▀Gibson, Althea1927╨tennis playerBorn on August 25, 1927, in Silver, South Carolina, Althea Gibson grew up there and in New York City. She began playing tennis at an early age under the auspices of the New York Police Athletic League and in 1943 won the state Negro girls╒ singles championship. Five years later she won the national Negro women╒s title and held it for ten consecutive years. While attending Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University she continued to play in tournaments around the country and in 1950 became the first African-American tennis player to enter the national grass court championship tournament at Forest Hills, Long Island. The next year she entered the prestigious All-England tournament at Wimbledon, again as the first African-American ever invited. She graduated from Florida A. & M. in 1953 and was appointed an athletic instructor at Lincoln University, Jefferson City, Missouri. Until 1956 Gibson had only fair success in match tennis play, winning several minor titles but no major ones. In that year she joined a tennis team sent on a world goodwill tour by the State Department, and on the tour her game suddenly jelled. She won a number of tournaments in Asia and Europe, including the French and Italian singles titles and the women╒s doubles title at Wimbledon. In 1957 she returned to Wimbledon to win the women╒s singles and doubles titles. She was welcomed home with a ticker-tape reception in New York City. Later in the year she took the U.S. women╒s singles championship at Forest Hills. She repeated all three victories in 1958 and in both years was a member of the successful U.S. Wightman Cup team. Having overcome considerable early racial prejudice and having worked her way, on the strength of her smashing serves and deft returns, to top rank in world amateur tennis, she turned professional in 1959. She won the women╒s professional singles title in 1960, and she later took up professional golf as well. Her autobiography, I Always Wanted to Be Somebody, appeared in 1958. In 1971 she was elected to the National Lawn Tennis Hall of Fame. In 1973 she became national director of and technical adviser to a program to bring tennis to inner-city children. From November 1975 to January 1977 she served as New Jersey state athletic commissioner. She ran unsuccessfully for the New Jersey legislature in 1977. She was recreation manager for the city of East Orange, New Jersey, from 1980 to 1983 and has been a special consultant on the New Jersey Governor's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports since 1988. She was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame, 1971, the Black Athletes Hall of Fame, 1974, the South Carolina Hall of Fame, 1983, and the Florida Sports Hall of Fame, 1984. «styl ` ! ¬ 5¬ 5¬ $ !I ú 5¬ ñ !I ╓ !I ⌠ !I link `
