First African American Tennis Players To Win Wimbledon

Posted: 9/6/2015

Trigger

Just watched parts of PBS American Masters Althea Gibson. Very fascinating how this woman become to be the best female tennis player of her time in 1957.

Only in 1975, Arthur Ashe won the male contest at Wimbledon.

Implications

The importance of the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964 is quite overblown. African Americans were advancing without the heavy hand of the federal government.

I am not sure whether the above documentary also showed the influence and importance of the trainer of Althea Gibson and Arthur Ashe and many other African-American tennis players of that time. On the webpage to this documentary we read “Though a talented tennis player, Gibson was a street kid who lacked the genteel manner associated with the sport. It was under the tutelage of Dr. Hubert Eaton of Wilmington, NC and Dr. Robert W. Johnson [1899-1971] of Lynchburg, VA, two African American physicians who loved tennis and helped young African Americans who wanted to play, that she flourished.” Dr. Johnson probably deserves a documentary of his own. Wikipedia says about Dr. Johnson: “Known as the "godfather" of black tennis, Johnson founded an all-expenses-paid tennis camp for African-American children and hired instructors.[2] In these years in the segregated South, they had no public courts where they could learn tennis, and many did not have money for lessons. Johnson was instrumental in encouraging the athletic careers of both Althea Gibson and Arthur Ashe, whom he personally coached.”