Denkyiraman Association of N.E.

We named our daughter after her. She is ALTHEA ASARE BEDIAKO.

Born in 1927 to a family of sharecroppers in South Carolina, Althea Gibson worked hard for everything in her life. During the Great Depression her family moved to Harlem, where she eventually dropped out of school and ran away from home. She lived in a Catholic shelter for abused children, spending her days playing basketball, street fighting, and seeing movies. She was thirteen. She had found some success playing paddle tennis, winning a tournament as a girl, but Gibson disliked the game. She thought it was for “weak people.” Thanks to some concerned neighbors, and her inherent talent, Gibson soon found that she was not only a good tennis player, but unusually skilled. She quickly became one of the top tennis players in the United States. Unfortunately many of her best years came officially while she was an amateur. While national tennis rules forbade explicit racial discrimination, the only way to become a pro player was by accumulating points via competition at tournaments. And because most clubs were “whites only” getting the points proved to be exceedingly difficult.

Due to public outcry, as well as the testimonial of tennis great Alice Marble, Gibson was eventually allowed to compete in the U.S. Nationals (today the U.S. Open). She was the first black American to ever play on the court, and though she lost to the defending champion in the second round, Gibson proved she belonged on the sport’s biggest stage. In the next few years she became the first black person to win a Grand Slam tournament, the first black person to win at Wimbledon, and then in 1958 the first black person to win the U.S. Nationals. Unfortunately as successful as she had become at tennis, her victories didn’t bring her much money. Even when she became a pro, Gibson had to resort to exhibitions of her skills to get by. This is in part why she later broke the color barrier again, by becoming the first black woman to play golf professionally. Unlike with Jackie Robinson and baseball, tennis (and golf) remained an almost exclusively white sport for some time. But thanks to Gibson paving the way, figures like Arthur Ashe, as well as Serena and Venus Williams were able to find success. She was a true champion.