Every February, Canadians celebrate Black History Month. Skate Guard celebrates key milestones of black and brown people in figure skating with the following timelines from Canada and around the world.
Check out Skate Guard's Black Lives Matter Pinterest board as well, for photographs, newspaper clippings, videos and more. For an extensive Black History Month timeline of American firsts not listed here, check out this timeline on the Skating Club of Boston's website, originally published in the February 2022 issue of "Skating" magazine:
Part 1: https://scboston.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/1-Black-history-in-skating-timeline.pdf
Part 2: https://scboston.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/2-Black-history-in-skating-timeline.pdf
CANADA
1895 - At a skating carnival held at the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association's outdoor rink, no less than twelve attendees chose to appear to blackface. Descriptions of their costumes in "The Montreal Star" were extremely offensive, to put it mildly. Blackface was unfortunately very common in skating carnivals of the late 19th and early 20th century in Canada.
1900 - The Coloured Hockey League, headquartered in Halifax, and speed skater Charlie Tolliver drew attention to the participation of people of colour in ice sports. This popularity failed to translate to diversity in the 'old boy's club' that was the figure skating world in Canada in the early twentieth century.
Protestors at the Icelandia rink in Toronto. Photo courtesy "The Telegram", 1945.
1945 - Harry Gairey Jr. was refused admission to the Icelandia rink in Toronto and told, "We don't sell tickets to Negroes. We don't let them in here." Twenty-five University Of Toronto students picketed the rink with signs saying "Color Prejudice Must Go" and "Racial Discrimination Should Not Be Tolerated". Two years later, the city council passed an ordinance against discrimination based on race, colour, creed or religion. The rink was later renamed after Gairey.
1946 - The Minto Skating Club in Ottawa features a 'Plantation Party' act in its annual Minto Follies. The President of the Canadian Figure Skating Association, H.E. McLean, and Canadian and North American Champion Melville Rogers skated in blackface.
1949 - The Maple Leaf Revue, a small-scale production billed as "the first all-Canadian professional ice show" debuted in Newmarket, Ontario to a packed house. Harold Hartley, who was billed simply as "the colored figure skater", was one of the stars. Hartley passed his first and only skating test at the Outdoor Skating Club in 1948 and went on to teach figure skating at the Aurora and Newmarket Figure Skating Clubs in the fifties. He was one of the first professional coaches of colour in the country and one of his first students was future Olympic Medallist Guy Revell. In a 2020 interview on Gordon Prentice's blog, Newmarket club founder Margaret Davis recalled, "He was forced out after a year by some members of the Executive Committee who were clearly racist. She warned them that if Harold were forced out it would be a disgrace and that she and Sally [Brice] would resign. And they did."
Barbara Ann Scott visits the Foundling Hospital in New York City
1954 - During an era when the Common Schools Act still permitted segregated schools in the country, Canada's sweetheart Barbara Ann Scott was photographed holding an orphaned brown baby at the Foundling Hospital in New York City.
1977 - Heather Kemkaran made history as the first skater of colour to win a medal in the senior women's event at the Canadian Championships and at Skate Canada International. She was also the first skater of colour to represent Canada at the World Championships. Her father, a respected doctor, was born in San Fernando, Trinidad.
Sean Cheesman
1978 - Fourteen year old Sean Cheesman captured the gold medal in the juvenile boys event at the Alberta Winter Games. Coached by World Champion Paul Thomas in Calgary, Cheesman was of Trinidadian heritage. He first took to the ice as a kindergartener in Edson on a pair of hockey skates. When asked by a reporter if he ever faced racism as a skater of colour in a small town, he responded, "Yes, I was treated differently at first... We were the only black family in town and all the other boys played hockey." He went on to dance in the music video for Michael Jackson's hit song "Bad", choreograph for Prince, Tina Turner and Whitney Houston and serve as a guest judge and choreographer for the hit reality series "So You Think You Can Dance".
1978 - Heather Kemkaran made history as the first skater of colour to win a senior title at the Canadian Championships.
