"Coming Up the Hard Way "Sometimes, in a tough neighborhood, where there is no way for a kid to prove himself except by playing games and fighting, you've got to establish a record for being able to look out for yourself before they will leave you alone. If they think you're an easy mark, they will all look to build up their own reputations by beating up on you. I learned always to get in the first punch." Althea Gibson, 1958 Four days after her historic...

Biography concentrating on the career and life of the African American tennis star Arthur Ashe.

Althea Gibson emerged as a most unlikely queen of the highly segregated tennis world of the 1950s. Her roots as a sharecropper's daughter, her family's migration to Harlem, her mentoring from Sugar Ray Robinson, David Dinkins and others, and her fame that thrust her unwillingly into the glare of the early Civil Rights movement, all bring the story into a much broader realm of African American history, transcending sports.