Photo: PA Images / Alamy Stock Photo

On August 28, 1950, a 23-year-old Althea Gibson set foot on one of the outer courts of the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills, Queens, home of the U.S. National Championships.

It wasn't the first time a Black player was competing in an event sanctioned by the United States Lawn Tennis Association (USLTA) — that honor technically went to Reginald Weir at the 1946 Eastern Indoor Tournament.

But it marked the first time a Black player was allowed to compete against the top players in the sport at one of its premier championships, and Gibson was about to show the white tennis world what it had been missing for all these years.

Gibson was introduced to tennis as a troubled but athletic teenager

Gibson was born on August 25, 1927, in the small town

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