Althea Gibson was a trailblazer, a phenomenal tennis player who won Wimbledon twice in the 1950s, the first black woman to do so. But she was so much more than that: a professional golfer, a musician and an actor.
At a time when segregation in the United States relegated black people as second-class citizens, here was a woman who, having grown up in the poorest part of New York City, became the best tennis player in the world.
And yet, for all her achievements, which included being the first black woman ever to be a professional golfer – after her tennis career was over – Gibson struggled throughout her life, even considering suicide at one point.
Her incredible story is told in 'The Forgotten Pioneer', one of five stories documented by Wimbledon in a series of podcasts called 'Join The Story'. It features Gibson herself, her friends, opponents and five-time Wimbledon singles champion Venus Williams.
Born in South Carolina in 1927, Gibson and her family moved to New York to try to escape the Great Depression. They ended up in Harlem, where life was tough.
I only ever had opportunity. Althea had no opportunity and absolutely no chance. What she did was just incredible
The podcast charts her childhood in one of the poorest slums of New York, her days playing paddle tennis on the streets as she tried to plot her way out of poverty.
Venus Williams reads excerpts from Gibson’s autobiography, I Always Wanted To Be Somebody, and admits that she and her younger sister Serena would not be where they are today if Gibson had not blazed a trail four decades before. “I only ever had opportunity,” Venus says. “Althea had no opportunity and absolutely no chance... so to accomplish what she accomplished is really nothing short of a miracle. What she did was just incredible.”
The daughter of sharecroppers in South Carolina, a job considered one step away from slavery, Gibson was physically strong and determined to be the best at whatever she put her mind to. Her father, Daniel, taught her to box, and film director Rex Miller, who made the film Althea, says her aggressive style of play was “honed on the play streets of Harlem”.
“If you won, you got to stay on the court, whether it was basketball or tiddlywinks, it was win or go home,” he says. “Althea used to brag about that paddle tennis court, she and her partner would hold that court all day long because she refused to lose. She was playing for her life, trying to create a life and existence out of this game, to get her out of the poverty she grew up with.”
Aged 12, Gibson was entrusted, with the approval of her parents, into the care of two prominent black doctors, Dr Walter Johnson and Dr Hubert Eaton, who were looking to promote the careers of promising black athletes. The move to North Carolina was a culture shock for Gibson but it was one that would be the springboard for her success.
Segregation was at its height in the 1950s in the US, but Gibson wanted to let her racket do the talking. Banned from national events because of her colour, Gibson might never have become a tennis player if it wasn’t for Alice Marble, an American who won Wimbledon in 1939.
As Gibson says in the podcast: “The greatest help I got in being accepted as the first negro was from Alice Marble, the great champion. She wrote an open letter, denouncing the USTA at that time for not permitting me to enter. After that I entered and you know the rest.”
In a stellar career, Gibson won the French Championships in 1956 and the US Open in 1957 and 1958. But it was her Wimbledon wins in 1957 and 1958 that really put her on the world map. Her friend Angela Buxton, who as a 15-year-old had first seen her practising at London’s Queen’s Club, describes her playing style and attitude. “She always expected to win, she was always in awe of her own talent, which is very unusual, really, and that was very off-putting to players,” she says.
Gibson told Buxton she was going to win Wimbledon so the British player helped her pick out a dress for the ball. “She said she was going to win, and needed a dress,” Buxton recalls. “I said, if you’re going to win you’ve got to dress properly.”
With racial tensions rising in America, people looked to Gibson to make a stand but she wanted to be a role model through her life and her racket, not her voice. “Her heart wasn’t to try and put that straight, to get equal rights for negroes, that wasn’t her objective or exercise at all,” Buxton says. “Her objective was to beat every bloody person she could lay her hands on and show that she was the queen bee, so to speak.”
Gibson had the tennis world at her feet but in 1958, professional tennis was still a decade away and making money was hard. She picked up cash for exhibition matches but she retired in late 1958. After cutting a jazz album, she appeared in a film alongside Hollywood legend John Wayne. In 1964, she made sporting history as the first black woman to play professional golf.
But despite a brief attempt at a comeback when tennis became Open in 1968, her tennis exploits were forgotten and, in her 60s, she hit rock-bottom when her money ran out. As Buxton recalls, things got so bad that at one stage she considered taking her own life. “She said: ‘I’ve just phoned you to say goodbye, Angela,” Buxton says. “I said, oh, where are you going, and she said, I’m going to kill myself. I’ve got no money, I can’t pay the rent, can’t buy food, nothing I can do with it. I said I’ll send the money and don’t kill yourself, go and buy the rent and buy some food, which I did.”
She always expected to win, she was always in awe of her own talent, which is very unusual, really, and that was very off-putting to players
Buxton wrote to Tennis Week magazine highlighting the plight of the former champion and Gibson was astounded to receive more than $1million in donations from fans around the world, sent in different currencies. She died, of natural causes, in 2003 at the age of 76 but was able to enjoy her final years. “It was a miracle in my lifetime, it really was,” Buxton says. “And she got enough money to buy a beautiful car, bring her bedroom downstairs, get a big television, it helped her survive.”
If her achievements were overlooked for many years, the tennis world is finally catching up with her incredible career. She will be honoured at the US Open later this year when a monument is unveiled at the National Tennis Center in her name.
What would Gibson have made of today’s players? Her friend, Lenny Simpson, has no doubt. “She would say... I think I could take any of those girls that are on the Tour right now. I would show them I should have been noticed then, and now, because I think I could beat any of them right now and I could make a comeback. And she’d have meant it too.”
'Join The Story' is available wherever you get your podcasts