When you think of Black women in tennis to hoist the US Open trophy the first names to come to mind may be Coco, Naomi, Sloane, Venus and Serena. However, long before these legendary women was a fighter named Althea. Althea Gibson was the first Black person to play at the US Open, paving the way for future champions.
Althea Gibson was born in 1927 in South Carolina and moved to Harlem as a child. Her family struggled as they lived on public assistance. She dropped out of school at 13 and took on a fighter mentality on the streets playing various sports. At first, she thought tennis was for the weak, but in 1940 her neighbors raised funds for her to get a membership to the local tennis club. By 1944, she entered and won a tournament sponsored by the American Tennis Association (ATA), the African-American sports organization.
Gibson dominated the ATA tour and gained a scholarship to Florida A&M University. Though she was great at tennis, she was limited by what she could achieve because of segregation in the sport. In 1950, former world No. 1 player Alice Marble wrote an article criticizing the sport for its racism, and this led to tournaments opening their doors to Althea. In 1951, she was the first Black person to compete at Wimbledon and in 1952 the first to do so on home soil at the US Open.
Althea continued her winning ways becoming the No. 1 ranked players in the world in 1957. She would go on to raise the trophy at the French Open in 1956 and at Wimbledon and the US Open in 1957 and 1958. Her fighter mentality from the streets of Harlem made its way to the most prestigious tennis courts. Thriving in her tennis career she even had a brief stint playing golf, becoming the first Black woman to compete on the pro tour.
Gibson retired in 1971 and stayed active in sports in many service positions. Her last few years were marked by financial and health hardships and she passed in 2003. A quote of hers is written in stone at the US Open grounds, "I hope that I have accomplished just one thing: that I have been a credit to tennis and my country." Althea Gibson served well - on and off court.
