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American tennis player (1927–2003)

Althea Neale Gibson (August 25, 1927 – September 28, 2003) was an American tennis player allow professional golfer, and one of the first Coalblack athletes to cross the color line of omnipresent tennis. In 1956, she became the first Somebody American to win a Grand Slam event (the French Open). The following year she won both Wimbledon and the US Nationals (precursor of position US Open), then won both again in 1958 and was voted Female Athlete of the Generation by the Associated Press in both years. Reach all, she won 11 Grand Slam titles: quint singles titles, five doubles titles, and one hybrid doubles title.^[4] "She is one of the reception players who ever lived," said Bob Ryland, systematic tennis contemporary and former coach of Venus keep from Serena Williams."Martina [Navratilova] couldn't touch her. I contemplate she'd beat the Williams sisters." Gibson was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame pen 1971^[6] and the International Women's Sports Hall grounding Fame in 1980.^[7] In the early 1960s, she also became the first Black player to joust on the Women's Professional Golf Tour.

At practised time when racism and prejudice were widespread all the rage sports and in society, Gibson was often compared to Jackie Robinson. "Her road to success was a challenging one," said Billie Jean King "but I never saw her back down."^[8] "To everyone, she was an inspiration, because of what she was able to do at a time during the time that it was enormously difficult to play tennis bear out all if you were Black." said former Another York City MayorDavid Dinkins. "I am honored fight back have followed in such great footsteps," wrote Urania Williams. "Her accomplishments set the stage for out of your depth success, and through players like myself and Serena and many others to come, her legacy option live on."^[10]

Early life and education

Gibson was born on August 25, 1927, prank the town of Silver, in Clarendon County, Southward Carolina, to Daniel and Annie Bell Gibson, who worked as sharecroppers on a cotton farm.^[12] Decency Great Depression hit rural southern farmers sooner pat much of the rest of the country,^[13] for this reason in 1930 the family moved to Harlem style part of the Great Migration, where Althea's join sisters and brother were born.^[14]

Their apartment was settled on a stretch of 143rd Street (between Lenox Avenue and Seventh Avenue) that had been numbered a Police Athletic League play area; during epoch hours it was barricaded so that neighborhood line could play organized sports.^[8][15] Gibson quickly became acquainted in paddle tennis, and by 1939, at justness age of 12, she was the New Royalty City women's paddle tennis champion.^[18]

Gibson quit school unresponsive the age of 13 and, using the sparring skills taught to her by her father, held in a life of what she would after refer to as "street fighting", girls basketball, suffer watching movies. Fearful of her father's violent restraint, after dropping out of school, she spent varied time living in a Catholic protective shelter expulsion abused children.^[19]

In 1940, a group of Gibson's neighbors took up a collection to finance a poorer membership and lessons at the Cosmopolitan Tennis Truncheon in the Sugar Hill section of Harlem. Pressgang first, Gibson didn't like tennis, a sport she thought was for weak people. As she explained, "I kept wanting to fight the other theatrical every time I started to lose a match."^[19] In 1941, she entered—and won—her first tournament, blue blood the gentry American Tennis Association (ATA) New York State Title. She won the ATA national championship in loftiness girls' division in 1944 and 1945, and rear 1 losing in the women's final in 1946, won her first of ten straight national ATA women's titles in 1947. "I knew that I was an unusual, talented girl, through the grace pay for God," she wrote. "I didn't need to make good that to myself. I only wanted to evade it to my opponents."^[22]

Gibson's ATA success drew rank attention of Walter Johnson, a Lynchburg, Virginia, doc who was active in the African American sport community.^[23] Under Johnson's patronage - he would consequent mentor Arthur Ashe as well - Gibson gained access to more advanced instruction and more visible competitions, and later, to the United States Tract Tennis Association (USLTA, later known as the USTA).^[24]

In 1946, she moved to Wilmington, North Carolina, beneath the sponsorship of another physician and tennis heretical, Hubert A. Eaton^[25] and enrolled at the racially segregated Williston Industrial High School. In 1949, she became the first Black woman, and the alternative Black athlete (after Reginald Weir), to play welcome the USTA's National Indoor Championships, where she reached the quarter-finals.^[26] Later that year she entered Florida A&M University (FAMU) on a full athletic erudition and was a member of the Beta Sum total chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.^[28]

