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Althea Gibson was born on August 25,1927, in Silver, South Carolina, but moved to New York City in 1930. Gibson was the first African American female to win a major tennis tournament. Althea Gibson broke the color barrier at Wimbledon. When Gibson was young she loved to play sports, basketball was her first favorite. Gibson then became a highly competent paddle tennis player. She received a tennis racket from a friendly musician, and she immediately took heed to the game. GibsonŐs future in school then took a turn; she quit high school because she could not stand classes. With school out of the way, Gibson began competing in girlsŐ tournaments under the patronage of The American Tennis Association, which was almost all black. She ended up attracting two tennis playing doctors as mentors in 1946 named Herbert Eaton of North Carolina and Robert W. Johnson of Virginia, who were both active in the black tennis community. Herbert Eaton took Gibson into his family during the school year; Robert Johnson had her during the summer. Eaton and Johnson provided Gibson with tennis lessons and straightened her out academically; she went back to high school to finish her education. She graduated in 1949 in Wilmington, NC, at the age of 21. However, before Gibson could do anything, another challenge had to be defeated. Gibson
had no control or help, with this problem. It was Gibson vs. Segregation.
Gibson began to change the world of racial segregation in tennis; she
began playing at tournaments sponsored by the United States Lawn Tennis
association, which was later renamed the United States Tennis Association
(USTA), which at that time had been restricted to white players only.
Gibson became the first black competitor at The National Champions in
1950, which was later renamed as the U.S. Open, in Forest Hills, New
York. When Alice Marble, a white four-time single winner at Forest Hills,
expressed her disgust at the discriminating effort practiced to stop
Gibson from playing, Gibson was imital to participate because of her
race. After the disgust of Alice Marble, Gibson was invited to compete. Gibson was the first black person to play tennis at the Lawn Tennis Championships at the All-England Club in Wimbledon. In 1953 Gibson graduated from Florida A&M; moved to Jefferson City, Missouri and she started working with tennis coach Sydney Liewellyn in 1954. Gibson won the French champions, the All-England Champions at Wimbledon and the U.S. National Tennis Champions at Forest Hills. She also won Wimbledon and Forest Hills in 1958 before retiring from amateur tennis. Gibson also dabbed in other areas later in life. Gibson released a record album called Althea Gibson Sings, which appeared in a film, The Horse Soldiers. Gibson toured with the Harlem Globebrothers playing exhibition tennis in 1960. Althea Gibson then made a change, and in 1964 she launched her professional golf career; joined the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA), she then stopped competing and worked as a tennis teaching pro. Gibson then got married in 1965 and took a job as a manger of the East Orange, New Jersey, and Department of Recreation in 1975. After all of Althea GibsonŐs hard work, she is now suffering from a series of strokes and illness, brought on by disease and she is now called terminal. |
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As
a little girl Gibson disliked school with a passion and because of this
unfortunate dislike, Gibson often played hooky. She thought she was
getting away from her distaste of school, but she was fooled. Each time
Gibson played hooky her father would find out and whip her. Gibson never
did blame her father, actually she believed, when she was punished she
deserved it.
