeccaLeeCrumpler #TidyePickett #BlackWomenInHistory #OlympicHistory #NASAHistory #WomensHistory #TeachBlackHistory #MiddleSchoolSocialStudies #HighSchoolHistory #BlackHistoryForKids #ForgottenHistory #TheColorBetweenTheLines #WinsReport #BlackExcellence #HistoryTeachers Powered by Amplified Voices .

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm. for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.