New York City has honored tennis legend Althea Gibson–the first Black tennis player to win a Grand Slam title–with a street renaming in her hometown of Harlem.
On Aug. 25, Gibson was honored with a street now named Althea Gibson Way, at the intersection of West 143rd Street and Malcolm X Boulevard–where she grew up. It was unveiled at a special ceremony in front of her old apartment building on what would’ve been her 95th birthday.
The tennis legend’s family attended the momentous event and reportedly received a replica of her new street sign. There, her great-niece, Sonia Melvin, told reporters how much Gibson meant to the family.
“She was just auntie to us,” Melvin told NBC News. “I mean, she wasn’t this big icon to us, but we loved her.”
Gibson’s grand-niece Crystal Thorne added that despite her groundbreaking tennis achievements, she’s still unknown to many.
“Sometimes, I’ll say Althea Gibson is my great-aunt, and they’ll be like, ‘Who’s that?'” Thorne said.
However, former president and CEO of the U.S. Tennis Association, Katrina Adams, has reportedly been determined to keep the tennis great’s name alive.
“It is imperative that we keep her name alive,” she insisted at the Harlem ceremony. “It’s the next generation that needs to know that before Coco, Venus, Serena, Chanda, me, Lori, Zina and Leslie was Althea. Why? Because Althea came first.”
Gibson, born to sharecroppers in North Carolina in 1927, moved to the historically Black enclave of Harlem in 1929. Years later, in 1941, she was introduced to the Harlem River Tennis Courts, where she honed her skills. In 1950, she became the first African American to compete in what is now known as the U.S. Open and was also the first Black person to win a Grand Slam tournament in what is now known as the French Open. In 1957, she went on to become the first Black player to win Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, and in 1971, she was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
Gibson tragically passed away from respiratory failure in 2003 at 76.
