Profile in Courage – Seba Johnson

Seba Johnson is the first Black woman Olympic skier, and youngest Alpine Ski Racer in Olympic History!  She placed 28th out of 64 of the world's best in the Women's Giant Slalom at age 14 in the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary.  She received death threats, hate mail and attempts to disrupt her safety then and through the following World Cup and World Alpine Ski Championship competitions.  Skiing was considered a white man’s sport. 

 Seba was born in St. Croix, US Virgin Islands.  She lived in a public housing project, and attended Head Start.  Her family moved around living in New Hampshire, Maine, and Nevads.  A vegan since birth, Seba learned about animal exploitation and attended protests with her Mother.  By her early teens, she held her own protests, once standing alone with a handmaked sign outside a zoo.

In the 1992 Winter Olympic Games in Albertville, France, Seba qualified for the 1994 Games in Lillehammer, Norway.  She boycotted because Norway had resumed commercial hunting for whales.  She was disqualified from a World Cup ski race for refusing to wear a ski suit with a patch of leather on it.

"We must connect to a moral and ethical regard for each human and nonhuman animal until oppression is completely eradicated.”

 

 

 

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