Althea Gibson

I didn’t know this (the rejection, and the grass) about Maplewood.

From “The Athletic”:

Gibson had grown up as a solid athlete, though she told people she was better at basketball than tennis. By the time she entered Florida A&M University in 1949, she was a three-time national champion of the American Tennis Association, the tennis equivalent of Negro League Baseball in the days when the USTA did not allow Black players. The ATA remains a thriving association that holds tournaments and supports the development of players of color throughout the U.S.

Gibson’s growing reputation earned her an invitation to the National Indoor Championships, where she made the finals. After that performance, the chatter began in tennis circles about whether she would receive one of the 56 invitations to the U.S. National Championships, which is what the U.S. Open was called then.

The committee of the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association, now the USTA, based its invitations on how players performed during the American summer grass court swing at private clubs in Newport, R.I., East Hampton, South Orange and Maplewood. Those clubs did not allow Black players to participate in their tournaments, which were invitationals. This institutional Catch-22 made it impossible for Gibson to build a case to receive an invitation.

In her autobiography, Gibson wrote about biding her time rather than choosing to agitate. Like Ashe, who in his early career had to walk a line between public agitation for civil rights and the muffling expectations of the sport which he played, Gibson did not view herself as a figurehead.

I have never regarded myself as a crusader. I try to do the best I can in every situation I find myself in, and naturally I’m always glad when something I do turns out to be helpful and important to all Negroes or, for that matter, to all Americans, or maybe only to all tennis players. But I don’t consciously beat the drums for any special cause, not even the cause of the Negro in the United States, because I feel that our best chance to advance is to prove ourselves as individuals. That way, when you are accepted, you are accepted voluntarily, because people appreciate you and respect you and want you, not because you have been shoved down their throats.

This doesn’t mean that I’m opposed to the fight for integration of the schools or other movements like that. It simply means that in my own career I try to steer clear of political involvements and make my way as Althea Gibson, private individual. I feel that if I am a worthy person, and if I have something worthwhile to contribute, I will be accepted on my own merits, and that is the way I want it. Of course, acceptance doesn’t always come easily, which is probably the understatement of the century.

Gibson had an ally on the other side of the club gates. Alice Marble, one of the top White American players of the first half of the 20th century, believed that Gibson deserved an invitation to the U.S. National Championships and wrote an opinion piece on the topic in American Lawn Tennis Magazine.

“If tennis is a game for ladies and gentlemen, it’s also time we acted a little more like gentlepeople and less like sanctimonious hypocrites,” Marble wrote. “If there is anything left in the name of sportsmanship, it’s more than time to display what it means to us. If Althea Gibson represents a challenge to the present crop of women players, it’s only fair that they should meet that challenge on the courts, where tennis is played.

“She might be soundly beaten for a while but she has a much better chance on the courts than in the inner sanctum of the committee, where a different kind of game is played.”

After the letter appeared, Gibson decided to test the waters. She applied to a tournament at the Maplewood Country Club in New Jersey. The club rejected her for lack of record.

But then Orange Lawn broke the dam, allowing her to play in the Eastern Grass Court Championships, the second-most important American tournament behind Forest Hills. A decent showing and the USLTA’s hands would be tied. She won a match against Virginia Rice Johnson, lost the next one, but then made the quarterfinals at the National Clay Court Championships in Chicago. Her tennis talked.

The big news came in the middle of August, and although the USLTA announced it in a very matter-of-fact fashion, there was nothing matter of fact about it to me. Lawrence A. Baker, who was the president of the association that year, said that I was one of the fifty-two women whose entries had been accepted for the national championship tournament, and he added meaningfully, “Miss Gibson has been accepted on her ability.” That was all I had ever asked.