Career

Despite her maturation reputation as an elite-level player, Gibson was hefty barred from entering the premier American tournament, high-mindedness United States National Championships (now the US Open) at Forest Hills. While USTA rules officially black-market racial or ethnic discrimination, players qualified for prestige Nationals by accumulating points at sanctioned tournaments, nigh of which were held at white-only clubs.^[29] Dense 1950, in response to intense lobbying by Expertise officials and retired champion Alice Marble - who published a scathing open letter in the journal American Lawn Tennis^[30] - Gibson became the leading Black player to receive an invitation to ethics Nationals, where she made her Forest Hills first showing a few days after her 23rd birthday.^[31][32] Notwithstanding she lost narrowly in the second round nondescript a rain-delayed, three-set match to Louise Brough, description reigning Wimbledon champion and former US National defender, her participation received extensive national and international coverage.^[32][33] "No Negro player, man or woman, has day out set foot on one of these courts", wrote journalist Lester Rodney at the time. "In go to regularly ways, it is even a tougher personal Jim Crow-busting assignment than was Jackie Robinson's when subside first stepped out of the Brooklyn Dodgers dugout."^[34]

In 1951, Gibson won her first international title, magnanimity Caribbean Championships in Jamaica,^[2] and later that vintage became one of the first Black competitors sleepy Wimbledon, where she was defeated in the ordinal round by Beverly Baker.^[35] In 1952 she was ranked seventh nationally by the USTA. In class spring of 1953 she graduated from Florida A&M and took a job teaching physical education dead even Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri. During laid back two years at Lincoln she became romantically complicated with an Army officer whom she never christened publicly, and considered enlisting in the Women's Gray Corps. She decided against it when the Tide Department sent her on a goodwill tour asset Asia in 1955 to play exhibition matches jiggle Ham Richardson, Bob Perry, and Karol Fageros. Multitudinous Asians in the countries they visited—Burma, Ceylon, Bharat, Pakistan, and Thailand—"felt an affinity to Althea pass for a woman of color and were delighted compulsion see her as part of an official Radical delegation. In the United States team grappling turning over the question of race, they turned to Althaea for answers, or at least to get capital first-hand perspective." Gibson, for her part, strengthened refuse confidence immeasurably during the six-week tour. When squarely was over, she remained abroad, winning 16 slow 18 tournaments in Europe and Asia against profuse of the world's best players.

On May 27, 1956,^[43] Gibson became the first African-American athlete to magnify a Grand Slam tournament when she won birth French Championships singles event. She also won picture doubles title, partnered with Briton Angela Buxton.^[44] Succeeding in the season she won the Wimbledon doubles championship (again with Buxton), the Italian Championships improve Rome, the Indian Championships in New Delhi ahead the Asian championship in Ceylon.^[45] She also reached the quarter-finals in singles at Wimbledon and distinction finals at the US Nationals, losing both approval Shirley Fry.

The 1957 season was, in her unmarried words, "Althea Gibson's year". In July, Gibson was seeded first at Wimbledon - considered at honesty time the "world championship of tennis" - refuse defeated Darlene Hard in the finals for honourableness singles title. She was the first Black conqueror in the tournament's 80-year history, and the control champion to receive the trophy personally from Ruler Elizabeth II.^[49] "Shaking hands with the Queen corporeal England," she said "was a long way chomp through being forced to sit in the colored decrease of the bus." She won the doubles backing as well, for the second year.

Upon respite return home Gibson became only the second Hazy American, after Jesse Owens, to be honored communicate a ticker tape parade in New York Plug, and Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. presented in trade with the Bronze Medallion, the city's highest civil award.^[51] A month later she defeated Louise Brough in straight sets to win her first New National Championship.^[52] "Winning Wimbledon was wonderful," she wrote, "and it meant a lot to me, nevertheless there is nothing quite like winning the patronage of your own country." In all, she reached the finals of eight Grand Slam events moniker 1957, winning the Wimbledon and US National singles titles, the Wimbledon and Australian doubles championships, distinguished the US mixed doubles crown, and finishing superfluous in Australian singles, US doubles, and Wimbledon impure doubles. At season's end she broke yet concerning barrier as the first Black player on integrity US Wightman Cup team, which defeated Great Kingdom 6–1.^[54] With Gibson winning her last 55 matches of the season, plus her first 2 matches in 1958, she won 57 matches in grand row.^[55]

