Word: harlem
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...polite plunk of tennis balls, the whisper of sneakers on trim grass courts, the tinkle of ice in frost-beaded glasses still recall the long-gone white-flannel age of the courts. There, next week, a lanky jumping jack of a girl who grew up in the slums of Harlem will play tennis. She may not belong to any of the clubs that run the tournament, but this year the tournament belongs to her. Behind Althea Gibson, women's tennis curves off into mediocrity: without her, the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association would not have much of a show...
Though she is near the top of a remarkable uphill career, suspicion still often lowers over the champ's warm, infrequent smile. It is only half an hour by subway from Harlem to Forest Hills, and in many ways Althea is still close to home...
...that the world has brightened for her, Harlem's harsh outlines occasionally soften for the reminiscent tournament traveler. "I remember you could get fish and chips for 15? and soda at 5? a quart. And there were sweet potatoes-we called 'em 'mickeys'-that we cooked at a fire over milk crates. We'd climb over the fence to a playground and we'd swing way up, two on a swing. And we'd sneak in the movies. If there was any poverty, I wasn't aware of it. How could...
...instructor that year was an unemployed musician named Buddy Walker, and Buddy was impressed with the gangly youngster's ferocious skill. He went to a friend named Van Houton (a tennis buff who liked to boast that he was the only self-employed racket stringer in Harlem), bought Althea a pair of secondhand rackets, and put her to work practicing against the wall of a handball court. A few weeks later he took her uptown to some public courts, and her performance was phenomenal. The other players quit their games to watch. In her first time on a tennis...
...when she recognized Boxer Sugar Ray Robinson in a Harlem bowling alley, Althea went up to him and said brashly: "You're Sugar Ray, aren't you? Well, I can beat you." The blunt greeting started a fast friendship. "Althea used to come over to our apartment and sit on the floor," says Sugar Ray's wife, Edna Mae. "She was unhappy; she had a gaunt build and she felt that she was the least good-looking girl she knew. She had insecurity and went into herself. She used to talk wild. I tried to make...