Breaking the ice: the Mabel Fairbanks story - includes information on three helping organizations for aspiring Black competitive skaters

American Visions, Dec-Jan, 1997 by Ronald A. Scheurer

Two of Fairbanks' early students, Atoy Wilson and Richard Ewell III, were the first blacks ever admitted to U.S. figure skating clubs, and their fame didn't end there. Wilson started with Fairbanks in 1959 at the Polar Ice Palace, where she groomed him for the amateur competitive circuit. He quickly developed and worked his way through figure skating's regional and sectional ranks as an independent member of the U.S. Figure Skating Association (USFSA), the national governing body for the sport.

(There were no USFSA exclusionary rules keeping minorities out of the association, but one stipulation effectively kept them out of international and Olympic events: To skate at that level required club membership, and club jurisdictional rules were left to the individual clubs.)

Ewell started training with Fairbanks in 1963. By 1965 he was ready to compete. Meanwhile, Fairbanks politicked behind the scenes as her charges practiced.

As both men improved and started winning medals, the clubs found themselves with a dilemma. All medal winners earned USFSA recognition points, which were attributed to the clubs to which the skaters belonged. Points earned by independents (those not belonging to a club) went nowhere. So clubs whose discriminatory policies barred talented and well-trained black skaters were missing out on valuable recognition points at the USFSA level.

Not for long! In 1965, Wilson became a member of the Los Angeles Figure Skating Club, and Ewell was allowed to join the All Year Figure Skating Club in Culver City, Calif.

After Fairbanks had effectively broken the ice and opened rink doors, white coaches, such as John Nicks and Frank Carroll, were more inclined to work with talented black skaters. The reality was that Fairbanks was, first and foremost, a teacher of newcomers to the sport; second, she was a coach to talented skaters, both white and black; and third, she was a promoter of her athletes. Most of her skaters either left the sport altogether or moved on to more experienced and internationally renowned coaches.

In 1966, Wilson became the first African American to win a National gold medal by commanding the top spot in the U.S. Novice Men's Championship. In another first, he passed his gold medal figures test. In 1970, Ewell won the gold at his second National Junior Championship. In 1972, coached by Nicks, Ewell and Michelle McCladdie won the Junior Pairs tide.

Fairbanks paired Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner when they were 9 and 11 years old, respectively; and though neither was enthusiastic about it at first, Fairbanks' gentle persuasion nurtured them through novice-level competitions. Coach Nicks then took Babilonia and Gardner on to win five U.S. Pairs titles and the 1979 World Championships. (An unfortunate injury took them out of the 1980 Olympic competition.)

Throughout the late 1970s, overt racism diminished, but behind-the-scenes action indicated that racism persisted. Falonda Te'Artt went pro after several years of amateur skating because of what she considered inequitable judging. Debi Thomas stayed in and fought to the top. In 1986 she won the gold medal at the World Championships in Geneva. In 1988 she won the bronze medal at the Winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.