Althea Gibson was born to sharecroppers in South Carolina in 1927. Her parents moved to Harlem in the Great Migration in 1930. She dropped out of school at age 13. She spent some of her time street-fighting (her father had taught her boxing). That same year she started playing tennis even though she did not like it at first and wanted to beat up the person who beat her. But she was a born tennis player and soon was dominating. At age 23, she became the first African-American to play in the U.S. Nationals (today the U.S. Open) after a campaign to allow her in. She became the first African-American to win a Grand Slam title (the French Open). In 1957, she won Wimbledon and became its first nonwhite champion. She was the first winner to receive the trophy from Queen Elizabeth II. She also won the U.S. Nationals and repeated the double win in 1958. Another African-American woman would not win the U.S. Open for another 43 years (Serena Williams). She was chosen Associated Press’ Female Athlete of the Year for both years. She won a total of 11 Grand Slam titles in her career. After retiring from tennis, she took up golf and was on the Ladies Professional Golf Tour, becoming its first African-American player. She had to battle racism as many hotels did not allow her to stay and some country clubs refused to allow her to compete. Sometimes she had to dress in her car because she could not go in the clubhouse. She was elected to the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. She was one of the first inductees (with Wilma Rudolph, Babe Didrikson Zaharias, Patty Berg, Gertrude Ederle, and Amelia Earhart(!)). In 1959, she played a slave in the John Wayne movie “The Horse Soldiers”. She refused to use a slave dialect. She has been mentioned with Wilma Rudolph as one of the most important black women when it came to breaking the color barrier.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Althea_Gibson
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/althea-gibson
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