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Times Weekly: “Althea” is a grand slam
“Sports fans, don’t miss this biography. Black history scholars, you want it. Tennis lovers, there’s a lot of tennis here, so make a racquet for it. Althea is a grand slam.”
Times Weekly Staff, “Althea: The Life Of Tennis Champion Althea Gibson,” Books, Times Weekly, August 16, 2023.
Good Reads: Best Books of the Week
Cybil, “7 New Books Recommended by Readers This Week,” Good Reads, August 15, 2023.
Post & Courier: Q&A with Sally Jacobs
“Many Americans are unaware of Althea Gibson and think Arthur Ashe was the first Black player to win a grand slam. In fact, Althea was not only the first, she also won a total of 11 grand slams in her 8-year tennis career, five of them in singles….
But Althea wasn’t done. In 1964 she broke a second racial barrier when she became the first Black woman to join the Ladies Professional Golf Association. She went on to cut a record, appear in a movie with John Wayne and serve as the New Jersey Athletic Commissioner, the first woman to do so. ”
Adam Parker, “Q&A with Sally Jacobs, author of ‘Althea,’ a biography of the trailblazing Black athlete,” Post and Courier, Aug 13, 2023.
Boston Globe: Sally H. Jacobs traces the arc of tennis star Althea Gibson, for whom fighting was a mode of survival
“For decades, Althea Gibson’s fame was inescapable.…
But by her death, alone and nearly destitute, at the age of 76 in 2003, she had been eclipsed by newer stars as well as by later groundbreakers like Arthur Ashe. Even Sally H. Jacobs, a former Globe reporter and the author of the new “Althea: The Life of Tennis Champion Althea Gibson,” hadn’t heard of her.”
Clea Simon, “Sally H. Jacobs, in her biography ‘Althea,’ traces the arc of tennis star Althea Gibson, for whom fighting was a mode of survival,” The Story Behind the Book, Boston Globe, August 10, 2023.
Smithsonian Magazine: Sports Legend Served Up Tennis History When She Broke Through
“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.…
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.”
Sally H. Jacobs, “Sports Legend Althea Gibson Served Up Tennis History When She Broke Through in 1950,” adapted from Althea: The Life of Tennis Champion Althea Gibson, WOMEN WHO SHAPED HISTORY: A Smithsonian magazine special report, Smithsonian Magazine, August 8, 2023.