THE MALDEN ADVOCATE–Friday, April 7, 2023 Page 11 OLYMPIAN| FROM PAGE 10 years before competing with the Los Angeles Athletic Track Club. She did not have a wealth of national competition experience, though considered a fine, upand-coming runner. But she had finished behind three other American sprinters – Wilde, Stokes and Pickett – at the supposedly decisive time trials two weeks earlier. Her only claim to fame had been a second-place finish in a regional AAU competition. Furtsch was a bit of a local hero; however, as she ran with the highly regarded Los Angeles Track Club at the time, a direct affiliation to that 1932 venue. The fourth selectee raises even more eyebrows, as Mary Carew had graduated from the school known as Malden High’s fiercest athletic rival – Medford High – just a few months earlier. At age 17, she was seemingly not in the mix in the 100-meter field, individually or in the relay. Medford woman selected to relay team over Stokes They called Stokes “The Malden Meteor” during her Olympic run. Carew also garnered a catchy nickname, “The Little Medford Miss.” Like Stokes, Carew had garnered acclaim for her sprinting exploits next door in Medford, but in a shorter distance, the 60-meter sprint. She was a National Champion in the AAU 60-meter dash – four years running! She was tops in the United States each year from 1929-32. Her best time was 7.32 seconds. Still, a spot on the 4 X 100 Relay Team was Carew’s, much to the dismay of Stokes, Pickett and all of Stokes’ many friends, fellow citizens and supporters back in Malden. Were she and Pickett denied the privilege of competing for their country because they were Black? Was the color of their skin more of a factor in Coach Vreeland’s decision than the pure ability of these young women? When asked in later years, Stokes, who added Fraser to her name when she married a local cricket enthusiast, Wilfred Fraser, in 1941, was most often reticent on the matter. “I felt bad but I tried not to show it,” she was quoted in a few biographical pieces, “I just tried to keep it out of my mind.” Osgood, of the Smithsonian, titled his article, “Sports History Forgot About Tidye Pickett and Louise Stokes, Two Black Olympians Who Never Got Their Shot.” Pickett was more vocal about the 1932 Olympics decision. According to Osgood, Pickett literally took her bitterness to her grave believing that “prejudice, not slowness” kept her out of that competition, according to her Chicago Tribune obituary. In another recollection, African-American Olympic History, Pickett is quoted as saying, “They did not allow the better runners to compete,” referring to herself and Stokes. “It was unjust.” The Chicago Defender, the leading newspaper nationally of what was referred to as “The Black Press,” in the 1920s up until the 1950s, made its opinion of the matter quite clear. “Lilywhiteism,” wrote editor Rus Cowan in The Defender, “a thing more pronounced than anything else around here on the eve of the Olympic Games, threatened and ousted Tidye Pickett and Louise Stokes from participation and put in their stead two girls who did not qualify.” Of course, at the time in the 1930s, much of America was still very much in the status of segregation, including in hotels, travel by train and bus and in restaurants. This was clearly in place and stated as such in Southern states, and it stretched as far as California at the time. America of the 1930s had widespread segregation Recollections of the events leading up to the last-minute omission from the Olympic competition include stories of segregated travel to the Los Angeles venue as well as separate, segregated lodging for Stokes, Pickett and the black men who were competing for the men’s 1932 U.S. Olympic Team. Sadly, all of that was status quo for America at the time, and it appears, judging from a lot of research and some facts that could be construed as evidence, that race ultimately could have caused Stokes and Pickett to be left out in Los Angeles. Of course, judging that – while Stokes and Pickett were relegated to the stands as spectators – the foursome comprising the 4 X 100 Relay Team raced to a convincing victory, the Gold Medal and a new world record, 46.9 seconds, some could debate that Vreeland chose the right four women anyway, regardless of racial considerations. (In a quirk of the times, the Olympics did not recognize tenths of seconds at that point – believe it or not! – so the record was rounded off to 47.0 seconds for the 4 X 100 relay.) But the facts also point to the extremely high probability that had Stokes and Pickett been placed on the relay team – as the protocols that had been explained to them a few weeks earlier seemed to dictate – then a Malden woman and her friend from Illinois would have made two parts of history. Not only would they have been the first two Black women to compete in the Olympic Games, they would have been the first Black women to have been Gold Medalists as well. All these women could do was compete as best they could. Through decisions out of their control, they were denied an opportunity to shine, create a oncein-a-lifetime achievement and represent their country on the biggest stage. As somewhat of a postscript, neither woman was thwarted by this glaring omission. Louise May Stokes was received warmly and with great honor when she arrived back in Malden, as was Pickett in her hometown. Stokes continued to train at a world-class pace and amazingly, she earned another try as a U.S. Olympian at the 1936 Games, this time being held in Berlin. Pickett also had a OLYMPIAN| SEE PAGE 13
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