It was the summer of 1990, and Zina Garrison, the first Black woman to reach the final Saturday at Wimbledon since Althea Gibson 32 years prior, was soon to walk onto Centre Court and take on Martina Navratilova for the ladies’ singles title.
Leslie Allen, the former WTA player, Garrison contemporary and first Black woman after Gibson to win a tour-level title, was sitting alongside Garrison working public relations when they both heard someone approach the upstairs locker room. Gibson, who was flown over to London by TV executives to witness the historic occasion, was making her way towards the women who carried the torch for Black women in professional tennis immediately after her playing days, and before reaching Garrison to offer words of encouragement, Gibson, her 5-foot-11 frame still cutting an imposing and awe-inspiring figure while walking the grounds of SW19, gazed at the chewed-up-yet-still-hallowed grass and uttered a comment within earshot of her mentees, one that resonates with Allen to this day.
“I looked out at Centre Court and saw my footprints,” said Allen to USOpen.org, recalling what an assertive Gibson said just minutes before that final.
Aug. 25 is what would have been Althea Gibson’s 98th birthday, and the US Open, where Gibson broke tennis’ color barrier when she participated in the 1950 event (then called the U.S. National Championships), is celebrating her legacy at this year’s tournament as 2025 marks the 75th anniversary of her maiden appearance at the Grand Slam.
Despite her unquestioned status as a pioneer and tennis legend, as well as becoming a Grand Slam champion more than a full decade before Arthur Ashe, Gibson’s legacy has been largely neglected, unrecognized or unheard almost since the days she topped the tennis world—even with recognized figures such as Billie Jean King asserting, “If it hadn’t been for her, it wouldn’t have been so easy for Arthur or the ones who followed.”
Ashe, the namesake of the US Open’s showpiece and 1968 winner, once again of Gibson: “Althea Gibson, of course, was the pioneer. She was the one who had the courage to be the first, and when she did that, she made it possible for all the rest of us."
You’ve surely heard of King and Ashe, and they made sure during their time that you heard of Gibson, who accomplished all of her feats before the United States was coming to grips with the social reckonings of the civil rights and women’s liberation movements in the decade following Gibson’s tennis success.
At the very least, one small birthday present we can offer is a glimpse into Gibson’s impact—especially to the thousands who will walk the grounds of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center and the millions tuning in over the next two weeks—to ensure that everyone watching understands the essence of the person behind the statue in front of the US Open’s main showcourt or a silhouette on the tournament’s official program.
Six years after breaking the sport’s color barrier, Gibson became the first Black tennis player to win a Grand Slam, winning the singles and doubles titles at Roland Garros. The following year, Gibson won the first of back-to-back singles titles at Wimbledon and at the US Open, throwing in a three-peat of Wimbledon doubles crowns with three different partners—Angela Buxton, Darlene Hard and Maria Bueno.
Those titles were won in London, Paris and New York City. But they were forged under the tutelage of the American Tennis Association (ATA)—the oldest African American sports organization in the United States, based in Largo, Md.—and perfected in Lynchburg, Va.
It was in Lynchburg where Gibson, who had won 10 straight ATA national championships starting in 1947, teamed up with Dr. Robert Johnson, a physician who was active in the African American tennis community. Johnson founded a tennis camp for Black children, hired instructors, and, eventually, coached both Gibson and Ashe. The “camp” was a house on 1422 Pierce Street, with just one tennis court sitting adjacent to it, yet it produced two of the greatest tennis Grand Slam champions who both spent time there training together.
"I knew that I was an unusual, talented girl, through the grace of God," Gibson once wrote. "I didn't need to prove that to myself. I only wanted to prove it to my opponents."
Many of the opponents she referenced were out of reach, effectively barred from the U.S. National Championships (now the US Open). Though the USTA’s laws at the time prohibited racial or ethnic discrimination, qualifying for the National Championships entailed accumulating points at sanctioned tournaments, which were held at white-only clubs. Lobbying from the ATA and former US Open champion Alice Marble helped to persuade the National Championships to extend an invitation to Gibson for the 1950 tournament, and just a few years later, she was their champion.
After her Wimbledon victory in 1957, Gibson received a ticker-tape parade down New York City’s “Canyon of Heroes” on Broadway, where it was reported that over 100,000 people attended. After her tennis career, Gibson took up golf and became the first Black woman to earn her LPGA card in 1964.
