This article examines the history and experiences of influential African-American women in Taekwondo; specifically, the 1988 US Olympic team, the 2000 US Olympic team, and two local practitioners that have served as both mentors, competitors, and friends. Understanding the meaning of Taekwondo is crucial to understanding how influential these women are to the sport and to fellow practitioners such as me. Taekwondo is a Korean martial art. The word “Taekwondo” means “the way of the hand and foot”. Taekwondo is a popular martial art and an Olympic sport. The sport is also near and dear to my heart because I am a third-degree black belt in Taekwondo with over twenty years of experience. I initially felt that it would be difficult finding information about African American women in Taekwondo. Thankfully, the further I dug, the more information I found; I started finding African American women who were Taekwondo practitioners, Olympic champions, and pioneers of the sport that paved the way for people like me.
The 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, Korea was the year a group of African American women dominated their respective weight categories. These women overcame obstacles with strength and dignity, winning gold medals in the process.
Debra Holloway was a 7x US champion who won silver at the 1988 Olympics. An article in The Washington Post reported that Holloway brought home a silver medal despite having to spar with a broken finger in the final round. We have a saying in taekwondo: never let your opponent know you are hurt. Holloway was an exemplary example of this at work. Holloway and Lynette Love became business partners after the Olympic games. Unfortunately, Debra Holloway passed away December 1, 2011. Her contributions towards Taekwondo opened eyes in both Korea and the United States.
Lynette Love is the United States ambassador to taekwondo. Lynette initially started out playing basketball. After the sport took a toll on her knees, she needed to find a new sport to fuel her passion. Love discovered taekwondo totally by accident. Lynette Love is 6 feet 3 inches tall and 180 pounds. The Washington Post described Love’s legs as snapping out from her body with the speed and sting of a bullwhip. Love was the only woman to hold the national taekwondo heavyweight title for nine consecutive years and has been on the national taekwondo team for 12 years. Love’s coach, Sang Chul Lee, a Korean American (head of USA Taekwondo Academy in Colorado Springs) assisted as USA Olympic coach was quoted in Black Belt magazine, October 1988, that “Love is perhaps the biggest women’s practitioner on the international circuit and also the strongest and most talented”.
Sharon Jewell competed in the middleweight division (143-154 pounds) winning the bronze medal in the 1988 Summer Olympics. Sharon Jewell was a natural talent, with a lethal combination of the speed and agility developed through running hurdles in track. This athleticism yielded a 39 mph front kick-the fastest kick on the 1988 Olympic Team.
Michelle Smith won gold as a middleweight in the Pan-Am games. She was very introverted and extremely shy but excelling at fighting, first in point sparring and then at the full contact level. “I used to get in trouble, disqualified for hitting too hard, so that was the transition to full contact, very competitive. In an example of black excellence at work, Sharon Jewell and Michelle Smith fought in a qualifying match for the 1988 Olympics. The match was very close. Though Smith believed she dominated, the referees awarded the victory to Jewell, leaving a stunned and devastated Smith to narrowly miss qualifying for the Olympic games.
These extraordinary women had such extraordinary inner strength to put their heart and soul into a sport they loved during a time that society did not consider them to be a force to be reckoned with. African American women set the bar – they showed the world that they were here to compete, demand respect, and provide their opponents with true championship competition. The overall feeling was that the South Koreans would be favored to win most of the medals because of their rigorous training and dedication to their sport. I don’t believe the Koreans had any idea what was coming, and that it was not going to be status quo.
In 2000 a new set of African American female competitors were making their mark in taekwondo. It did not take as much research in finding recent African American women making their mark in taekwondo. In my very first search, I found came the 2012 Summer Olympic Medalist, 26-year-old African-American/Filipino competitor Paige McPherson, who won the Bronze at the 2012 London Olympics.
On a local level, there is one black woman who I feel pushed me and influenced me in my pursuit and study of taekwondo. Her name is Chanel Rose Wissner. When I first met Chanel, she was a 2nd Degree black belt instructor for Grandmaster Kyu Ha Kim. I told Chanel about my research paper and ask if she would participate by describing her journey through taekwondo. It seemed this was the first time she had been asked to talk about her experiences and she was ready to talk. Her journey goes as follows: “I began training in the martial arts as a young girl with my father. He was a big fan of Bruce Lee, and he had a strong conviction that his daughters should learn to defend themselves. I started out in a CCAC Ishinryu karate class in the summer when I was 6 yrs. old. My family moved, and my formal training took a back seat to other endeavors, like soccer and track.
