Before Serena Williams, There Was Althea Gibson
The Leonard Lopate Show | Aug 28, 2015
People often cite Arthur Ashe as the first African American to win Wimbledon. In fact, it was female pro Althea Gibson, who won the championship in both 1957 and 1958. In the American Masters documentary “Althea,” director/writer Rex Miller tells her story, from her roots as a sharecropper’s daughter in the cotton fields of South Carolina, to her emergence as the unlikely queen of the highly segregated tennis world in the 1950s. Miller will be joined by former pro-tennis player Leslie Allen. The film airs September 4 on PBS.
