Barbara Hillary didn’t have much growing up. “We were poor,” she said. But Hillary enjoyed reading. Through books, she learned about amazing adventures. Years later, Hillary created her own adventures. She became the first Black woman at the North Pole — and the South Pole!
Hillary was born in 1931. Her mother raised her in Harlem, New York. She worked as a nurse for 55 years. After that, Hillary learned that no Black woman had visited the North Pole. She wanted to change that.
Hillary was an expert in gerontology. That is the study of aging. So, Hillary began training her body. She worked out. She ate more vegetables. And she learned to ski! On April 23, 2007, Hillary skied to the North Pole.
“I have never experienced such sheer joy,” Hillary told The New Yorker. “I was screaming, jumping up and down.”
At age 75, Hillary made history. But the wasn’t done. She soon made history again. On January 6, 2011, Hillary reached the South Pole. She became the first Black woman to go to the top and the bottom of the planet. And Hillary did that at age 79!
Daniella McCahey studies Antarctic history. She said most early explorers were white men. “When we picture a polar explorer,” she explained, “he’s a bearded man.” McCahey said Hillary “got rid of this idea that only white people explore.”
Other people followed in Hillary’s footprints. For example, Preet Chandi skied alone to the South Pole in 2022. She became the first woman of color to do that. “Barbara Hillary helped pave the way for other people of color,” McCahey said.
Hillary died in 2019 at age 88. But her will live on. “People will look back on Hillary as not only groundbreaking for people of color,” she said, “but for changing our idea of what a polar explorer looks like.”
Updated February 15, 2022, 5:01 P.M. (ET)
By Russell Kahn (Russ)