My sister joined the taekwondo class under Grandmaster Kim at the University of Pittsburgh. She excelled in the class, and with a little maneuvering, we were able to convince our parents to let me join his school in Brentwood. At first, my sister and I were oblivious to the difference in how we were treated when competing. At first, they kept us in our respective brackets: we are 5 years apart, she was in college, I was in high school, she was 5’1” and a green belt and I was 5’5” and a white belt, after all. But as we continued to compete, the tournament organizers began to pit us against each other while allowing the other ladies to have their own separate brackets. My parents started to notice a difference with how the crowd would cheer for our matches, especially when we would advance past our initial bouts and inevitably have to spar for the trophy. The crowd would refer to us as “beast-like” or “man-ish” and question our gender. Soon, some of the instructors from participating gyms openly rigged the brackets to have us eliminate each other so that the ladies in their schools would have “a chance”. At this point, my heart was hurting from the way they were treated. But we continued with the conversation; “While we did have a core group of instructors that would defend us and try to make sure the playing field was even, we still had to face many who not only looked down on us due to our ethnicity but also our gender. I recall training at the school after obtaining my green belt over the weekend at the age of 16 and being placed with an adult male black belt to spar. This man went full force and had to be physically removed from the school by the Grandmaster. I later found out that he was involved with one of the ladies who had lost to me in a bout.
As we continued to progress and earn our ranks, the disrespect continued at the main school. Although we did not let this discourage us by starting a club at the University of Pittsburgh – allowing a more diverse array of student competitors to enter the monthly tournaments, we did notice that the Pitt students were being targeted by some of the tournament staff for not having the proper equipment (which was provided by the Grandmaster) or not performing the same “fighting style” as the main school students. With the help of senior instructors, we were able to advocate for the students, but the criticism and disrespect continued to be directed towards high-ranking Pitt students including me.
It was a never-ending battle with the start of the new semester or term, for some of the new male students to take direction from our senior ranking lady instructors. We had to “prove” our skills and qualifications, where our counterparts simply had to tie on their black belt. However, throughout this experience, these many years of training- my Grandmaster never treated me any differently. I was his student – my gender and ethnicity never came into consideration, unless he corrected a student to say “Yes, ma’am” to me. For him, martial arts is not a manhood competition, it is the continuation of his culture to help future generations learn a way a life to protect themselves and better themselves. I will be forever grateful to those who have helped me along the way”.
Lastly, my own journey started with a dare from my daughter to try taekwondo for one semester at the University of Pittsburgh and Grandmaster Kim’s dojo in Brentwood. I have always had an interest in martial arts, when I saw that taekwondo was being offered at Pitt, I took the dare without a second thought. I would describe myself as physically strong and excited each time entering the ring. I remember winning my first national competition as a red belt in Detroit, Michigan; I was sparring a competitor from Alaska (a much bigger and taller opponent) during the last round we threw the same technique, back leg roundhouse, our shins collided breaking her femur. The nickname “bone breaker” was so graciously bestowed on me by Grandmaster Kim. I mentioned this because one of the ties that unite the aforementioned taekwondo practitioners is the power and determination to take on anyone who enters the ring. As I progress to black belt levels, there were times when Grandmaster thought it would be good for me to spar one of the male black belts. I believed the statement he used was my fighting style reminded him of gladiators in the ring. I ran into my share of gender/racial biases. I believe that being black, and a black woman, definitely had an effect on promotion to 4th degree at Brentwood, it was never going to happen especially after eight years at 3rd degree, competing, and teaching. I chose to step back from taekwondo and focus on women’s self-defense.
By the way, I won my second national competition, gold medal in Cleveland, Ohio in 1982. I was the first one of Grandmaster’s students to bring a national championship gold medal to his school. In 1988 we travel to Dallas, Texas to compete in the national competition. I had the pleasure of meeting Lynette love (a great opportunity for a photo) while I was preparing for the competition. Lynette had recently returned from Seoul Korea after winning Olympic gold in taekwondo. I asked if she could give me a few pointers. I was extremely excited when she told me that she had seen one of my matches and was impressed. Remembering our conversation when I was heading toward the ring, I felt I could not let her down, I had to win the championship match. My already butterfly-filled stomach became even worse when she said she would be watching my match. I will never forget the match was tied with less than thirty seconds; I landed a hard punch to the chest, and the match was over. I won the national taekwondo championship gold medal match with a “trembling shock” which Lynette used in the 1988 Olympics and she was watching me, an awesome feeling.