He also developed a keen interest in the younger players he encountered either at ATA tournaments or at the occasional informal tennis gatherings held in Lynchburg. By the early 1940s, he had adopted the practice of inviting outstanding ATA players to spend part of the summer at his home. He paid all of his guests’ expenses, the only expectation being their willingness to play and talk tennis with him. Over time these arrangements evolved into the equivalent of a tennis camp, and black players looking for a summer haven began to clamor for a spot in Johnson’s chosen circle. The Lynchburg court also became the site of an annual round-robin Labor Day tournament, an invitation-only event that capped off the ATA’s summer schedule. Confirming his status as the unofficial social chairman of the ATA, Johnson enhanced the Labor Day gatherings by inviting celebrities such as the noted photographer Gordon Parks Jr. to share the court with his friends and top ATA players.17
The social side of all of this sometimes seemed to take precedence over the tennis. But beneath it all was a fierce determination to improve the quality of black tennis, particularly among younger players. Dr. Johnson and several of his closest friends were always looking for a promising star of the future, one that might even be able to cross over into the world of mainstream tennis once the poison of Jim Crow had run its course. The ATA had given him so much joy and fulfillment, yet he yearned for validation and respect in the wider world of tennis.
Dr. Johnson had a complicated take on the realities of race, class, and power. As the only black physician in Lynchburg, he probably gained certain economic benefits from segregation. And the source of his income also gave him a measure of independence and protection from the white power structure. As a leading figure in the local black community he sometimes served as a broker between black and white interests. Indeed, he even lived in a predominantly white neighborhood in a two-story house on Pierce Street that most local whites could not afford. Yet he was also a proud member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) who was not afraid to speak out against slum conditions and inadequate and underfunded public schools in Lynchburg’s black neighborhoods, or to threaten legal action against segregated transit facilities. Though generally careful in his dealings with whites, he was determined to find a way to bring about needed change without sacrificing the benefits of his present position. In tennis, this meant improving the quality of black tennis by first reforming the ATA and later releasing the organization’s best players into the mainstream of competitive tennis.18
Many of Johnson’s ATA colleagues shared his ambivalence about the probable consequences of wholesale desegregation. But relatively few shared his unbridled enthusiasm for junior development. Many simply wanted to enjoy the game of tennis without spending too much time and energy worrying about future stars or collective improvement. One ATA insider who did share Johnson’s concerns about the future of black tennis was his close friend from Wilmington, Dr. Hubert Eaton. Whenever the two men got together, at ATA tournaments or during the Virginia–North Carolina weekend gatherings, their conversations almost always included an evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of promising young players followed by a discussion of the ATA’s failings in the area of junior development.
One such conversation took place at Central State College in Wilberforce, Ohio, during the 1946 ATA women’s singles final. Roumania Peters, a former champion, won the match in three tough sets. But Johnson and Eaton were more interested in her opponent, a tall, raw-boned, hard-hitting eighteen-year-old named Althea Gibson. They had seen her play before, as one of the ATA’s leading Juniors, and they knew about her background as a tough kid growing up on the streets of Harlem. They had heard all the stories about her deprived childhood—that she had been born into poverty in South Carolina before migrating to New York at the age of three, that she had played more stickball than tennis as a kid, that her family was on welfare, and that she had dropped out of high school. So they were aware that she had a lot of issues to work through. Yet there was something special about her, something they saw that day in the way she combined ferocious competitiveness and powerful athleticism that drew their rapt attention.
Sitting in the grandstand analyzing the match, the two men came up with a plan to elevate her game. The first task, they decided, was to get her back in school and out of Harlem, where she reportedly spent much of her time hustling money in pool halls and bowling alleys. To this end, Eaton invited her to move to Wilmington, where she could live with his family and enroll in school. In the summer, Johnson chimed in, she could live with his family in Lynchburg, where she would have time to polish her game and where she would have little else to think about but tennis.19
Gibson readily agreed to this Pygmalion-like makeover, and over the next four years she underwent a profound transformation, completing high school and entering college, all the while refining her skills on the tennis court. In a regimen that became the model for the training that Ashe and others would receive in the 1950s, she took instruction in everything from court coverage to table manners. Though strong-willed and stubborn, she cooperated as best she could. While her singularly aggressive style of play remained unorthodox and her personality retained a certain edge, her life on and off the court took on a new sophistication as she blossomed into a poised and confident young woman.
