Althea Gibson
Althea Gibson (August 25, 1927 – September 28, 2003) was an American sportswoman who, on August 22, 1950, became the first African-American woman to be a competitor on the world tennis tour. She is sometimes referred to as "the Jackie Robinson of tennis" for breaking the "color barrier."
Early life
Gibson was born to poor sharecropping parents in Silver, South Carolina and was raised in Harlem, New York City. She and her family were on welfare. Gibson had difficulty in school and was often truant. She ran away from home quite frequently. Despite her troubles as a youth, she showed promise as an athlete, and she excelled in horsemanship and also competed in golf, basketball, and paddle tennis. Her talent and affinity for paddle tennis led her to win tournaments sponsored by the Police Athletic League and the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. She was first introduced to tennis at the Harlem River Tennis Courts by musician Buddy Walker, who noticed her playing table tennis. Dr. Walter Johnson, a Lynchburg, Virginia physician who was active in the black tennis community, helped with her training.
Tennis career
With the assistance of a sponsor, Gibson moved to Wilmington, North Carolina in 1946 to continue her tennis training, and in 1947 at the age of 20, she won the first of ten consecutive national championships run by the American Tennis Association, the then-governing body for black tournaments. Limited to these tournaments due to racial segregation, Gibson was not able to transcend the color barrier until age 23, when, in 1950, fellow player Alice Marble wrote an editorial for the July 1, 1950, edition of American Lawn Tennis Magazine. Marble said, "Miss Gibson is over a very cunningly wrought barrel, and I can only hope to loosen a few of its staves with one lone opinion. If tennis is a game for ladies and gentlemen, it's also time we acted a little more like gentlepeople and less like sanctimonious hypocrites....If Althea Gibson represents a challenge to the present crop of women players, it's only fair that they should meet that challenge on the courts." Marble said that if Gibson were not given the opportunity to compete, "then there is an uneradicable mark against a game to which I have devoted most of my life, and I would be bitterly ashamed."[1] Gibson was subsequently given the opportunity to participate in the 1950 U.S. Championships.
Gibson continued to improve her tennis game while pursuing an education. In 1953, she graduated from Florida A&M University on a tennis and basketball scholarship and moved to Jefferson City, Missouri to work as an athletic instructor at Lincoln University.
Now unimpeded by the color barrier, Gibson was able to compete against the world's best players. She won the 1955 Italian Championships, and the following year, she won her first Grand Slam titles, capturing the French Championships in singles and in doubles with her partner, Jewish Englishwoman Angela Buxton. Buxton had run into discrimination from other players and the tennis establishment along the same lines as those experienced by Gibson, so the two joined forces and achieved great success. Buxton was the first Jewish champion at Wimbledon, and Gibson was the first champion of African descent. An English newspaper reported their victory at Wimbledon under the headline "Minorities Win."
She followed up by becoming the first black person to win a title at Wimbledon, again capturing the doubles title with Buxton. At the U.S. Championships that year, she reached the singles final where she lost to Shirley Fry Irvin.
In 1957, Gibson lost in the singles final of the Australian Championships, again to Irvin. The two women, however, teamed to capture the doubles title, as Buxton had retired prematurely at the age of 22 due to a serious hand injury.
At Wimbledon, Gibson won her first of two consecutive singles championships and, upon returning to the United States, was given a ticker-tape parade in New York City and an official welcome at New York City Hall. She responded by winning the U.S. Championships. For her accomplishments that year, Gibson earned the No. 1 ranking in the world and was named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year.
In 1958, after successfully defending her Wimbledon singles title and winning her third consecutive Wimbledon women's doubles title, Gibson again won the singles title at the U.S. Championships. She was named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for the second consecutive year. That year, Gibson retired from amateur tennis.
Retirement and later life
Before the open era of tennis began in 1968, players competed under amateur status, and did not receive endorsement deals or any prize money, other than an expense allowance. Unable to sustain herself, Gibson was forced to retire from amateur tennis, despite her success, and because there was no professional tour for women, she played only a series of exhibition tours.
In retirement, Gibson wrote her autobiography called I Always Wanted To Be Somebody. In 1959 she recorded an album, Althea Gibson Sings, and also appeared in the motion picture The Horse Soldiers. She even staged an attempt at a professional golfer, and in 1964, she became the first African-American woman to play in the Ladies Professional Golf Association. Already in her late thirties, however, she did not enjoy much success and only played for a few years.
In 1971, Gibson was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame, and in 1975, she was appointed the New Jersey state commissioner of athletics, a position she would hold for ten years. Later, she served in other public service roles, including a position with the governor's council on physical fitness.
