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Philadelphia Inquirer: Don’t miss this biography
“Sports fans, don’t miss this biography. Black history scholars, you want it. Tennis lovers, there’s a lot of tennis here, so make a racquet for it. “Althea” is a grand slam.”
Terri Schlichenmeyer, “Book Review: "Althea" tells the almost-forgotten story of the first Black women in tennis,” Philadelphia Inquirer, Aug 22, 2023.
Times Weekly: “Althea” is a grand slam
“Sports fans, don’t miss this biography. Black history scholars, you want it. Tennis lovers, there’s a lot of tennis here, so make a racquet for it. Althea is a grand slam.”
Times Weekly Staff, “Althea: The Life Of Tennis Champion Althea Gibson,” Books, Times Weekly, August 16, 2023.
Good Reads: Best Books of the Week
Cybil, “7 New Books Recommended by Readers This Week,” Good Reads, August 15, 2023.
Post & Courier: Q&A with Sally Jacobs
“Many Americans are unaware of Althea Gibson and think Arthur Ashe was the first Black player to win a grand slam. In fact, Althea was not only the first, she also won a total of 11 grand slams in her 8-year tennis career, five of them in singles….
But Althea wasn’t done. In 1964 she broke a second racial barrier when she became the first Black woman to join the Ladies Professional Golf Association. She went on to cut a record, appear in a movie with John Wayne and serve as the New Jersey Athletic Commissioner, the first woman to do so. ”
Adam Parker, “Q&A with Sally Jacobs, author of ‘Althea,’ a biography of the trailblazing Black athlete,” Post and Courier, Aug 13, 2023.
Boston Globe: Sally H. Jacobs traces the arc of tennis star Althea Gibson, for whom fighting was a mode of survival
“For decades, Althea Gibson’s fame was inescapable.…
But by her death, alone and nearly destitute, at the age of 76 in 2003, she had been eclipsed by newer stars as well as by later groundbreakers like Arthur Ashe. Even Sally H. Jacobs, a former Globe reporter and the author of the new “Althea: The Life of Tennis Champion Althea Gibson,” hadn’t heard of her.”
Clea Simon, “Sally H. Jacobs, in her biography ‘Althea,’ traces the arc of tennis star Althea Gibson, for whom fighting was a mode of survival,” The Story Behind the Book, Boston Globe, August 10, 2023.