- Mabel Fairbanks
Mabel Fairbanks (November 14, 1916-October 2001) was an
African-American figure skater and coach.She fell in love with figure skating in the 1930s when she saw
Sonya Henie in movies. She could not skate in the 1930s because she was not allowed to join a skating club due to beingAfrican-American . She was secretly coached byMaribel Vinson Owen Fact|date=October 2008 at night when African Americans were allowed admission to ice rinks. She eventually left the United States and became a show skater.After relocating from New York to Los Angeles, she developed and skated in her own act throughout the late 1940s and toured internationally throughout the 1950s. She became the skating teacher to the children of many notable celebrities during that same period.Fact|date=October 2008
After retiring from skating, she started a skating club and coached students of all races. She paired up
Tai Babilonia and Randy GardnerFact|date=October 2008 as well asKristi Yamaguchi andRudy Galindo Fact|date=October 2008.She coached pairs skaters
Leslie Robinson andMichelle McCladdie as well as individual skatersAtoy Wilson for their entire careerFact|date=October 2008.In 1977, Fairbanks was the first African American Fact|date=October 2008 inducted into the
US Figure Skating Hall of Fame .External links
* [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1546/is_n6_v12/ai_20084308/pg_1 Breaking the Ice article about Mabel Fairbanks]
* [http://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/cgi-bin/iowa//athletes/article.html?record=71 Womens Sports Foundation entry]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
