Once living in motel room, ballet dancer Misty Copeland thrives on the stage

As a young child, home was a shabby motel room – until she found her missing link to opportunity.

“The missing link was art,” Copeland told WRAL News. “It was dance and ballet.”

At a local Boys and Girls Club ballet class, she proved to be a prodigy. As she turned professional, her only limitation, it seemed, was her skin.

“The common language has been for black and brown dancers that we just don't have the right bodies and the right ‘look,’” Copeland said.

Dancers of colors are often told they aren’t right to be the star attraction on center stage.

“We're looking at the principal dancer in the middle, hoping one day that will be us,” Copeland said.

Only 1% of ballet dancers achieve that title. After 15 years of hard work, Copeland was named principal dancer at the American Ballet Theatre, becoming the first African American woman to do so.

“I just sat there on the floor in tears, just out of joy, knowing that this was changing the path for so many in the future,” Copeland said.

She now considers herself a “vessel,” opening doors for more minorities in the arts – be it in fashion design, writing books or chasing their own ballet dreams.

Her goal, she said, is “to give everyone an equal opportunity whether or not they want to become a professional.”

Time Magazine listed Copeland as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2015.