From Florida A&M to Forest Hills

Abstract

Abstract This chapter begins by looking at Althea Gibson’s move to Tallahassee to start her education at Florida A&M. By coming to Florida’s capital city, which operated under Jim Crow laws, she had moved further South and more deeply under segregation. Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College (FAMC) itself represented the ways in which segregation limited Gibson’s options. Respectability enforced by the FAMC administration mediated what students did, where they went, and how they looked when they went there. The chapter then focuses on the campaign to get Gibson into Forest Hills. It also recounts her time in the National Clay Court tournament and the Eastern Grass-Court Championships. As Gibson waited for the United States Lawn Tennis Association (USLTA) to announce her admission into Forest Hills, the White national championship, she prepared to compete in the American Tennis Association (ATA) Nationals, the Black event. In covering Gibson’s admission to Forest Hills, the press, Black and White, confronted gender in sports integration while at the same time inadvertently revealing the factors that made it difficult for Black women to gain a foothold in almost any realm considered exclusively male.