as well as contacts with the USLTA that moved her into the mainstream tennis circuit. Musician Buddy Walter noticed her playing table tennis and introduced her to tennis at the Harlem River Tennis Courts.

She first entered the U.S. Open in 1950, the first person of color to compete in that tournament. In 1956, she won the singles title at the French Open. In 1957 she won the singles title at Wimbledon and the US Open and became the number 1 player in the world.

After breaking so many racial barriers and after winning 5 Grand Slams, she retired from tennis and wrote her autobiography. In 1959 she recorded an album, "Althea Gibson Sings", and appeared in the motion picture "The Horse Soldiers". In 1964 she became the first African-American woman to play in the Ladies Professional Golf Association.

In later years, life was becoming more and more difficult as she suffered two cerebral aneurysms and a stroke. Tennis players made no money in the 1950s and after all that success Althea Gibson was living on welfare, and was not able to pay for medication.

Her relief came in a form of checks in her mailbox, when Angela Buxton, her former doubles partner, arranged for a letter to appear in a tennis magazine. Almost $1 million came in from donations around the world.

Althea Gibson was inducted into the International Tennis Hall Of Fame in 1971, and died in 2003 at the age of 76, in East Orange, New Jersey, due to respiratory failure and was interred in the Rosedale Cemetery, Orange, New Jersey.