Heather Kemkaran. Photo courtesy Toronto Public Library, from Toronto Star Photographic Archive. Reproduced for educational purposes under license permission.
1980 - Heather Kemkaran made history as the first skater of colour to represent Canada at the Winter Olympic Games.
1982 - Heather Kemkaran was the first Canadian skater of colour to win a professional competition, the Canadian Professional Figure Skating Championships in Toronto.
1993 - Collin Thompson won the novice men's title at the Canadian Championships. The same year, Ravi Walia (a skater of Indian heritage) won the junior men's title.
Collin Thompson. Photo courtesy Toronto Public Library, from Toronto Star Photographic Archive. Reproduced for educational purposes under license permission.
2003 - Danielle Flukinger earned a medal in the pre-novice women's event at the B.C. Okanagan Championships. She went on to earn a spot on the British Columbian team. Danielle was adopted during the 1991 Haitian coup d'état and took up figure skating after seeing a performance by Kristi Yamaguchi on television.
2005 - National competitor Shanique Ollivierre-Lake appeared in the Disney film "Ice Princess".
2006 - Asher Hill was the first person of colour to win a gold medal in ice dance at the Canadian Championships. He and partner Kharis Ralph followed up their 2006 novice dance win with a junior dance gold in 2007.
2008 - Shaquille Davis won the silver medal in the novice men's event at the Canadian Championships. Three years later, he followed that up with a silver medal win in the junior men's event at Canadians.
2012 - Asher Hill was the first person of colour to represent Canada in ice dancing at the World Championships.
Elladj Baldé and Aloe Blacc's collaboration to Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come"
2014 - Elladj Baldé was the first skater of African heritage to represent Canada in the men's event at the World Championships.
2015 - Gabriel Farand won the silver medal in the novice men's event at the Canadian Championships. In an interview for Levi's Community blog in 2022, he said, "When I first started skating I didn't see many people that looked like me. Elladj [Baldé] was one of the first Black skaters I ever saw. Seeing him for the first time changed the way I saw myself. It was important for me as a young athlete to see him perform because it showed me what I was capable of achieving."
2019 - Zachary Lagha won the World Junior Championships with his partner Marjorie Lajoie. Lagha is of North African (Algerian) heritage.
2019 - Acacia Hill founded the Brampton Hill Skating Academy. It is the first black owned figure skating school in Canada.
2020 - The Skate Canada Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Working Group was formed.
2021 - Québec team members Maya Isabelle and Jessica Rousseau both impressed at the 2021 Skate Canada Challenge. Jessica was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti and skated her short program to the music of Grammy Award winning black artist Tracy Chapman.
2022 - Vanessa James and her partner Eric Radford were named to the 2022 Olympic team.
2023 - Kieran Thrasher won the Canadian junior pairs title with partner Chloe Panetta.
2023 - Skate Canada has a grand total of zero skaters of colour in its Hall Of Fame. To nominate black and brown skaters to the Skate Canada Hall Of Fame, click here.
INTERNATIONAL
1845 - An anti-slavery poem about a skater of colour, penned by German poet Ferdinand Freiligrat, was translated and published in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's book "The Poets And Poetry of Europe":
"Wherefore art thou here? Why flies
Thy fleet foot o'er frozen places,-
Thou, the child of tropic skies,
Cradled in the sun's embraces?"
1888 - In an article in "Outing" magazine, author Calvert Bowyer Vaux recalled an unnamed American skater of colour performing "a feat that it is safe to say no other man in New York could then do - spread the eagle with toes together and heels out to right and left, both feet in line. He could not do many of the fancy figures then pretty generally known to the clever skaters, but no one else could get legs into the positions that he could - it was a sort of contortion act that 'stumped' them all."
Mabel Fairbanks. Photo courtesy "Ebony" magazine.
