When Althea Gibson stepped onto the patio of the iconic clubhouse at the West Side Tennis Club in 1950, a pair of tennis rackets clasped tightly to her chest, she had arrived at the venerated mecca of tennis in America. Here, at this exclusive, whites-only, members-only retreat in Forest Hills, Queens, the a 23-year-old from Harlem was to become the first African American to compete in the U.S. National Championships, known today as the U.S. Open. Before her lay acres of green velvet grass courts, the playground of many tennis champions. On the flagstone patio, shaded by trim blue-and-yellow awnings, members sipped frosted Rumba cocktails as the nation’s most prestigious tournament got underway.
It was a place that, like many other public and private venues, denied Black people access. That changed when Gibson boldly strode onto the court.
Her barrier-breaking appearance at the West Side Tennis club foretold her legendary career, which over the next decade would grow to include 11 Grand Slam victories.
But in 1950, lest there be any doubt that the organizers of the competition considered Gibson inferior, United States Lawn Tennis Association officials had dispatched her to Court No. 14, a remote court used largely for practice matches, never mind that her presence at the event and her physical appearance—with short hair and white tennis attire against her brown skin—generated much interest. Headlines often described as the “Harlem Negro Girl.”
Steeling herself before the explosion of flashbulbs that greeted her, a nervous Gibson headed to the distant court where she was to play what was the most significant match of her career to date. As reporter Lester Rodney of The Daily Worker put it, “No Negro player, man or woman, has ever set foot on one of these courts. In many ways, it is even a tougher personal Jim Crow-busting assignment than was Jackie Robinson’s when he first stepped out of the Brooklyn Dodgers dugout. It’s always tougher for a woman.”
Some members of the press believed that the club managers, whom Milton Gross of the New York Post dubbed “the staid and starchy puffballs running the tennis championships,” had deliberately slighted Gibson. Not only had she been assigned a court with limited seating, but news photographers were also permitted to shoot their flashes off throughout the match, a violation of club tradition, potentially distracting Gibson and her opponent in the critical opening points.