Book Discussion | Althea: The Life of Tennis Champion Althea Gibson by Pulitzer Prize Winner Sally H. Jacobs

A conversation with prize-winning former Boston Globe reporter Sally H. Jacobs, author of the latest biography Althea: The Life of Tennis Champion Althea Gibson, and Katrina Adams, the first African American to lead the United States Tennis Association (USTA). Following the book talk, there will be a book signing with Jacobs and Adams and a DJ reception to toast the many women in Harlem breaking barriers.

Copies of Althea: The Life of Tennis Champion Althea Gibson by Sally H. Jacobs and Own the Arena: Getting Ahead Making a Difference, and Succeeding as the Only One by Katrina Adams, will be available for purchase.

About Althea: The Life of Tennis Champion Althea Gibson
In 1950, three years after Jackie Robinson first walked onto the diamond at Ebbets Field, the all-white, upper-crust US Lawn Tennis Association opened its door just a crack to receive a powerhouse player who would integrate "the game of royalty." The player was a street-savvy young Black woman from Harlem named Althea Gibson who was about as out-of-place in that rarefied and intolerant world as any aspiring tennis champion could be. Her astonishing performance on the court soon eclipsed the negative feelings being cast her way as she eventually became one of the greatest American tennis champions.

Gibson had a stunning career. Raised in New York and trained by a pair of tennis-playing doctors in the South, Gibson’s immense talent on the court opened the door for her to compete around the world. She won top prizes at Wimbledon and Forest Hills time and time again. Althea became the first Black woman to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated and the second to appear on the cover of Time. In a crowning achievement, Althea Gibson became the No. One ranked female tennis player in the world for both 1957 and 1958. Seven years later she broke the color barrier again where she became the first Black woman to join the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA).

About the Speakers
Katrina Adams served as the first African American to lead the United States Tennis Association (USTA), the first two-term Chairman and President of the UTSA and the first former player to hold that honor. Under her tutelage, the USTA achieved a number of major milestones, including the opening of the 100-court USTA National Campus in Orlando, the strategic transformation of the $600 million USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, N.Y. and an unprecedented outreach effort into underserved communities in an effort to share the sport of tennis with more people. She has spent time as vice president of the International Tennis Federation and the Executive Director of the Harlem Junior Tennis and Education Program, to name a few.

Sally H. Jacobs is a former reporter for the Boston Globe, a winner of the coveted George Polk Award, and the winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize in Breaking News Reporting along with the Globe newsroom. She is the author of The Other Barack, a biography of Barack Obama’s father.