1940 - Mabel Fairbanks left New York City for California. With the help of a promoter named Wally Hunter, she embarked on a highly successful professional career in America. She performed in "Rhapsody On Ice" in Havana, Cuba, USO nightclub shows in France and Germany, "School Days On Ice", George Arnold's "Rhythm On Ice", "Ice America", the International Ice Festival in Bogota, Colombia, and on ice tanks installed at the Gayety Theatre and Play Room Night Club in Los Angeles. She also performed as a dancer in a floor show called "Harlem Holidays" at the Little Harlem Club in Los Angeles, wowing audiences with a dance she called the 'Holly-Harlem-Hula-Boogie'. In 1951, she
made history as the first skater of colour to appear on television, on KLTA's "Frosty Frolics".
1947 - American promoters John Brett and Stewart Seymour presented "Harlem-On-Ice", the first skating tour in the world to feature an 'all-Negro cast'. Dolores Jackson and Jimmy McMillan are headliners. The tour was abruptly cancelled after making its debut in Washington, D.C. during a Vaudeville-style variety night.
Joseph Vanterpool. Photo courtesy Akbar Vanterpool.
1952 - Joseph Vanterpool was invited to give an exhibition during the Finals of the Silver Skates Derby at Madison Square Garden in New York. Joseph went on to appear on "The Ed Sullivan Show".
1956 - Mabel Fairbanks, Sterling Bough and Joseph Vanterpool starred in "Rhythm On Ice" at the historic Apollo Theater in Harlem.
Atoy Wilson. Photo courtesy "Sepia" magazine.
1966 - Atoy Wilson made history as the first skater of colour to win a U.S. title at any level, winning the gold medal in the novice men's event at the U.S. Championships in Berkeley, California.
Richard Ewell III
1970 - Richard Ewell III was the first person of colour to win the U.S. junior men's title.
1972 - Michelle McCladdie and Richard Ewell III were the first pairs team of colour to win a U.S. national title. They took the gold in the junior pairs event at the U.S. Championships in Long Beach, California.
Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner. Photo courtesy "Ice & Roller Skate" magazine.
1976 - Tai Babilonia made history as the first biracial skater to win a U.S. national senior pairs title and represent the United States at the Winter Olympic Games. Three years later, she made history again as the first biracial skater to win a gold medal at the World Championships.
Bobby Beauchamp
1979 - California's Bobby Beauchamp was the first skater of colour to win a medal at the World Junior Championships.
1980 - South Africa's apartheid policy, which got them barred from participating in ISU events, was alive and well at the national level. The South African Ice Skating Association appealed successfully to the country's government for special permission to allow Shanel Stoltenkamp, a skater of colour from Southern Transvaal, to compete in the National Championships. South African skating historian Irvine Green recalled, "Shanel had great talent - and that was undeniable. But the country of her birth was not - because of apartheid - where she would/could prove her abilities and talents in an ' open society ' - so the family emigrated to Canada in 1982. I...will never forget the 'blood (figuratively), sweat and tears ' that occurred around the apartheid separation of skaters in a skating body/sport that had never ever mentioned racial divides in its constitution or rule book/s..eg competitions, membership and such."
1983 - Debi Thomas made history as the first person of colour to win an international women's competition - the International Sugar Criterium in Tours, France.
Fernand Fédronic
1985 - Fernand Fédronic of France made history as the first (and only) skater of colour to ever win the figures at the European Championships.
Debi Thomas
1986 - Debi Thomas made history as the first skater of colour to win both a U.S. senior and World title in women's figure skating. In 1987, she became the first skater of colour to win a gold medal in any discipline at Skate Canada. In 1988, she made history again as the first skater of colour to win an Olympic medal in women's figure skating and a World Professional women's title.
1988 - Axel Médéric of France made history as the first man of colour to compete at the Winter Olympic Games. His parents are from the island of Guadeloupe.
Axel Médéric
1991 - Approximately one quarter of the nearly two hundred participants at the South African Championships were skaters of colour. In a 1991 Canadian Press interview, Daniel Mayo, the national organizer of South Africa's National and Olympic Sports Congress, recognized "the irony that a white-dominated sport is helping dispel the influence of apartheid... [noting] skating is gaining popularity in black townships."
1991 - Surya Bonaly of France made history as the first skater of colour to win a gold medal at the European Championships and the Trophée Lalique.
