From 2014: Alice Coachman, 90, Dies; First Black Woman to Win Olympic Gold

After capturing the high jump for the United States at the 1948 London Games, she returned home to a segregated South.

From 2004: Fanny Blankers-Koen, Star of ’48 Olympics, Dies at 85

In the 1936 Berlin Olympics, 18-year-old Francina Elsje Koen (pronounced COON) finished fifth in the women’s 4x100-meter ...