For someone who achieved so much in her career, Althea Gibson was very undramatic. She wasn’t outspoken like Muhammad Ali or Arthur Ashe. She wasn’t interested in making statements. But she never backed down either. She chose to believe that actions speak louder than words and throughout her career, she changed perceptions by doing exactly that.
Gibson was not just an iconic tennis player. In 1950, she made history by becoming the first African-American to compete at the US National Championships (precursor to the US Open). In 1956, she became the first African-American to win a Grand Slam title (called the French Championships, back then). And in 1957, she won both Wimbledon and the US Nationals, and achieved that again in 1958. By the time her career ended, she had amassed 11 Grand Slam titles – five singles, five doubles and one mixed doubles.
And after all this, she also became a professional golfer in 1960, once again the first African-American to compete on the women’s professional golf tour.
Sport always came easily to Gibson. She had a natural aptitude for it. Born on a cotton farm on August 25, 1927 in South Carolina and moved north with her family when she around three years old. She grew up in the Harlem region of New York, a tough neighbourhood.
Gibson learned boxing from her father who she avoided at times because of his wrath. In 1939, she won the city’s girls paddleball (game is similar to conventional tennis but uses wooden paddles instead of rackets) championship. Soon after, Harlem’s Cosmopolitan Tennis Club, composed of mostly African American professionals, offered her a junior membership.
Just like that, one thing led to another.
At 13, Gibson dropped out of school. But all that cross-sport training helped her develop an athleticism that was way ahead of the times.
At first, she dismissed tennis as a sport for weak people.
“I really wasn’t the tennis type,” Gibson wrote in her book, I Always Wanted To Be Somebody. “I kept wanting to fight the other player every time I started to lose a match. You have to be a nice person to be a tennis player or you don’t amount to much. It brings out your good qualities.”
But in the 1940s, being good wasn’t enough for a black athlete. Being great was probably worse. Gibson was dominating the coloured tournaments but each time she sent her application for one of the big tournaments, they would mysteriously not reach the organisers or simply get lost. There seemed to be a risk in letting Gibson take part and then seeing her win. It was not a risk anyone was willing to take.
Gibson expressed her disappointment in a dignified and professional manner. And before too long, she began to find allies in prominent positions.
One such ally was Alice Marble (a former Wimbledon and US champion herself), who was also an editor of the American Lawn Tennis magazine. In the July 1950 issue of that periodical, Marble wrote a piece about the “colour barrier” keeping Gibson from the top competitions:
“The entrance of Negroes into national tennis is as inevitable as it has proven in baseball, in football, or in boxing; there is no denying so much talent. The committee at Forest Hills has the power to stifle the efforts of one Althea Gibson, who may or may not be succeeded by others of her race who have equal or superior ability. They will knock at the door as she has done. Eventually, the tennis world will rise up en masse to protest the injustices perpetrated by our policymakers. Eventually – why not now?”
In 1944, Gibson became the ATA junior champion, and repeated the feat the next year but it wasn’t until 1950, thanks largely to the article, that she made history at the US Nationals. However, stepping up wasn’t easy.
The following three years were tough. She even thought about giving up the game. In 1952, Gibson was ranked seventh nationally in women’s singles; the following year she dropped to 70th. But she found her way back to the sport and by 1956, she won her first major singles title at the French Open.
Her lean and muscular physique, allied with a dominating serve and long reach, often stunned opponents. And then, there was her fighting spirit.
“People thought I was ruthless, which I was. I didn’t give a darn who was on the other side of the net. I’d knock you down if you got in my way,” she once said.
Titles at Wimbledon and the US Open followed in 1957 and 1958 but then at the age of 30, she shocked the world by announcing her retirement from the sport. Tennis was an amateur sport at the time and she simply did not make enough money playing tennis to meet her needs. This was despite her winning 56 tournaments in the 50s.
“Being champion is all well and good, but you can’t eat a crown,” she said.
That, however, wasn’t it. By 1963, Gibson qualified for the Ladies Professional Golf Association and began competing in important golf tournaments – the first Black woman to achieve that honour. Her golfing career didn’t do as well as her tennis career but as always she put her best foot forward.
“Her road to success was a challenging one,” said tennis legend Billie Jean King, “but I never saw her back down.”
And, in a way, that was her true legacy. One that must be celebrated and especially, in these times, remembered.
The video below gives us a quick glimpse of her inspirational career: