The Legacies of Tennis Champions Althea Gibson, Arthur Ashe, and the Williams Sisters Show the Persistence of America’s Race Obstacles

Abstract

Black athletes have had to express a double consciousness of being American and being Black. By exploring the biographies of pioneering tennis figures—Althea Gibson, Arthur Ashe, and the Williams sisters—Venus and Serena—one can look at their encounters with racism and their quests for self-respect and explore the social implications of race in the USA. To understand race and its complications on the world in which black tennis players navigate, we broadly look at racial discrimination in their lives using the lens of sociological concepts such as “the color line” hypersegregation and “American Apartheid;” the controlling image thesis and respectability politics, and class mobility in and outside the black community. The concepts connect to illuminate the racial constructs and structures the players operated in and which shaped in the process of becoming a sports champion. Through their biographies, we argue that it is possible to interrogate the ways in which America’s longstanding racial policies, prejudices, and perspectives have had a persistent impact on not only the lives of black tennis players, but the lives of black Americans.