Before there were the Williams sisters, there was Althea Gibson. The first African American (and first person of African descent) to win a Wimbledon Championship (Arthur Ashe won the men's title in 1975) was born in South Carolina, but raised in Harlem, New York. You can read about her in a NY Times article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/26/sports/tennis/althea-gibson-statue-us-open.html. One of the interesting things about Gibson is how she tried to avoid letting herself be defined in the media by her race, nor did she accept the public expectation she would represent her race in her sport - there are examples of her views on this in the many news articles covering her in New York State Historic Newspapers.
It would be interesting to develop a lesson for students that explores the ideas around role models or "pioneers" maybe around the career of someone like Althea Gibson. Images (https://www.loc.gov/resource/van.5a52013/ and https://www.loc.gov/item/2004662917/)and blogs from the Library of Congress could be used such as this one: https://blogs.loc.gov/picturethis/2014/03/althea-gibson-points-the-way/, and this one: https://blogs.loc.gov/headlinesandheroes/2021/07/althea-gibson-tennis-turmoil-and-triumph/
What do you all think?!
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