I first met “Champ” (as I called her) more than 65 years ago at Shady Rest, a small, black-owned country club in Scotch Plains, N.J. For years I called her on her birthday to celebrate another year, and we spoke of many things. These past few years, as her strength began to wane, the conversations grew shorter, but Althea Gibson, who died on September 28, 2003, never lost her strong spirit. She was a fighter.
We know that Althea’s march to greatness was not an easy road. The daughter of sharecroppers on a South Carolina cotton farm, she joined the exodus north to Harlem at the onset of the Great Depression. There she struggled to “be somebody,” as she wrote in her autobiography. At the time when the 9-year-old Althea began honing her skills on the paddle tennis court on her block, dozens of African-Americans were still being lynched—24 in 1933 alone. She had to be a fighter.
As Althea was beginning to develop her interest in tennis in the early 1940s, World War II was being fought by young men who slept in segregated barracks. After the war, when I mustered out of the Marines with a group of guys, some with shrapnel still in their bodies, none of us could sit where we chose in a movie theatre. Brown v. Board of Education was a decade away. And even in the 1950s many of us still could not apply for certain jobs, buy decent housing or register to vote. And very few African-Americans were to be found on tennis courts. But that didn’t stop Althea. She battled her way through the racism and sexism of those times with only natural talent and profound determination as her weapons.
None can deny Althea her place in tennis history, but we must be mindful that her breaking of the color barrier in winning Wimbledon and the U.S. Championships in 1957 was played against the backdrop of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Little Rock Nine’s desegregation of Central High School. As longtime friend Fran Gray noted in Althea’s obituary, Althea may have won the grandest titles, but she was still refused a room at the hotels.
But Althea has been far more than a highlight in our history books. She has been the inspiration for others who, like her, just wanted to be somebody. We may say that everyone stands on someone’s shoulders, people like Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks and Percy Ellis Sutton, who ran for New York City mayor in 1977. And a great many—Arthur Ashe among them—have stood on the shoulders of Althea Gibson: Zina Garrison. Leslie Allen. Venus and Serena Williams. Tiger Woods. Billie Jean King. Chanda Rubin. Lori McNeil. Sloane Stephens. And countless others—chauffeurs and doctors, diplomats and waiters, students and teachers. They have all stood on Althea’s shoulders. All have honored her legacy through their personal and professional excellence, and that is how she would wish to be remembered.
Through her 76 years, Althea built many bridges to ease our crossing, and her efforts and her example will never be forgotten.
We honor her today as a true champion, She fought the good fight, she finished her course, she kept the faith and now she will long be remembered. Game … set … and match.
It is said that service to others is the rent we pay for our space on Earth. Althea Gibson departed us paid in full. Let her not look down and find any of us in arrears.
David N. Dinkins is the 106th mayor of New York City.