Althea Gibson
Althea Gibson was born on August 25, 1927 in Silver, South Carolina. 
Her family moved to Harlem, which is where she spent most of her childhood. Developing an interest for tennis or any other sport was hard because she was banned from public courts for being black. She was taken in by a well-off doctor and given the opportunity to play tennis on his private court. Not a lot is known about her child hood but her accomplishments as a black female in sports are forever marked in history. She began her amateur tennis career in the early 1940's. Gibson was one of the leading women in amateur tennis during the 1950's. She broke the color barrier of the American Lawn Tennis league in 1956 after Alice Marble (a white player) stood up for her rights. 
After doing so, Gibson took both the French and Italian titles. In 1957 Althea Gibson became the first black player to win at Wimbledon. That same year, the 5'10" star was named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the year. In 1958, she retired from tennis and signed to play basketball with the Harlem Globetrotters. 
She also pursued a professional career in golf. Gibson was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame and the International Sports Hall of Fame for a great tennis career in which she won at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open several times. She is more similar to Jackie Robinson than Arthur Ashe in the sense that she had no one pave the way for her (Ashe played tennis years after her). I recognize this athlete as courageous because she came from the depths of racism and overcame that adversity. She proved, as much as anyone, that desire can beat the burden of ignorance of others.
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