Professional Figure Skater, Social Reformer. She was a champion ice skater, who was known for her athletic leaps. In the later years of her career, she gained respect and fame as a coach, mentoring the likes of such greats as Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner, Scott Hamilton, and Kristi Yamaguchi, to name a few. In 1997, she was the first African American woman inducted into the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame. In October of 2001, she was posthumously inducted into the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame. Born the third from the youngest of fourteen children, her parents gave her an African American, Native American, and English ancestry. Orphaned at age eight, she had to live in several homes before being a homeless teenager on the streets of New York City. Finding a position as a nanny saved her from being on the streets in the freezing winter. After seeing the 1936 film "One in A Million," debuting the 1928 Olympic medalist, the Norwegian figure skater Sonja Henie, she was determined to learn to skate. Being self-taught at first, she began figure skating around 1925 to 1928 in the public park with an old pair of skates. With the mentoring of the legendary nine-time United States Ladies Champion, Maribel Vinson Owen, she perfected her sport. During the era of her young life, she was limited in her competitions because of her race; thus, her path did not lead to the Olympic tryouts. Unable to perform professionally, she produced her own skating shows appearing in night clubs, the Apollo Theatre, and other social venues in and around Harlem. After relocating to Los Angeles, she toured internationally, skating with Ice Capades in Mexico and later with the prestigious Ice Follies. She taught skating to a host of young skaters until she was 79 years old. Atoy Wilson, who was the first African American to be awarded the first-place medal at the United States Figure Skating Championship in the category Novice, was coached by Fairbanks. She was instrumental in racially intergrading ice rinks. After the late 1990s, her health declined with her being diagnosed in 1997 with myasthenia gravis and in 2001, with acute leukemia. She never married. Although many sources state she was born in the Florida Everglades, her Social Security application states her birth place as Jacksonville, Florida, which is 350 miles north of the Everglades. She is considered the Grand Dame of African American figure skaters. The Mabel Fairbanks Skatingly Yours Fund financially assists and supports the training and development of promising figure skaters who are Black, Indigenous and People of Color with the goal of helping them realize and achieve their maximum athletic potential. Announced in September of 2020, a film-version of her life story is being scheduled.