Eaton and Johnson were justifiably proud of their pet pupil, who soon became the most successful female player in ATA history. From 1947 on, she was virtually unbeatable in ATA competition, winning ten consecutive national singles championships and nearly as many doubles titles. To Johnson’s delight, she also joined her Lynchburg mentor in mixed doubles, capturing the national mixed title seven times between 1948 and 1955. By 1949, the year Gibson entered Florida A&M University as a twenty-two-year-old freshman, her dominance of the ATA women’s division was so complete that some of her admirers began to speculate about an eventual climb to the top of the tennis world. In ATA circles, there was no longer any doubt that she had the potential to succeed in USLTA-sanctioned tournaments. The only question as the decade drew to a close was whether she would actually get the opportunity to prove that she could keep up with the world’s top female players.20
With the recent desegregation of professional baseball and football, and with the continuing success of black athletes in boxing and track and field, the USLTA faced mounting pressure to open its tournaments to all races. During the past two years alone, Jackie Robinson had won Rookie of the Year honors, Larry Doby had become a star outfielder with the Cleveland Indians, black Americans had won eight Gold Medals at the 1948 Olympics, Sugar Ray Robinson had successfully defended his world welterweight title four times, and Ezzard Charles had replaced the retired Joe Louis as champion of boxing’s heavyweight division. The traditional argument bandied about in the USLTA and elsewhere—that black athletes could never measure up to white standards—had clearly lost most of its force. For those who continued to defend the color bar, there was little basis for argument other than blatantly racist rationalizations that suddenly seemed out of place in the postwar American mainstream. With the exception of the Deep South, where the demands of assertive black veterans had provoked a severe reaction among white supremacists, the nation seemed to be moving toward increased racial tolerance in the immediate postwar era.21
What effect, if any, this general trend toward liberalization would have on the powerful inertial forces inside the USLTA was unclear. The emergence of the Ecuadoran Pancho Segura—who captured the U.S. Clay Court singles championship in 1944 as well as the U.S. Indoor title two years later—and of the Mexican American Pancho Gonzales, who shocked the tennis establishment with his 1949 triumph on the grass at Forest Hills, had already added a bit of color and ethnic diversity to the men’s tour. But it remained to be seen whether a truly dark-skinned competitor could gain admittance to the pale world of the tennis elite.22
For a time, in late 1949 and early 1950, Gibson’s chances of breaching the color bar did not lo
ok very promising. As she and her supporters soon discovered, the conservative racial attitudes that prevailed within the tennis establishment were buttressed by a complicated qualifying procedure that gave tournament directors and officials representing the most exclusive private clubs a virtual veto power. The tennis tour leading up to the U.S. National championships at Forest Hills was essentially a two-tiered affair, with a clay court and hard court tour played primarily at public facilities followed by an invitation-only grass court circuit played entirely at restricted private clubs. To qualify for Forest Hills, Gibson had to demonstrate her skills not only in the clay and hard court tournaments but also on grass. While the leadership of the USLTA privately assured ATA officials that they welcomed her participation at Forest Hills or anywhere else, no one, it seemed, was willing to lean on the grass court elite to make it happen.
During the spring of 1950, the USLTA allowed Gibson to play in the Eastern and National Indoor championships, and both times she played well enough to reach the quarterfinals. By all accounts, her white opponents treated her with respect, and there was little evidence of racial tension or hostility. Encouraged, ATA officials began to plan Gibson’s participation in the invitational grass court tour, which they hoped would lead to an invitation to play at Forest Hills. When the invitations didn’t come, they began to press USLTA officials for an explanation, and after a bit of nervous squirming, the USLTA central committee admitted that it did not have the power to overrule the restrictive policies of private clubs. Since her performance in two indoor tournaments was not sufficient to merit an invitation to Forest Hills, she would have to wait until the qualifying grass tournaments gave her the opportunity to demonstrate her skills.
This double-talk infuriated Gibson’s supporters, including Alice Marble, who decided to do something about it. In an angry but eloquent letter published in the July 1950 issue of American Lawn Tennis magazine, Marble challenged the USLTA to break tradition and do the right thing:
If tennis is a game for ladies and gentlemen, it’s also time we acted a little more like gentle people and less like sanctimonious hypocrites. If there is anything left in the name of sportsmanship, it’s more than time to display what it means to us. If Althea Gibson represents a challenge to the present crop of women players, it’s only fair that they meet that challenge on the courts, where tennis is played. . . . She is not being judged by the yardstick of ability but by the fact that her pigmentation is somewhat different. If the field of sports has got to pave the way for all of civilization, let’s do it. . . . The entrance of Negroes into national tennis is as inevitable as it has proven to be in baseball, in football, in boxing.
