User:SewerCat/Barbara Howard (athlete)

Barbara Howard

At the 1938 British Empire Games in Sydney
Personal information
Nationality	Canadian
Born	(1920-05-08)May 8, 1920 Vancouver, Canada
Died	January 26, 2017(2017-01-26) (aged 96) Burnaby, Canada
Education	B.Ed. (1959)
Alma mater	University of British Columbia
Occupation	teacher
Sport
Sport	athletics
Medal record Representing Canada Women's Athletics British Empire Games 1938 Sydney 2x110 220 yards 1938 Sydney 2x220 2x110 yards
Updated on 11 March 2017

Barbara Catherine Howard was a Canadian athlete who participated in the 1938 British Empire Games and later became a physical education teacher. She is believed to have been the first black woman to have represented Canada in a major sports competition, and she was the first member of a visible minority to be hired as a teacher by the Vancouver school board.

Early Life

Howard was the youngest of the four children of Cassie Scurry, of Winnipeg, and Samuel Howard, from Alabama. When her father died in 1929, her uncle, Charle's Scurry, assumed some responsibility for his sister and her children. Barbara Howard showed consistent promise as an athlete in primary school and high school; she won numerous races and relays. However, her 1937 performance as a Grade 11 student in a time trial, when she completed 100 yards in 11.2 seconds, besting the Empire Games record by one-tenth of a second, earned her a place on the 1938 Canadian team.

year of normal school