Hey, everyone. Ari here, host of Blind Landing. This season of Blind Landing is all about

figure skating, with new reporters helping to tell each story. And I'm joined in the

studio today by one of our contributing reporters, Danelle Wetterburn. Hey, Danelle.

Hey, Ari, excited to be here? So, Danelle, what are we here to talk about today?

Well, unlike Chris, who co-reported the last episode, I am not a competitive figure skater.

Not a skater, period. The closest I got was spinning around in my socks on the kitchen floor as a kid.

Trying to replicate what my mom and I saw when we watched the Olympics together.

As a young black girl, one thing that always stood out to me whenever we watched figure skating was

how rare it was to see black skaters on the ice. So we cheer a little bit harder when we did.

And over the years, I've always wondered, like, why aren't there more black figure skaters?

And that's something that you and I and our producers have been talking about,

which is why we started looking into the history of black figure skaters. And in doing so,

we came across the story of one extraordinary woman named Mabel Fairbanks.

Mabel Fairbanks was a black figure skater during the 40s and 50s. She had line ice shows all over

the world. But because of segregation, Mabel was never allowed to compete in a single figure skating

competition. She was barred from competing because of the color of her skin,

which drove Mabel to coach and mentor the first generation of black national champions and

Olympians. Mabel opened the door for so many black figure skaters, changing the sport forever.

Mabel Fairbanks passed away in 2001. And at first, we thought that there weren't any videos

or audio of Mabel. But a few months ago, our producer Jenna made an amazing discovery.

Today's Tuesday, January 7th, 1999. I am Sharon Donnan and I have the pleasure of interviewing

Mabel Fairbanks. Mabel, I thought today we would start off with some of the

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