Black U.S. Olympians Take the Spotlight at the Winter Games

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An NAACP flyer campaigning for the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in 1922, but was filibustered to defeat in the Senate. Dyer, the NAACP, and freedom fighters around the country, like Flossie Baily, struggled for years to get the Dyer and other anti-lynching bills passed, to no avail. Today there is still no U.S. law specifically against lynching. In 2005, eighty of the 100 U.S. Senators voted for a resolution to apologize to victims' families and the country for their failure to outlaw lynching. Courtesy of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

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Claude, age 23, just months before his 1930 murder. Courtesy of Faith Deeter.

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Souvenir Portrait of the Lynching of Abram Smith and Thomas Shipp, August 7, 1930, by studio photographer Lawrence Beitler. Courtesy of the Indiana Hisorical Society.

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February 13, 2026

Jennifer Porter Gore, Word in Black

From the ice to the slopes, a new generation of athletes is redefining winter sports and expanding representation on Team USA.

When the 2026 Winter Olympics opening ceremony kicked off on Feb. 6, some 3 billion viewers around the world watched nearly 2,900 athletes from 92 countries participate in the Parade of Nations.

They also saw a considerable number of Team USA’s 232 Black members, and two-time Olympian Erin Jackson of Ocala, FL, was one of the flag bearers in the Parade of Nations.

A speedskater, Jackson won a Gold medal in 2022 and is looking to repeat her performance in Milan. She is just one of several barrier-breaking Black athletes competing on ice and in snow, events that white athletes from Nordic countries have long dominated.

Black athletes from outside the U.S. are also making an impressive showing. Stevenson Savart made history on Feb 8 when he became the first man to represent Haiti in cross-country skiing at the Winter Games. He’d also served as Haiti’s flagbearer before making his Olympic debut in the men’s skiathlon.

Learn about some of those talented athletes.

Discover Black history.

Find more examples of representation in our breaking Black news section.

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