Althea Gibson

Althea Gibson (1927-2003), American professional tennis player and golfer. The first black player to win major national tennis titles, Gibson was a pioneer for all black athletes.

Gibson was born in Silver, South Carolina. When she was three years old her family moved to the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. Gibson played paddle tennis on the city’s streets before moving on to regular tennis. She became a star player in the sport, which was then mostly segregated, winning a series of titles in the all-black American Tennis Association (ATA). In 1946 Gibson moved to North Carolina to work on her game. There she developed fast footwork and a powerful serve.

During the 1950s Gibson began playing in tournaments sponsored by the United States Lawn Tennis Association (later renamed United States Tennis Association), competitions that had previously been restricted to white players. In 1950 Gibson competed in the U.S. National Championships (later to become the U.S. Open) in Forest Hills, New York, the first black player ever to do so. The next year she became the first black participant at the Lawn Tennis Championships in Wimbledon, England.

Gibson struggled for several years in the early 1950s, but a tennis tour of Southeast Asia in 1955 revitalized her career. In 1956 she became the first black player to win the singles championship at the French national championships (later known as the French Open). The following year she won singles and doubles championships at both Wimbledon and the U.S. National Championships, earning Female Athlete of the Year honors from the Associated Press (AP). In 1958 she again won the women’s singles events at Wimbledon and Forest Hills. No black woman won the U.S. Open singles title again until 1999, when American Serena Williams accomplished the feat.

Because of the limited professional opportunities for female tennis players at the time, Gibson retired from the sport in 1959. An outstanding natural athlete, she played on the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) tour in the 1960s and 1970s but never won a tournament. Gibson was elected to the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1971.