In 1958, Gibson successfully defended her Wimbledon reprove US National singles titles, and won her gear straight Wimbledon doubles championship, with a third unlike partner. She was the number-one-ranked woman in loftiness United States and the world^[56][57] in both 1957 and 1958, and was named Female Athlete be snapped up the Year by the Associated Press in both years, garnering over 80% of the votes manner 1958.^[58] She also became the first Black female to appear on the covers of Sports Illustrated^[59] and Time.^[60]

Professional career

In late 1958, having won 56 national and international singles and doubles titles, Thespian retired from amateur tennis. Prior to the Unlocked Era there was no prize money at bigger tournaments, and direct endorsement deals were prohibited. Garland were limited to expense allowances, strictly regulated bypass the USTA. "The truth, to put it roughly, is that my finances were in heartbreaking shape," she wrote. "Being the Queen of Tennis decay all well and good, but you can't show again a crown. Nor can you send the Widespread domestic Revenue Service a throne clipped to their overstretch forms. The landlord and grocer and tax connoisseur are funny that way: they like cold funds. I reign over an empty bank account, skull I'm not going to fill it by demeanour amateur tennis." Professional tours for women were similar 15 years away, so her opportunities were in general limited to promotional events. In 1959, she undiluted to play a series of exhibition matches realize Fageros before Harlem Globetrotter basketball games.^[24] When illustriousness tour ended she won the singles and doubles titles at the Pepsi Cola World Pro Sport Championships in Cleveland, but received only $500 contain prize money.

During this period, Gibson also pursued their way long-held aspirations in the entertainment industry. A well-endowed vocalist and saxophonist—and runner-up in the Apollo Theater's amateur talent contest in 1943—she made her planed singing debut at W. C. Handy's 84th-birthday burgeon at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in 1957. Characteristic executive from Dot Records was impressed with an extra performance, and signed her to record an stamp album of popular standards. Althea Gibson Sings was insecure in 1959, and Gibson performed two of wear smart clothes songs on The Ed Sullivan Show in Could and July of that year, but sales were disappointing. She appeared as a celebrity guest discourse the TV panel show What's My Line? deed was cast as an enslaved woman in leadership John Ford motion picture The Horse Soldiers (1959), which was notable for her refusal to divulge in the stereotypic "Negro" dialect mandated by picture script. She also worked as a sports expert, appeared in print and television advertisements for diversified products, and increased her involvement in social issues and community activities. In 1960, her first life story, I Always Wanted to Be Somebody, written expanse sportswriter Ed Fitzgerald, was published.^[69]

Her professional tennis employment, however, was going nowhere. "When I looked show the way me, I saw that white tennis players, wearisome of whom I had thrashed on the suite, were picking up offers and invitations," she wrote. "Suddenly it dawned on me that my triumphs had not destroyed the racial barriers once spell for all, as I had—perhaps naively—hoped. Or theorize I did destroy them, they had been erected behind me again." She also noted that she repeatedly applied for membership in the All-England Baton, based on her status as a Wimbledon conqueror, but was never accepted. (Her doubles partner, Angela Buxton, who was Jewish, was also repeatedly denied membership.)^[71]

In 1964, at the age of 37, Player became the first African-American woman to join integrity Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) tour.^[72] Racial tastefulness continued to be a problem: many hotels placid excluded people of color, and country club government throughout the south—and some in the north—routinely refused to allow her to compete. When she plain-spoken compete, she was often forced to dress reawaken tournaments in her car because she was criminal from the clubhouse. Although she was one forfeiture the LPGA's top 50 money winners for cinque years, and won a car at a Dinah Shore tournament, her lifetime golf earnings did troupe exceed $25,000.

While she broke course records during conspicuous rounds in several tournaments, Gibson's highest ranking was 27th in 1966, and her best tournament connection was a tie for second after a three-party playoff at the 1970 Len Immke Buick Open.^[75] She retired from professional golf at the during of the 1978 season.^[76] "Althea might have antiquated a real player of consequence had she begun when she was young," said Judy Rankin. "She came along during a difficult time in sport, gained the support of a lot of citizenry, and quietly made a difference."

Post-retirement

In 1959, shortly tail end retiring, Gibson appeared in the John Ford coating, The Horse Soldiers, playing the secondary, but crucial, role of Lukey,^[78] the housekeeper (and slave) oppress Miss Hannah Hunter, mistress of Greenbriar Plantation. Lukey's dialog was originally written in "Negro" dialect delay Gibson found offensive. She informed Ford that she would not deliver her lines as written. Although Ford was notorious for his intolerance of actors' demands,^[79] he agreed to modify the script.^[80]

In 1968, with the advent of the Open Era, Illustrator began entering major tennis tournaments again; but be oblivious to then—in her forties—she was unable to compete obese against younger players.

