Housekeeping!

via graphicfairy

We’re making some changes behind the scenes, cleaning things up and, for the most part, you won’t even know how busy we are with one exception:

We have to swap podcast players on every shownote we have on this website and it’s going to take us a bit. If the episode that you’re trying to play ON THIS SITE ONLY isn’t working, it just means we haven’t gotten there yet, but we will!

There will be no interruption of our episodes on most podcatchers like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, CastBox, Google Podcasts, Podcast Addict…etc. (you get the point.) The only place that we are no longer available is Wondery+ (and if you’re one of the very few who listened there, we’re very sorry about that!)

XO

Beckett and Susan

Episode 246: Althea Gibson, Part Two

When we left Althea in part one, she was 24 and after years of training, practice, competition, and a village of supporters working with her and behind the scenes, she was finally invited to the American Lawn Tennis Association Championship at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium in New York in 1950! Getting to this national tournament wasn’t easy, but few things in Althea’s life are.

It wasn’t easy to get to Forest Hills, or through college, or onto a short-lived career as a college physical education teacher…it wasn’t even easy to get her application through to become a WAC, a member of the military Women’s Army Corps, a position that never fully panned out for Althea. She was floundering in her life and ready to give up tennis when she was tapped by the US State Department for a Goodwill Tour to Asia, along with three other tennis players.

This travel led Althea to travel on her own throughout Europe to play in tournaments, improve her game, and play with the best competition in the world! Soon she became that competition for others, winning her first major tournament in France then on to the oldest in the world: Wimbledon. She cracked through racial barriers, gender barriers, and economic barriers to win scores of tournaments including 11 “Grand Slam” tournaments: five singles titles, five doubles titles, and one mixed doubles title.

Althea’s first Wimbledon singles victory, Queen Elizabeth’s first Wimbledon 1957

With Darlene Hard, singles runner-up Wimbledon 1957
After Wimbledon in 1957, the first person of color to win the oldest tennis tournament in the world, NYC welcomed back their own daughter with a ticker tape parade.
Althea made two appearances on the Ed Sullivan show, this is after her historic Wimbledon win

But competitive tennis in the 1950s was for amateurs only, and Althea couldn’t support herself playing the game she loved by competition, so she retired in 1958 and crafted an interesting life recording an album, appearing twice on the Ed Sullivan Show, writing an autobiography, acting, and modeling for ads until she landed a five-year run touring with the Harlem Globetrotters to play exhibition games. When that ended, she began to hit a different type of ball when she toured with the Ladies Pro Golfer Association (LPGA.)

Her second Ed Sullivan appearance and she sings!

Althea gave tennis clinics and talks about being a Black, female athlete for the rest of her life.

The remainder of her life was full of struggles and successes…just like the years that came before. Althea Gibson died on September 28, 2003, she was 76 years old.

If you click on through to YouTube, the whole album will be waiting for you!

Biographies we liked:

By Sally Jacobs
by Ashley Brown
By Frances Clayton Gray and Yanick Rice Lamb
About Althea and Angela Buxton by Bruce Schoenfeld
First autobiography
Second autobiography

Kid books we liked:

By Sue Stauffacher and Greg Couch
By Lesa Cline-Ransome

We have a Pinterest board for every subject, it’s a glorious place to dive into some rabbit Holes! Here is Althea’s!

Alice Marble was an important figure in Althea’s story… but she was also one for Wonder Woman’s (and all women of history!)

Lady Boxing has a long history, here’s a place to start your tumble down this rabbit hole!

Rudyard Kipling’s poem, If, two lines of which are over the entrance to Centre Court at Wimbledon.

The history of “play streets” like the ones Althea learned paddle tennis on, how to visit Wimbledon

Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture online exhibit about Althea, and she’s represented at the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island (to access the museum’s Metaverse, go to the VISIT page and scroll down.)

Resilient Grace is an online retailer with a mission of telling the stories of historic, African American women (Susan has a few of her shirts including the Shirley Chisholm one that she wears when she votes!)

This is the kind of sports jersey we can get behind!

There are a couple documentaries out there, Althea is on Peacock, and there is an American Masters, PBS one available on AppleTV+ and Prime (and maybe other services, that’s the two we watched.)

Quick links to our coverage of two previous subjects mentioned in Althea’s story: Babe Didrikson Zaherias and Fannie Lou Hamer

Our 2024 Field Trips to Austria and Paris are both sold out, and there are just a few spaces for our New York trip in September. There, we will also have a Locals’ Meet-up Dinner Cruise that’s open for reservations now. If you’re interested in any of these, please see Like Minds Travel for information and to sign up!

Break Music: Slow Cookin’ by Joe Smith and the Spicy Pickles; End Song: Play the Game by Lilly Wolf used by permission from iLicense Music.

Episode 245: Jessie Tarbox Beals

We recently traveled across our home state of Missouri from Kansas City to St. Louis to visit the Missouri History Museum. While it’s a fine museum, we were there for a specific reason: to do a live show about pioneering photojournalist, Jessie Tarbox Beals. We know that a lot of you would have loved to have been there to learn about this extraordinary woman, so we re-recorded the show in an audio-only format for you.

(more…)

Episode 244: Althea Gibson, Part One

There are quite a few lines on a tennis court; sideline, baseline, service line – all of which have their functions. But beginning in 1950, a powerful and charismatic African American athlete named Althea Gibson began to smash tennis’ color lines, one after another. Althea Gibson broke new ground and changed the world’s perception of what was possible in the world of sports.

All media recommendations will be on the shownotes for Part Two.