New York City is honoring tennis legend Althea Gibson with a street renaming on what would have been her 95th birthday. West 143rd Street between Malcom X and Adam Clayton Powell Junior boulevards in Harlem will now be known as Althea Gibson way.
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In a long overdue tribute to the first African American to break international tennis' color barrier, a new statue of Althea Gibson was unveiled at the opening day of the U.S. Open.
The statue is comprised of five granite blocks and created by American sculptor Eric Goulder. It sits outside Arthur Ashe Stadium at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens, New York.
In 1947, Gibson broke into the elite ranks of the tennis world winning the first 10 consecutive American Tennis Association women's titles. (The ATA was the tennis equivalent of baseball's Negro Leagues.) At the age of 23, Gibson became the first African American player to compete in the U.S. Nationals, the precursor to the U.S. Open, in 1950.
Between 1956 to 1958, Gibson made her mark. She won 11 majors, and was the first black player to win the French Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Nationals. When she retired in 1958, she was the top-ranked woman in tennis having won more than 50 singles and doubles championships.
Read more: New Statue At U.S. Open Honors African American Tennis Pioneer Althea Gibson
A tennis club for African American players that hosted International Tennis Hall of Famers Althea Gibson and Arthur Ashe is being honored with a historic marker.
The North Carolina Highway Historical Marker will be dedicated Thursday at the site of the Algonquin Tennis Club, which was created in 1922 by the American Tennis Association. The association was formed to support African American players who were then banned from the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association.
The members met in private homes for 12 years before the Algonquin Tennis Club House was purchased in 1934.
The club closed in 1964, and its historic clubhouse burned down several years later. The ceremony will be held at the W.D. Hill Recreation Center, located in the same area.
The Durham Committee on Negro Affairs was formed at the club in 1935 and remains active today as the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People.
The United States Tennis Association has announced that Althea Gibson, the first African American tennis player to win a Grand Slam singles title, will be memorialized with a statue in her honor on the grounds where the U.S. Open is played.
Gibson, an inductee into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1971 who died in 2003, won the 1956 French Open to make history and the next year she won the women's singles titles at Wimbledon and the U.S. Nationals, the precursor to the U.S. Open. She repeated the Wimbledon-U.S. double in 1958. Overall, she won a combined 11 Grand Slam titles in singles, doubles and mixed doubles during her illustrious career.
“It’s simple. She’s the Jackie Robinson of tennis; she deserves it,” USTA chair and president Katrina Adams said in a statement. “By breaking the color barrier, she made it possible for every person of color after her to have a chance to achieve their goals in the sport.”
The Gibson statue will be the second to commemorate a groundbreaking tennis icon and the third to honor an American tennis legend at the home of the U.S. Open in Flushing, N.Y., joining Arthur Ashe, whose statue was unveiled in 2000 and anchors the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, and King, for whom the tennis center was renamed in 2006.
“Althea Gibson is an American treasure and one of my most important heroes, and I am thrilled she will finally be honored at the National Tennis Center. … Our sport owes a great deal to Althea,” King said.
