The 1980s was a huge decade for black women. Angela Davis made her first Vice Presidential run in 1980. In 1982, Alice Walker was the first black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for The Color Purple. Toni Morrison doubled down on the ass kicking when she won the Nobel Prize for literature later that year. On the opposite, but no less notable end of the achievement spectrum, Vanessa Williams was the first black woman to win the Miss America pageant, in 1984, and the first black woman to turn a public nudity and over-blown, puritanical rage incident into a hit record and successful acting career. Ah! The infancy of equality!
Returning to sports, one of the most notable people of this decade was groundbreaking, world champion, figure skater Debi Thomas. Continue reading