Althea Gibson defeated fellow American Darlene Hard 6-3, 6-2 in the Wimbledon women's singles final, becoming the first Black player, man or woman, to win a Wimbledon title. Queen Elizabeth II presented Gibson with the trophy, a moment of historic significance during an era when Gibson had been barred from many American tennis clubs and tournaments because of her race.
Althea Gibson's path to Centre Court had been extraordinarily difficult. Raised in Harlem, she had risen through the segregated American Tennis Association before breaking into the whites-only United States Lawn Tennis Association in 1950, becoming the first Black player to compete at the U.S. National Championships. Many elite clubs and tournaments simply refused her entry for years regardless of her talent.
By 1957 Gibson was at the peak of her game, and she dispatched fellow American Darlene Hard in a lopsided final, dropping only five games across two sets. Queen Elizabeth II herself was in attendance to hand Gibson the trophy, and photographs of the moment, a Black American woman receiving tennis's most prestigious prize from the British monarch, circulated widely.
New York City honored Gibson with a ticker-tape parade down Broadway upon her return, a rare tribute for a Black athlete in the segregated 1950s. She would go on to win the U.S. Championships later that year and successfully defend both titles in 1958, before retiring from amateur tennis, unable to make a living wage in a sport that offered no prize money to amateurs, and turning briefly to professional golf. Gibson's breakthrough opened doors that Arthur Ashe and later Venus and Serena Williams would walk through decades afterward.