In later years, Gibson suffered two cerebral aneurysms and a stroke in 1992. A few years later, she found herself still in poor health and living on welfare, unable to pay for rent or medication. She called her former doubles partner and lifelong friend Angela Buxton and told her she was on the brink of suicide. Buxton secretly arranged for a letter to appear in a tennis magazine to urge the world to help Gibson. Nearly $1 million was collected for Gibson from letters from around the world.[1]
In 2003, Gibson died in East Orange, New Jersey at age 76, due to respiratory failure. She was interred there at the Rosedale Cemetery in Orange, New Jersey.
Grand Slam finals
Singles (7)
Wins (5)
Year | Championship | Opponent in Final | Score in Final |
1956 | French Championships | Angela Mortimer Barrett | 6-0, 12-10 |
1957 | Wimbledon | Darlene Hard | 6-3, 6-2 |
1957 | U.S. Championships | Louise Brough Clapp | 6-3, 6-2 |
1958 | Wimbledon (2) | Angela Mortimer Barrett | 8-6, 6-2 |
1958 | U.S. Championships (2) | Darlene Hard | 3-6, 6-1, 6-2 |
Runners-up (2)
Year | Championship | Opponent in Final | Score in Final |
1957 | Australian Championships | Shirley Fry Irvin | 6-3, 6-4 |
1956 | U.S. Championships | Shirley Fry Irvin | 6-3, 6-4 |
Doubles (11)
Wins (6)
Year | Championship | Event | Partnering | Opponents in Final | Score/Final |
1956 | French Championships | Women's doubles | Angela Buxton | Darlene Hard Dorothy Head Knode |
6-8, 8-6, 6-1 |
1956 | Wimbledon | Women's doubles | Angela Buxton | Fay Muller Daphne Seeney |
6-1, 8-6 |
1957 | Australian Championships | Women's doubles | Shirley Fry Irvin | Mary Bevis Hawton Fay Muller |
6-2, 6-1 |
1957 | Wimbledon (2) | Women's doubles | Darlene Hard | Mary Bevis Hawton Thelma Coyne Long |
6-1, 6-2 |
1957 | U.S. Championships | Mixed doubles | Kurt Nielsen | Darlene Hard Bob Howe |
6-3, 9-7 |
1958 | Wimbledon (3) | Women's doubles | Maria Bueno | Margaret Osborne duPont Margaret Varner |
6-3, 7-5 |
Runners-up (5)
Year | Championship | Event | Partnering | Opponents in Final | Score/Final |
1956 | Wimbledon | Mixed doubles | Gardnar Mulloy | Shirley Fry Irvin Vic Seixas |
2-6, 6-2, 7-5 |
1957 | Wimbledon | Mixed doubles | Neil Fraser | Darlene Hard Mervyn Rose |
6-4, 7-5 |
1957 | U.S. Championships | Women's doubles | Darlene Hard | Louise Brough Clapp Margaret Osborne duPont |
6-2, 7-5 |
1958 | Wimbledon | Mixed doubles | Kurt Nielsen | Lorraine Coghlan Green Bob Howe |
6-3, 13-11 |
1958 | U.S. Championships | Women's doubles | Maria Bueno | Darlene Hard Jeanne Arth |
2-6, 6-3, 6-4 |
Grand Slam singles tournament timeline
Tournament | 1950 | 1951 | 1952 | 1953 | 1954 | 1955 | 1956 | 1957 | 1958 | Career SR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Australia | A | A | A | A | A | A | A | F | A | 0 / 1 |
France | A | A | A | A | A | A | W | A | A | 1 / 1 |
Wimbledon | A | 3R | A | A | A | A | QF | W | W | 2 / 4 |
United States | 2R | 3R | 3R | QF | 1R | 3R | F | W | W | 2 / 9 |
SR | 0 / 1 | 0 / 2 | 0 / 1 | 0 / 1 | 0 / 1 | 0 / 1 | 1 / 3 | 2 / 3 | 2 / 2 | 5 / 15 |
A = did not participate in the tournament
SR = the ratio of the number of Grand Slam singles tournaments won to the number of those tournaments played
External links
- Althea Gibson.com
- International Tennis Hall of Fame profile
- Sports Illustrated obituary
- United States Tennis Association
- Hickoksports.com (a short biography)
- Althea Gibson - Womens History.about.com
- Althea Gibson Biography
- Althea Gibson Biography (Short)
- WTA Tour
- U.S. Open mixed doubles page
- Wimbledon women's doubles page
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- ↑ Billie Jean King with Cynthia Starr (1988). We Have Come a Long Way: The Story of Women's Tennis. New York: McGraw-Hill, 76. ISBN 0-07-034625-9.
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