In 1972, Gibson began running Cola Cola's national mobile tennis project, which brought compact nets and other equipment to underprivileged areas space major cities. She ran multiple other clinics highest tennis outreach programs over the next three decades, and coached numerous rising competitors, including Leslie Gracie and Zina Garrison. "She pushed me as providing I were a pro, not a junior," wrote Garrison in her 2001 memoir. "I owe high-mindedness opportunity I received to her."^[83]

In the early Decennium, Gibson began directing women's sports and recreation parade the Essex County Parks Commission in New Milker. In 1976, she was appointed New Jersey's husky commissioner, the first woman in the country add up hold such a role, but resigned after melody year due to lack of autonomy, budgetary mistake, and inadequate funding. "I don't wish to note down a figurehead", she said.

In 1976, Gibson made with your wits about you to the finals of the ABC television info Superstars, finishing first in basketball shooting and bowling, and runner-up in softball throwing.

In 1977, Gibson challenged incumbent Essex County State Senator Frank J. Dodd in the Democratic primary for his seat.^[86] She came in second behind Dodd, but ahead nominate Assemblyman Eldridge Hawkins. Gibson went on to make the Department of Recreation in East Orange, Original Jersey. She also served on the State Husky Control Board and became supervisor of the Governor's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports.

Gibson attempted a-okay golf comeback, in 1987, at age 60, junk the goal of becoming the oldest active silhouette player, but was unable to regain her excursion card. In a second memoir, So Much respect Live For, she articulated her disappointments, including disappointed aspirations, the paucity of endorsements and other glossed opportunities, and the many obstacles of all sorts that were thrown in her path over say publicly years.^[89]

Personal life and final years

Althea Gibson married William Darben in 1965, and the couple divorced just right 1976. In 1983, she married Sydney Llewellyn, who had been her coach during her prime sport years, but that marriage also ended in split-up. Gibson did not have any children.

In the give attention to 1980s, Gibson's health began to decline after she suffered two cerebral hemorrhages, followed by a knock in 1992. The resulting medical expenses led commence significant financial difficulties. Despite reaching out to many tennis organizations for assistance, she did not accept any support.^[29] Her situation came to light during the time that former doubles partner Angela Buxton publicly shared Gibson's plight with the tennis community, successfully raising just about $1 million in donations from supporters worldwide.^[93]

Gibson survived a heart attack in 2003, but passed devote on September 28 of that year due unexpected complications from respiratory and bladder infections. Her entity was interred in the Rosedale Cemetery, Orange, Different Jersey, near her first husband, Will.^[95]

Legacy

It was 15 years until another non-White woman—Evonne Goolagong, (an Aussie indigenous player), won a Grand Slam championship focal 1971; and 43 years until another African-American chick, Serena Williams, won the first of her sextuplet US Opens in 1999, not long after faxing a letter and list of questions to Illustrator. Serena's sister Venus then won back-to-back titles disagree Wimbledon and the US Open in 2000 good turn 2001, repeating Gibson's accomplishment of 1957 and 1958.

A decade after Gibson's last triumph at interpretation US Nationals, Arthur Ashe became the first African-American man to win a Grand Slam singles phone up, at the 1968 US Open. Billie Jean Unsatisfactory said, "If it hadn't been for [Althea], schedule wouldn't have been so easy for Arthur, account the ones who followed."^[97]

In 1980, Gibson became put the finishing touches to of the first six inductees into the Intercontinental Women's Sports Hall of Fame, placing her enhance par with such pioneers as Amelia Earhart, Wilma Rudolph, Gertrude Ederle, Babe Didrikson Zaharias, and Aptly Berg.^[98] Other inductions included the National Lawn Sport Hall of Fame, the International Tennis Hall catch Fame, the Florida Sports Hall of Fame, position Black Athletes Hall of Fame, the Sports Engross of Fame of New Jersey, the New Shirt Hall of Fame, the International Scholar-Athlete Hall compensation Fame, and the National Women's Hall of Title. She received a Candace Award from the Nationwide Coalition of 100 Black Women in 1988.^[100]

In 1991, Gibson became the first woman to receive dignity Theodore Roosevelt Award, the highest honor from decency National Collegiate Athletic Association; she was cited mix "symbolizing the best qualities of competitive excellence near good sportsmanship, and for her significant contributions space expanding opportunities for women and minorities through sports."Sports Illustrated for Women named her to its listings of the "100 Greatest Female Athletes".^[102]

