Although Black Girls Run specifically targets the problem in the African American community, the co-founders insist that they welcome women of all backgrounds to join them on their mission or sign up with a local running group.
They say the group’s name was actually inspired by the prevalent stereotypes, particularly within the African American community, that running is a “white thing.” Carey says a warning about running from her own mother convinced her that something had to be done to change perceptions.
No more excuses.
Along South Ashland Avenue, Marketa Whitaker slowly jogged past the White Castle restaurant and the crowds outside the currency exchange and stamped her feet on the oil-soaked concrete sidewalk in front of the Englewood transmission shop.
In her bright pink shirt, she hustled past a fried chicken restaurant and a thrift store that had stacked used mattresses, stoves and couches along the sidewalk.
Breathing hard and clapping her hands together for motivation, Whitaker pushed by the man being questioned by Chicago police and past the broken windows, boarded-up buildings and taco stands.
As she moved, strangers turned their heads, children glanced and drivers paused to look.
“Power walk! Power walk! Do it! Do it!” one woman chanted.
“Work it out! Work it out,” a man, smoking a cigarette on the corner yelled to her.
At the end of March, Whitaker had gone running for the first time. She was surrounded by other African-American women as they huffed their way for three miles down a South Side lakefront path on a cool spring afternoon.
The next day, Whitaker was inspired to take her workout back to her own gritty, urban South Side neighborhood in Englewood. “I asked my girlfriends to come (run) but they wouldn’t,” Whitaker, 36, said. “It’s not scenic, but as long as my goals get met, and I slim down and get healthier, I don’t care.”
Whitaker is one of nearly 1,000 African-American women in the Chicago region who joined Black Girls RUN!, a growing grass-roots movement to inspire women of color to take up distance running.
The concept started as a blog. Last year, the mission was extended to running groups around the country in an attempt to tackle obersity, particularly among African-American women. The group is informal, and joining requires no fees, registration or paperwork. The women simply sign up to be alerted electronically about runs in their neighborhoods and show up to exercise together.
While the main objective is physical fitness, the movement also pushes black women to reclaim their communities by inaugurating a healthy activity that is not normally seen in some neighborhoods.
In African-American communities, there just aren’t enough examples of runners, said Ashley Hicks, a co-founder of the blog, who lives and runs in Harlem in New York City.
“It’s important that our kids see and are exposed to health and fitness and know that this is a lifelong adventure. They need to see women who want to stay in shape for the rest of their lives,” she said.
The Let’s Move! Program founded by Michelle Obama has sought to draw attention to childhood obesity and tackle it as a national epidemic. Black Girls RUN! is trying to do much of the same thing by recruiting African-American women to walk, jog and eventually run to improve their health.
For more information on Black Girls RUN visit www.blackgirlsrun.com.
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