Ebony Anglers
When the five women making up the Ebony Anglers appear at a competitive fishing event wielding their rods and reels, there’s cause for conversation. Not just because the team—including founder Gia Peebles, Lesleigh Mausi, Glenda Turner, Bobbiette Palmer, and Tiana Davis—are competing in a sport populated primarily by white men in boats. But because they're dominating it.
Peebles organized the team over the summer of 2020 after visiting a local fishing tournament and realizing no women of color were participating. Peebles, a lifetime competitive athlete with a background in softball, knew her friend Mausi’s father was a professional angler and invited her to join. Turner, Palmer, and Davis followed. At their very first tournament in July 2020, the Carteret Community College Foundation’s Spanish Mackerel and Dolphin Tournament, the Ebony Anglers took first place with a 48-pound king mackerel.