Misty Copeland

At thirteen, Misty Copeland was used to disappearing into the background. She later described herself as the child who hid behind louder siblings and tried to get through school without being noticed. Movement interested her, but it did not yet feel like a direction. She joined her middle-school drill team with no dance training and, to her surprise, became its captain.

The drill-team coach, Elizabeth Cantine, suggested a free ballet class at the San Pedro Boys & Girls Club. Copeland did not know ballet or classical music and had little interest in trying something unfamiliar. For weeks she watched from the gym bleachers. The volunteer teacher, Cynthia Bradley, finally approached her directly. When Copeland said she had no leotard or tights, Bradley told her to use her gym clothes. Her first class took place in socks on a basketball court.

Bradley then offered more than encouragement. She brought Copeland into her ballet school on scholarship, supplied the clothes and shoes that made the studio feel less foreign, and built lessons around the time a late starter had to make up. Copeland learned unusually fast. “I felt awkward, like I didn’t fit in anywhere,” she later wrote, “and I lived in constant fear of letting my mother down, or my teachers, or myself.” In the studio, close attention gave that anxious child a place to work instead of hide.

Training soon demanded more time and travel than Copeland’s mother, Sylvia DelaCerna, could manage while supporting six children. Bradley asked whether Copeland could live with her family, and the adults agreed. For nearly three years, the Bradley household supplied a short route to class and the daily structure of serious training. At fifteen, Copeland won the Music Center Spotlight Award; scholarships to major summer programs followed.

The arrangement did not stay simple. DelaCerna eventually asked her daughter to return home; Copeland, afraid of losing ballet, sought legal independence at Bradley’s urging. The dispute became bitter and public. Copeland withdrew the petition after two months, left the Bradleys, and went home. Moving a child into a teacher’s family is not the model here, and no opportunity should require a child to choose between a parent and the adult opening a door.

Copeland kept dancing. She entered American Ballet Theatre’s Studio Company in 2000, joined the corps in 2001, became a soloist in 2007, and in 2015 became the first Black woman promoted to principal dancer in the company’s seventy-five-year history. She gave her farewell ABT performance in 2025 and continues working to widen access to ballet.

The part worth carrying forward happened before the adults’ conflict: Bradley noticed a child who kept returning to watch, made the invitation personal, and solved one practical obstacle after another. Clothes, fees, transport, and a stable routine can determine whether curiosity ever becomes practice. Those supports work best when the adults keep their roles clear and the family inside the decision.