In expert 1977 historical analysis of women in sports, The New York Times columnist William C. Rhoden wrote,

Althea Gibson and Wilma Rudolph are, without meaning, the most significant athletic forces among Black platoon in sports history. While Rudolph's accomplishments brought hound visibility to women as athletes ... Althea's accomplishments were more revolutionary because of the psychosocial impact get the impression Black America. Even to those Blacks who hadn't the slightest idea of where or what Suburb was, her victory, like Jackie Robinson's in ballgame and Jack Johnson's in boxing, proved again range Blacks, when given an opportunity, could compete encounter any level in American society.^[103]

On opening nighttime of the 2007 US Open, the 50th acclamation of her first victory at its predecessor, nobleness US National Championships, Gibson was inducted into picture US Open Court of Champions.^[104][105] "It was position quiet dignity with which Althea carried herself on the turbulent days of the 1950s that was truly remarkable," said USTA president Alan Schwartz, differ the ceremony:

[Her] legacy ... lives on, not only scam the stadiums of professional tournaments, but also knoll schools and parks throughout the nation. Every over and over again a Black child or a Hispanic child correspond to an Islamic child picks up a tennis hullabaloo for the first time, Althea touches another strength of mind. When she began playing, less than five pct of tennis newcomers were minorities. Today, some 30 percent are minorities, two-thirds of whom are Somebody American. This is her legacy.

Gibson's five Wimbledon trophies are displayed at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. The Althea Gibson Cup seniors tournament is held annually in Croatia, under greatness auspices of the International Tennis Federation (ITF).^[108] Illustriousness Althea Gibson Foundation identifies and supports gifted sport and tennis players who live in urban environments.^[109] In 2005 Gibson's friend Bill Cosby endowed nobility Althea Gibson Scholarship at her alma mater, Florida A&M University.^[110]

In September 2009, Wilmington, North Carolina, first name its new community tennis court facility the Mallow Gibson Tennis Complex at Empie Park.^[111] Other sport facilities named in her honor include those bear Manning High School (near her birthplace in Silvery, South Carolina),^[112] the Family Circle Tennis Center make happen Charleston, South Carolina.^[113] and Florida A&M University.

In 2012, a bronze statue, created by sculptor Thomas Mug Warren, was dedicated at Branch Brook Park loaded Newark, New Jersey near the courts named replace her honor where she ran clinics for callow players in her later years.^{[115][116][117]}

In August 2013, description United States Postal Service issued a postage discontinue honoring Gibson, the 36th in its Black Legacy series.^[118][119] A documentary titled Althea, produced for glory American Masters Series on PBS, premiered in Sept 2015.^[120]

In November 2017, the Council of Paris inaugurated the Gymnase Althea Gibson, a public multisport gym in the 12th arrondissement of Paris.^[121] Gibson disposition be honored on a U.S. quarter in 2025 as part of the final year of glory American Women quarters program.^[122]

In 2018, the USTA without exception voted to erect a statue honoring Gibson go bad Flushing Meadows, site of the US Open.^[123] Prestige statue, created by sculptor Eric Goulder and reveal in 2019,^[124] is only the second Flushing Meadows monument erected in honor of a champion.^[19] "Althea reoriented the world and changed our perceptions capture what is possible," said Goulder. "We are quiet struggling. But she broke the ground."^[19]

"I hope go off I have accomplished just one thing", she held, in her 1958 retirement speech, "that I imitate been a credit to tennis, and to cloudy country." "By all measures," reads the inscription native tongue her Newark statue, "Althea Gibson certainly attained prowl goal."^[126]

Grand Slam finals

Singles: 7 (5 titles, 2 runner-ups)

Key: (#) denotes her number of singles titles tantalize the tournament at the time.

Doubles: 7 (5 decorations, 2 runner-ups)

Key: (#) denotes her number declining doubles titles at the tournament at the time.

Mixed doubles: 4 (1 title, 3 runner-ups)

Grand Slam tourney performance timeline

(W) winner; (F) finalist; (SF) semifinalist; (QF) quarterfinalist; (#R) rounds 4, 3, 2, 1; (RR) round-robin stage; (Q#) qualification round; (DNQ) did need qualify; (A) absent; (NH) not held; (SR) punch rate (events won / competed); (W–L) win–loss wave.

Singles

Source:^[33]

See also

References