RST: A history of Black American runners at the Boston Marathon

The Boston Marathon’s first known Black finishers. The first Black American to run the marathon in the Olympics. A charismatic road race organizer who ran the Boston Marathon more than 15 times—without a single recorded time. 

Jacob Fredericks, teaching assistant professor in the Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, researches the history of race and long-distance running. His newest written project covers many of the overlooked accomplishments of Black runners in one of the premiere stages of the sport: the Boston Marathon. 

Fredericks’ essay, “The Colorful Boston Marathon: A History of Race and Long-Distance Running in Boston” will appear as a chapter in “Black Identity and Sport in Boston: New Essays on Racialized Space and Performance,” a book edited by Rob Cvornyek and Doug Stark and expected for release by the University of Tennessee Press later this year. 

Fredericks ties together the accomplishments of a handful of Black long-distance runners who left their mark on the Boston Marathon, visibly and invisibly, alongside the modern-day efforts to organize a more inclusive long-distance competition in the city. 

“Black Americans in this sport are really shaping their own destinies. They have a lot of agency in creating clubs, establishing their own races. And it’s not separate,” Fredericks said. “The things that they’re doing affect the Boston Marathon—they’re still running alongside white runners and international runners. It’s not as segregated as it seems on paper.” 

To uncover the history, he leaned heavily on newspaper clippings from publications in Boston’s Black press, like the Boston Guardian and Boston Chronicle. In the early –to –mid 20th century, the marathon got scant coverage in the mainstream press like the Boston Globe, rarely going deeper than the winners or the size of the crowd.  “[What] really comes through in the Black press: these runners having this agency at a time when most of America was heavily segregated—if not structurally, then informally. Even in Boston, those issues still remain.”

Early contenders

The first figures he uncovered—Aaron Morris and Clifton Mitchell—were club teammates from New York. In 1919, a full 22 years after the marathon’s founding, Morris became the first known Black American to cross the Boston Marathon finish line, with his sixth place finish of 2 hours and 37 minutes. 

“[Morris] is in the Black press, they’re celebrating him: ‘We have a breakthrough,’” Fredericks said. “And he disappears. Maybe he has an injury, and there’s this hope among sportswriters of ‘He’ll be back,’ but we never see him again in the results.” 

The very next year, their hopes were renewed with Clifton Mitchell, a fellow member of the New York St. Christopher Club for runners. Mitchell finished eighth in the 1920 Boston Marathon. Almost immediately, writers in the Boston and New York Black press rallied around him as a candidate to represent the U.S. in the summer Olympic marathon.  

Despite their fervent support, he wasn’t selected. 

“In this chapter, I think of the Boston Marathon as a stage where you can display your athletic abilities—it’s very visible, and people are watching you, and it’s being recorded. There are Black people among white people in the 1920s, running together.” 

Nearly 30 years later, another New Yorker—Louis “Lou” White—broke through in the race and the Boston press. He finished third in the 1949 Boston Marathon, seizing the highest placing for an African American runner in the first year the race was televised. 

He soon became a Boston transplant, joining the Boston Athletic Association and putting up several great performances: “Lou White, a Black man—is Boston’s man in the marathon, a symbol of the city on the world stage,” Fredericks said. 

White had a protege of sorts: Ted Corbitt, who in 1952 became the first African American to run the marathon in the Olympic Games. One of the most prolific marathoners in history, he finished the Boston Marathon 22 times. 

“He is a big proponent of running for health, but also integration, and trying to challenge the status quo and build these new structures,” Fredericks said. 

A fixture and “father figure” in the long-distance running community, and a committed member of the integrated track-and-field New York Pioneer Club, Corbitt later helped found the New York City Marathon. 

An invisible organizer and the ‘true’ Boston Marathon

Perhaps the most unique figure in Fredericks’ chapter is O’Neil Shannon, a professional boxer and Bostonian. Shannon ran the Boston Marathon at least 16 times without ever receiving a runner’s bib. 

“His name comes up again and again as this guy who’s training for the Boston Marathon and running the Boston Marathon. And I’m looking at the results, and I just never see his name,” Fredericks said. “I finally found from his own interview that officials told him the first time he stepped up to the line, ‘We know you. You’re that boxer who was at the Garden last night. You can’t run here officially.’”  

So Shannon joined the Boston Marathon’s long tradition of race “bandits,” runners who participate in the 26.2-mile race without registering. At the time, race officials mostly tolerated these bandits, who ran alongside official runners on public roads.

Though he remained invisible in the record books, Shannon continued to build an athletic legacy in Boston. He founded the Blockbuster Athletic Club, where boxers came to both spar and train to run long-distance. 

Shannon began organizing his own road races, all weaving through Boston proper, and fielded serious competitors—including Ted Corbitt. In the mid-1950s, Carter Playground on the Northeastern University campus became a common site where he’d start and finish his own races.

It’s the same playground where, a decade later, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. organized a march downtown to advocate for desegregation and equal access to schools and transportation. 

“Shannon becomes this cornerstone of the Boston Black community, where he’s a leader of his own club,” Fredericks said. “He’s hidden in the marathon results. We never see him, but he’s present. You can feel his impact on the sport and the city.” 

Over the decades, qualifying for the Boston Marathon has become increasingly competitive. Just this year, the time requirement to qualify was upped by 5 minutes. 

The race path itself has begun in Hopkinton since 1924, a town 25 miles west of Boston. Local runners have responded by founding a new, unsanctioned marathon, called 26.TRUE, meant to highlight the city’s neighborhoods and celebrate its cultural and ethnic diversity. 

“The Boston Marathon’s earned its prestige over one hundred years; it’s a great course. But the question is: is it really Boston?” Fredericks said. “What kind of Boston is this presenting? And so that’s the 26.TRUE: they organized a marathon, but held it entirely within the city limits, in front of Boston people and to inspire people who live in Boston.”

To Fredericks, the existence of 26.TRUE reminds him of the resolve Black American runners showed to compete and organize in the face of formal and informal barriers 

“They’re choosing to run the Boston Marathon because they want to, and they’re part of these clubs, these networks, because they want to push themselves,” Fredericks said. “They find a lot of meaning. And they brought a lot of pride to the Black community through their participation.” 

Editor’s note

Teaching Assistant Professor Jacob Fredericks teaches management and contemporary issues in Recreation, Sport and Tourism. To reach Fredericks, email jfred@illinois.edu 

“Black Identity and Sport in Boston: New Essays on Racialized Space and Performance,” is expected for release by the University of Tennessee Press later this year.

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