Delivered at a critical moment by one of the nation’s most popular tennis stars, Marble’s pointed words could not be easily dismissed, especially after an article in Life magazine echoed her call for reform, insisting that “it is about time that the U.S. tennis fathers, who have been drawing a de facto color line all these years, got over their ancient prejudices.” Fearing an avalanche of negative publicity, USLTA officials soon found a way to get Gibson into two of the major qualifying tournaments. By drawing invitations to the South Orange, New Jersey, grass tournament and the National Clay Court tournament in Chicago, she had a legitimate shot at earning an invitation to Forest Hills, and after she made it to the quarterfinals of both tournaments, the USLTA quietly informed the ATA that an invitation was forthcoming.23
By the time the formal invitation arrived in late August, Gibson was at the ATA Nationals in Wilberforce, Ohio, where a wild celebration ensued after it was announced that the dream of breaching the color bar at Forest Hills was about to be realized. Bertram Baker, the ATA official who had spearheaded the behind-the-scenes negotiations with the USLTA, could hardly contain himself, assuring the gathering that “the year 1950 will . . . go down in the history of the American Tennis Association as the beginning of a new era.” What he did not reveal at the time was that he had already begun negotiations with the USLTA to establish a quota system for black participation in the U.S. National Championships. Over the next few months the two organizations hammered out a gentleman’s agreement that allowed the ATA to funnel a limited number of black players to Forest Hills each year. Baker’s handiwork would later prove to be controversial among those who thought the arrangement was susceptible to favoritism and cronyism. But only a few insiders knew this was in the works when Gibson made her historic debut at Forest Hills.24
USLTA officials tried to downplay the significance of Gibson’s appearance at the West Side Tennis Club, and were relieved when the advance press coverage turned out to be less intense than the buildup to Jackie Robinson’s debut with the Dodgers three years earlier. In the black press, of course, there was considerable commentary and some expressions of concern, since it was well known that earlier in the year the West Side club had summarily rejected an application for membership submitted by the noted black diplomat Ralph Bunche. Fortunately, when Gibson took the court in her first-round match against Barbara Knapp of England, the crowd was respectful, and later when she walked off as a straight-sets winner the applause and cheers were reassuring.
The situation became much more tense in the second round when Gibson unexpectedly pushed one of the tournament favorites, three-time Wimbledon champion Louise Brough, to the brink of defeat. After losing the first set 6–1, Gibson rebounded to win the second set 6–3, and to take a 7–6 lead in the third before a violent thunderstorm suspended play. By that time, an overflow crowd of more than two thousand had gathered around the court to watch the unfolding drama. “I’ll never forget that storm,” Baker recalled years later. “Fans were shouting from the stands for Althea’s opponent to ‘beat the nigger, beat the nigger.’ I’ll always remember it as the day the gods got angry. A flash of lightning came and knocked down one of the statues of the eagles on the stadium court.” It all proved to be a bit too much for Gibson, who appeared jittery when play resumed the next morning. Seizing the initiative, the veteran Brough won three straight games and the match. This near miss haunted Gibson for months. But she took some consolation from the indisputable significance of what she had accomplished just by playing at Forest Hills. The American tennis establishment had finally opened a door that could never be fully closed again.25
THREE
DR. J AND THE LYNCHBURG BOYS
TENNIS BUFFS AND HISTORIANS will always remember the summer of 1950 primarily as the season Althea Gibson entered the mainstream of competitive tennis. But there was another, less well-known development. The first summer of the new decade was also a pivotal moment for Gibson’s proud mentor and mixed doubles partner. With his prize pupil seemingly on the verge of greatness, Dr. Robert Johnson was primed and ready to expand and formalize his junior development program. He knew the ATA had no funds to underwrite the proposed program and that for the foreseeable future he would have to pay for it himself. But that didn’t bother him. His medical practice was lucrative enough to support several prospects each summer, and there was plenty of room at his house in Lynchburg. All he needed was a crop of promising and cooperative recruits. Perhaps more than anyone else in the ATA inner circle, he dreamed of the day when the most talented black players would have the chance to compete against the nation’s best.
For Johnson, Gibson’s uncertain march to Forest Hills confirmed that the desegregation of tennis would be a difficult process. Yet, even with the vacillations of the USLTA, there was reason to believe that the pace of change was quickening. In June, just as the controversy over Gibson’s access to the qualifying tournaments was heating up, Johnson made an important discovery. While driving back to Lynchburg from northern Virginia, he happened to see a sign directing visitors to the USLTA Interscholastic Tennis Championship on the University of Virginia’s courts in Charlottesville. Intrigued, he spent several hours at the tournament watching some of the nation’s best high school tennis players. All of the competitors were white, of course, which was no shock to Johnson. What did s
hock him, however, was the high quality of play. “To my surprise,” he recalled years later, “the caliber of play in high school there was better than our colleges—frankly better than the best tennis we Negroes had to offer anywhere in the United States.”1
This firsthand look at the effects of early training led to an impromptu conversation with the tournament director, Edmund “Teddy” Penzold. A well-connected figure in Virginia politics, Penzold was head of the Norfolk Port Authority and a close associate of Colgate Darden, a former Democratic congressman and governor who had assumed the presidency of the University of Virginia in 1947. Both Penzold and Darden were racial moderates open to the idea of gradual and limited desegregation, which was on the verge of implementation at the university in the summer of 1950. In September, Gregory Swanson became the first black student to enroll at the university’s law school, though he was not permitted to live on campus. This grudging, halfway acceptance was as much as one could hope for in Virginia at that time, and it was in this context of limited expectations that Johnson approached Penzold with a proposition. If Penzold would allow a limited number of black high school players to compete, Johnson would make sure that the intrusion was as low-profile as possible. The black students would not use any of the campus facilities other than the tennis courts; they would not eat or stay on campus; and they would be out of town by sundown. To Johnson’s amazement, Penzold agreed and promised to send him the necessary application forms later in the year.2
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