How Angela Hollowell is inspiring women of colour by championing their success
Melanin MVP covers the stories of black women athletes who Angela says are being sidelined in the media generally
“In the year 2025, you should be asking why are we only seeing a couple of major documentaries about black runners”.
Film maker, writer and podcaster Angela Hollowell believes movies such as Netflix’s Sprint, which examined the behind-the-scenes preparation of leading athletes as they trained for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, are the exception that proves the rule when it comes to media under-representation of black - particularly black women - athletes.
It is a belief that has provoked her to ‘create what she didn’t see’ in the form of her own writing project and podcast, Melanin MVP, a platform which aims to celebrate the stories of women athletes of colour.
Asked why she felt it was necessary to start a newsletter focused purely on the achievements of black women athletes, Angela said it was an “obvious” decision.
She cited two big stories which had been playing out at the time of the Paris Olympics which showed “black women athletes who had very much earned the right to be on the international stage were not receiving the all-round coverage I felt like they should be”.
She said the hubbub surrounding the apparent snub of Caitlin Clark by the US Olympic basketball team and the return of Sha'Carri Richardson to the Games following her disqualification at Tokyo in 2021 were taking up an over-sized proportion of media coverage.
Angela said: “Black athletes weren't receiving a soft landing space in the media and there were a lot of stories that were not getting any mainstream attention because they weren't producing dramatic headlines like Caitlin Clark or Sha'Carri Richardson - two names which, honestly, at some point you have to wonder if there has been anything left to the imagination.
“Everybody's writing about these people, whether we want them to or not. I felt like I could do a better job, which is probably extremely egregious to think.
“But I just said, I can do a better in providing a more holistic approach to covering these women.”
From basketball to producing podcasts - the evolution of Melanin MVP:
Angela said she wanted to provide a space where black women and women of colour, who were fans of their incredible counterparts at the elite level, could find “timely, informative and entertaining coverage”.
Her ultimate aim is to provide for under-represented women seeking media that reflects their life experiences.
The film director and writer, whose Rootful Media business works to share stories with inclusion, social impact, and environmental justice at their core, started Melanin MVP during the Paris Games as part of an ongoing interest in women’s sports that had originally focused on the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) in America.
The Olympics provided the perfect opportunity for her to write about the achievements of women of colour, not just in America, but across the world.
Earlier this year, the newsletter expanded into podcast form, becoming a ninth part of the Everyday Athlete Podcast Network.
‘Exclusion can be media coverage, exclusion can be brand deals, it can be access to sponsors’:
She said while there have recently been some high-profile documentaries covering black women athletes, such as Sprint, these are not representative of the wider media landscape.
She said the impetus for Sprint came not from a desire to highlight the stories of black athletes, but out of the need for the US track team to gain some coverage out of the Olympics.
Angela admitted the documentary captured fantastic stories around the narratives of not only Team USA and Team Jamaica, but also South Africa, Kenya, Britain and St Lucia - before adding that more needs to be done.
“In the year 2025, you should be asking why are we only seeing a couple of major documentaries about black runners,” she said.
“Exclusion can encompass a lot of different things. Exclusion can be media coverage, exclusion can be brand deals, it can be access to sponsors.
“And exclusion can mean pay. Pay for women athletes is not where it needs to be in comparison to their male counterparts.
“Why don't we have way more coverage about the Usain Bolt’s, the Shelly-Ann Fraser‘s, the Jackie Joyner-Kersee’s? All these people should have got a lot more coverage, even after their time in running was over.”
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Love the drive and ambition from this wonderful young lady! The article was a great read and very inspirational! Tell Angela to keep up the great work!
Loved this conversation. I appreciate the two of you being a part of the Everyday Athlete Podcast Network and making the voices of the everyday athlete heard.