Running Toward Freedom: Womanist Athletes as Theologians of Liberation

In 1983, Alice Walker published In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens, a collection of essays and reflections written between 1966 and 1982. This collection explores topics such as racism, colorism, the Civil Rights Movement, nuclear war, and the lives of Black women. In her essay “Silver Writes,” Walker begins with a short poem, the first stanza of which states:

It is true—

I’ve always loved

The daring

                    Ones

The poem concludes with a vision of freedom as the opportunity to:

swim

At a white

beach (in Alabama)

Nude.

There are many ways to interpret Walker’s last stanza. One interpretation is to consider freedom as an act of bravery, vulnerability, and as an athletic pursuit. Throughout history—particularly in the U.S.—many African American women have been “the daring ones,” imagining, plotting, planning, running, escaping, and daring to be free in spaces designated for whites. Such women include Harriet Tubman, Angela Davis, and Serena Williams—although separated by time and context, each embodies Alice Walker’s four-part definition of Womanist and engages in acts of liberation. All three demonstrate physical endurance, strategic brilliance, and unwavering faith. More specifically, they are “committed to the survival and wholeness of entire people, male and female.”

In “Silver Writes,” Walker critiques the term "Civil Rights," arguing that it inadequately expresses the longings, dreams, and revolutionary goals of Black people. She asserts that the phrase speaks only to “physical possibilities… but not the spirit.” Many Womanist theologians and ethicists are also among the "daring ones," committed to passing down what Katie G. Cannon calls “moral wisdom [and] counsel” for the wholeness of Black women in mind, body, and spirit. Cannon and other womanist scholars pioneered methodologies that emphasize the lived experiences of Black women as valid, sacred, and credible sources for historiography, sociology, and spirituality. Many Womanist theologians have highlighted the body and spirit of Black women as sites of theological resistance, moral imagination, and hope in wilderness experiences.

Emilie M. Townes, in Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evil, critiques what she calls the “fantastic hegemonic imagination,” a force that perpetuates harmful stereotypes of the Black community. Townes argues that reclaiming imagination is essential for envisioning a justice-centered society, one that resists these dehumanizing narratives and affirms Black life. Similarly, Delores S. Williams, in Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk, reinterprets the biblical story of Hagar, seeing it not just as a narrative of survival but as an opportunity for a divine encounter. For Williams, Hagar’s story speaks to the realities of Black women who endure suffering while encountering a God who sees, knows, and affirms their existence.

M. Shawn Copeland, in Enfleshing Freedom: Body, Race, and Being, expands this theological reflection by emphasizing Black women’s bodies as sites of both oppression and sacred resistance. She argues that their very existence—their labor, movement, and survival—is an act of theological meaning. Black women’s bodies, so often subjected to societal control and violence, also serve as vessels of divine liberation. Monica A. Coleman furthers this discourse in Making a Way Out of No Way: A Womanist Theology, where she highlights the importance of dreaming as a pathway to freedom. For Coleman, the act of imagining oneself in the future is not just an intellectual exercise but a radical assertion of survival and hope.

Using these scholars' works, I aim to examine the lives of Harriet Tubman, Angela Davis, and Serena Williams as theologians of liberation, redefining them as Womanist athletes. Their athleticism—whether in the physicality of escape, the intellectual endurance of activism, or the bodily defiance on the tennis court—embodies Womanist principles of faith, resistance, and wholeness. Through this exploration, I seek to bridge the fields of Womanist theology, ethics, and sports, offering a framework for understanding how Black women’s movement (e.g.  running or being on the run) is a site of theological meaning and liberation.

References

Butler, Octavia E. Parable of the Sower. New York: Grand Central Publishing, 1993.

Coleman, Monica A. Making a Way Out of No Way: A Womanist Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008.

Copeland, M. Shawn. Enfleshing Freedom: Body, Race, and Being. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2009.

Davis, Angela Y. An Autobiography. New York: Random House, 1974; reprinted Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2022.

Hersey, Tricia. Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto. New York: Little, Brown Spark, 2022.

Holmes, Barbara A. Joy Unspeakable: Contemplative Practices of the Black Church. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2017.

Townes, Emilie M. Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evil. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.

Tubman, Harriet, and Bernice L. McFadden. Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People. New York: Amistad, 2024.

Walker, Alice. In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose. New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1983.

Williams, Serena. On the Line. New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2009.