Real Wins

From the track to the boardroom, Michelle Moore shares her experiences of leadership, oppression, and resilience.

One of the most influential women in sport today, Michelle Moore encountered racism at an early age growing up in the United Kingdom as the daughter of a white English mother and a Black father from Guyana. Some white family members shunned Moore and her twin sister because of their father’s heritage. She recalls that some neighbors abused her mother on the street because she had mixed-race children. Moore always identified as a Black woman. When asked, “Where are you from?”, she answers, “South London,” prompting the inevitable followup, “No, I mean where are you really from?” Moore interprets this as people wanting to know, “how Black are you?”

Moore discovered that sports was the great equalizer; her identity didn’t matter when she was competing. All that mattered was her speed, strength and willpower. She and her sister began running track when she was 10, training twice a week with a group of Black children and a few white kids. Sports taught her about resilience in the face of cultural, societal...