LONG OVERDUE TRIBUTE TO ALTHEA GIBSON!

trinity

Aug 29, 2007 at 10:48am Edited

The Star-Ledger highlighted the incredible night dedicated to her at the US OPEN the other night. My parents made sure I knew all about her when I was a kid, and I'm so glad that I carry on that same respect of pioneers in history with my boys. It's very disheartening to see that she was forgotten and died (very modestly in East Orange) without the recognition she so deserved.

Check out this tribute video to her....it's eye-opening.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcAsaNo8lAg

She was SOMETHIN' !!!!!!!:clap:

hoops

Aug 29, 2007 at 12:36pm

true. nice tribute.

canismajor

Aug 29, 2007 at 2:06pm

I remember being shocked when she died and read in the Star Ledger that she had been living out her golden years in poverty and obscurity in East Orange. I was at the Open the other night for the big tribute, and honestly, it made me want to puke. Best I could tell, none of these major African American celebrities who were fawning over Althea lifted a finger to help her when she was ill and destitute. One stroke of the pen and any one of them could have made her final days immeasurably better. What @&$#ing hypocrites.

apple44

Sep 5, 2015 at 2:11pm Edited

PBS is running an interesting bio of Althea Gibson on its American Masters series. Next airing on Ch. 13 WNET will be Sun. 9/13 at 10:30 am, also running on WLIW.

Towards the end there was a brief photo of a store or restaurant in SO which she frequented, I couldn't make out what/where it is. While she was destitute towards the end, there was a fundraising campaign for her which brought her more than a million dollars, back when people had to write checks and put them in the mail.

http://www.thirteen.org/programs/american-masters/

mumstheword

Sep 5, 2015 at 5:47pm

apple44 said:
PBS is running an interesting bio of Althea Gibson on its American Masters series. Next airing on Ch. 13 WNET will be Sun. 9/13 at 10:30 am, also running on WLIW.
Towards the end there was a brief photo of a store or restaurant in SO which she frequented, I couldn't make out what/where it is. While she was destitute towards the end, there was a fundraising campaign for her which brought her more than a million dollars, back when people had to write checks and put them in the mail.
http://www.thirteen.org/programs/american-masters/

I watched this this afternoon and learned so much about her. She was interested in excelling in her sport, not making a spectacle of herself, and was thus forgotten by the world when she wasn't entertaining them with her tennis wins. For someone who won so many awards, was so talented in everything she attempted to do (I didn't know she golfed or sang), it is yet another case of life's ironies that she literally lived hand to mouth her whole life and wound up being destitute in the end.