The first black woman to win the U.S. Open - Part II

May 7, 2010

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She was clever and smart, her high &#&school graduation&#& was in 1950 and she graduated from &#&Florida A&M University&#& in 1953. After this she became an athletic instructor at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri.

However it was a struggle for her to get by, unfortunately tennis tournaments outside the ATA remained closed to her, and there were moments when she even thought of leaving sports all together to join U.S. Army.

During those times high level, top tennis was white-dominated and white-managed in the U.S. as well as it was all around the world, until 1950, when white tennis player, Alice Mable, former No. 1 herself, wrote an article in American Lawn Tennis magazine, noting the absurd attitudes her beloved sport adopted by denying a player of Gibson's caliber to participate in the better-known championships, for no reason other than "bigotry."

Sometime justice is slow, but there are curious ways by which it shows her benefits. Alice Mable's article was a success and it was widely spread. Because of it later that year, Althea Gibson entered the Forest Hills, New York, national grass court championship, becoming the first African American player of either sex to be allowed to enter.

Gibson then became the first African American invited to enter the all-England tournament at Wimbledon, playing there in 1951. Only a year later, she was a Top 10 player in the U.S. She then climbed even higher, to No. 7 in 1953.

In 1956, she won the French Open. In the same year, she toured worldwide as a member of a national tennis team supported by the U.S. State Department. Wimbledon and U.S. Open titles followed in 1957 and 1958. In all, Gibson powered her way to 56 singles and doubles championships before turning pro in 1959.

She won the women's professional singles title in 1960 but just as importantly, she started to make money. She also began playing professional women's golf for a short time, making history again as the first black woman ever to compete on the pro tour, and she appeared in several films. Serving from 1973 on in various national and New Jersey positions in tennis and recreation she won plenty of honors.

Althea Gibson's achievement was unique, as the first African American of either sex to break the color bar in national and international tournament tennis at a time when prejudice and racism were far more pervasive in society and sports.

Other African American tennis players like Arthur Ashe and the Williams sisters followed Gibson.

In the mid 1990s, Althea Gibson suffered from serious health problems including a stroke and finally she died on Sunday, September 28, 2003. Fortunately it happened not before she knew about the tennis victories of Serena and Venus Williams.