William DeHart Hubbard (born in Cincinnati, Ohio on November 25, 1903 - June 23, 1976) was a track and field athlete who was the first African American to win an Olympic gold medal in an individual event; the running long jump at the 1924 Paris Summer games.
He subsequently set a long jump world record of 25 feet 10¾ inches (7.89 m) at Chicago in June 1925 and equaled the world record of 9.6 seconds for the 100-yard dash at Cincinnati, Ohio a year later.
He attended and graduated from Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati, graduated with honors from the University of Michigan where he was a three-time National Collegiate Athletic Association champion (1923 & 1925 outdoor long jump, 1925 100-yard dash) and seven-time Big Ten Conference champion in track and field (1923 & 1925 indoor 50-yard dash, 1923, 1924, & 1925 outdoor long jump, 1924 & 1925 outdoor 100-yard dash). His 1925 outdoor long jump of 25 feet 10½ inches (7.89 m) stood as the Michigan Wolverines team record until 1980, and it still stands second.[1][2] His 1925 jump of 25 feet 3½ inches (7.71 m) stood as a Big Ten Championships record until Jesse Owens broke it on with what is now the current record of 26 feet 8¼ inches (8.13 m) in 1935.[3]
He later served as a race relations adviser for the Federal Housing Authority. He died in Cleveland in 1976. Hubbard was posthumously inducted into the University of Michigan Hall of Honor in 1979; he was part of the second class inducted into the Hall of Honor.[4] He was a member of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity.[5]
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