In terms of her gifted athleticism, Gibson was on a par with another woman who just preceded her, Mildred Didrikson Zaharias, whose multi-sport prowess earned her mythical status to the point where she was bestowed the nickname “Babe,” after larger-than-life baseball hero George Herman “Babe” Ruth. The accolades and financial opportunities offered to Zaharias should have also been bestowed onto Gibson.
However…
She was a Black woman, in a segregated United States, and unwilling to talk publicly about the social ills of the country as it related to the treatment of minorities and underrepresented groups.
To Gibson’s friends and contemporaries, that amounted to strikes one, two and three.
“Althea being a woman, was breaking the color barrier in a time where obviously the country was still segregated and also sexist. And women athletes were not revered like they are today,” Allen told USOpen.org. “Black women who are tall, powerful, or articulate, were intimidating on the court and off the court, which was one of the reasons why she was ostracized.”
Ashe, almost 16 years Gibson’s junior, used his platform to raise issues of civil rights while he was playing and after his retirement. One of Gibson’s former golf partners during some exhibitions, the trailblazing Jackie Robinson, also was outspoken post-retirement about his experiences with racism while a ball player and what he experienced after, which endeared both him and Ashe, let alone someone like Muhammad Ali, to Black media and many other civil rights allies.
“The typical thing was for an African American to be the spokesperson for their race. When Althea was playing, Emmett Till was getting lynched,” Allen said. “So that's why they sent Althea on a State Department tour around the world: here's a positive image of a black person while we’re hanging people from trees. She wanted to be a tennis player. ‘I am a tennis player. I'm not the spokesperson fo Black people.’ And everybody was always trying to put a mic in her hand to be that.
“Arthur, on the other hand, was interested in [talking about those issues],” Allen continued. “Not that Althea wasn't interested, but Arthur was willing to be a political advocate or civil rights advocate. Not that Althea wasn't, but she didn't have to be vocal about it, she didn't have to be out front about it.”
And it’s not that Gibson did not have any thoughts about her status as a pariah with achievements that nary any woman of any background could make a reasonable comparison to the tennis No. 1.
“I saw that white tennis players, some of whom I had thrashed on the court, were picking up offers and invitations,” Gibson wrote in 1968. “Suddenly, it dawned on me that my triumphs had not destroyed the racial barriers definitively … Or, if I did destroy them, they had been erected behind me again.”
The way Gibson’s life should be celebrated, when she was on this Earth and after her passing in 2003 at 76, has a blueprint that’s been executed, with the ticker-tape parade being an example. Allen recalls being in Benin City, Nigeria, for a tennis tournament in the early 1980s, and before the event started, there was a ceremony in honor of Gibson.
The event had “gravitas and an appreciation of Althea,” according to Allen, from tennis racquets being brought out on red velvet cushions to Gibson being feted with a performance by African dancers. That event again showed Allen what Gibson had wanted for all of the Black tennis players that came after her.
“[Althea] said that her purpose had been to bust down the door, and that if you think of the horn of plenty … she was that ball at the end. [She] busted down the door, and each generation that comes gets more and more and more,” Allen said. “I was somewhere along in there, then Zina, Lori [McNeil], Chanda [Rubin], Venus [Williams], Serena [Williams]. It just keeps going and going, but we're all connected.”
That connection was not lost on Venus Williams, another tall, awe-inspiring Black woman who today is a champion for her tennis greatness and work in the fight for equal prize money. Yet, she would not have been regarded as such during Althea’s time. Before embarking on her 25th US Open appearance, Williams stressed the importance of honoring her tennis progenitor in the lead-up to this year’s event.
“I think the most important part is that we are celebrating it and recognizing it, because Althea accomplished so much, and a lot of it has not been given the credit it deserves and the attention and the praise,” Williams said. “I think that's the most important part to me, just shining light on it and seeing, just acknowledging that.”
When Williams—or Coco Gauff or Naomi Osaka or Madison Keys or, as a visitor, Serena Williams—takes the court inside the biggest stadium in the sport, the image of a Black tennis champion walking onto the playing surface of the arena bearing the name of a Black tennis pioneer and civil rights icon, Arthur Ashe, will forever make lasting impressions on the next generation. But if those players, and the future Black stars of tomorrow, look a little closer, there’s at least one indelible image that they may take notice of also.
Althea Gibson’s footsteps.
Happy Birthday.