1991 - Surya Bonaly of France made history as the first skater of colour to win a medal (a silver) at the NHK Trophy in Japan. She went on to win three more medals at the NHK Trophy, two of them gold.
Surya Bonaly
1991 - Tai Babilonia was the first biracial skater to be inducted into the U.S. Figure Skating Hall Of Fame.
1991 - Marion Krijgsman was the first skater of colour to win the Dutch women's title. She went on to represent the Netherlands at nine ISU Championships, her best finish being seventeenth at the 1991 and 1999 European Championships.
Marion Krijgsman
1992 - Surya Bonaly made history in Albertville as the first person of colour to take the Athlete's Oath at the Winter Olympic Games.
1995 - The first year the Champions Series (now the Grand Prix) was introduced, Surya Bonaly made history as the first person of colour to win a medal on the circuit, at the Trophée de France in Bordeaux.
Photo courtesy "American Skating World" magazine
1996 - H. Kermit Jackson, the first person of colour to serve as managing editor of a figure skating publication, accepted the EDI Award for best skating publication for "American Skating World".
1998 - Patrick Schmit was Luxembourg's flagbearer in the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games in Nagano.
Leonie Krail and Oscar Peter
2000 - Oscar Peter was the first skater of colour to represent Switzerland in the men's event at the European Championships. He went on to win three Swiss ice dancing titles with partner Leonie Krail.
2002 - Black Ice, the first website dedicated to celebrating the achievements of skaters of colour, launched on the World Wide Web.
2004 - Zoia Birmingham won BBC's "Strictly Ice Dancing at Christmas". With partner Andrew Fyles, Zoia was a two-time fourth place finisher at the British Ice Dance Championships in 1995 and 1996 and one of the first skaters of colour to represent Great Britain internationally.
Left: Abigail Pietersen. Right: Justin Pietersen
2004 - Cape town born South African Champions Abigail and Justin Pietersen represented their country in the men's and women's event at the Four Continents Championships. It was the first time two siblings of colour competed in an ISU Championship.
Marylin Pla and Yannick Bonheur. Daniel Castets photo.
2006 - Yannick Bonheur of France made history as the first man of colour to compete in pairs figure skating at the Winter Olympic Games. Bonheur was named after famed French tennis player Yannick Noah.
2006 - Jérémie Colot of France was the first skater of colour to win a senior medal at the Triglav Trophy in Slovenia.
2006 - TV presenter Andi Peters and Olympic runner Kelly Holmes are the first two celebrities of colour to compete on the hit ITV series "Dancing On Ice".
2008 - Robin Szolkowy of Germany was the first man of colour to win a World title in pairs figure skating. Szolkowy reunited with his Tanzanian born father, who he'd had no contact with growing up, shortly before winning his first World title.
2010 - Vanessa James and Yannick Bonheur were the first team of colour to compete in the pairs figure skating event at the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver.
Maé-Bérénice Méité
2011 - Yrétha Silété was the first skater of colour to win back-to-back French women's titles since Surya Bonaly in the 1990's. Just two years later, Maé-Bérénice Méité won her first of six French women's titles.
2017 - Vanessa James was the first woman of colour to win a medal in pairs skating at the European Championships.
2020 - The Figure Skating Diversity and Inclusion Alliance (FSDIA) was formed.
2022 - Starr Andrews made history as the first African American woman to win a medal in singles skating on the ISU Grand Prix circuit.
2024 - Not a single skater of colour has been inducted to the World Figure Skating Hall Of Fame.
REQUIRED READING
Some of these Skate Guard blogs from years past highlight the important contributions of skaters of colour from around the world, while others chronicle the racism they have faced in the sport.
Interview With Asher Hill (2013)
Interview With Axel Médéric (2013)
Interview With Fernand Fédronic (2014)
Interview With Larry Holliday (2015)
Interview With Axel Médéric (2013)
Interview With Fernand Fédronic (2014)
Interview With Larry Holliday (2015)
Interview With Rory Flack (2013)
Racism At The Rink (2017)
The Harlem-On-Ice Tour (2021)