Who Broke the Color Barrier in Sports? (It's not who you might think)

By now, everyone knows the history: It was April 15, 1947, and first baseman Jackie Roosevelt Robinson makes his debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball club at Ebbets Field. As the first African American to play professional sports with white players, in the modern era, he would end 50 years of racial segregation in sports, end of story! But what many people don’t know is that it was the sport of Tennis, not Baseball that first allowed integrated play. I know that many tennis or sports historians will say, “That’s incorrect! Althea Gibson broke the color line in Tennis in 1950, 3 years after Baseball.” However, there was another tennis match played seven years before Robinson and 10 years before Gibson! This event could, arguably, be seen as the first crack in the wall that legally kept black and white athletes from competing against each other in sports.

The date was July 29, 1940. More than 2,000 spectators filled the bleachers of the Cosmopolitan Tennis Club of New York City. The Cosmopolitan was one of a series of black-owned tennis clubs that dotted the country. These organizations would, collectively, form the American Tennis Association. The ATA was like the “Negro Leagues” as they offered a competitive tennis platform for blacks at a time when they were barred from joining the United States Lawn Tennis Association (now the U.S.T.A), the governing body for Tennis in the country.

The crowd of spectators filled the club to capacity in order to watch a tennis match between Don Budge (at this time), the best white player in the country, as well as one of the best in the world, and Jimmie

McDaniel, the best black player in the country. This exhibition match was promoted by Budge’s racquet sponsor, Wilson Sporting Goods.

Jimmy McDaniel was deemed the top black player in the country due to some impressive statistics. He had won 38 of the 43 tournaments that he entered between 1939 and 1941. Unfortunately, these matches were restricted to ATA events. Because of segregation, he was not able to travel to play in the top tournament and improve his game by playing the best players around the world. Don Budge, a Californian who in 1936 was the first player to win the “Grand Slam” of Tennis. This means that he won the Australian, the French, Wimbledon, and the U.S. National titles in one calendar year. In the history of the game, only three other players have ever achieved this milestone.

According to Tennis journalist and writer Doug Smith, those who couldn’t get into the venue, “watched from fire escapes and from windows in surrounding buildings. Those unable to see listened to the score, which was announced over a public address system.” This was a major event in the black community. As the match began, what those spectators in Harlem witnessed and heard was a one-sided mismatch. To no one’s surprise, Budge won by a score of 6-1,6-2. McDaniel, who double-faulted 13 times and was extremely nervous to be playing in front of his people against a champion like Budge.  As the New York Herald Tribune wrote, “It’s not quite fair to McDaniel or Negro tennis in general to judge by this one match. It must be remembered that he was playing before his own people as their champion against a man that nobody in the world can beat.”

To his credit, Don Budge would also repeat those sentiments. In a remarkable statement, for the time, he would say, “Jimmy is a very good player, …I’d say he’d rank in the first ten of our white players. And with some practice against players like me, someday he could beat all of them.”

As we assess the value of this brief moment in time, two things should be noted. The unofficial color barrier in Tennis was not breached on the hallowed grounds of Wimbledon in England or the West Side Tennis Club in New York. That claim should be given to The Cosmopolitan Club in Harlem, New York. The second, and probably the most important, is that this single event opened up the possibility that such competitions are possible, and as a result, it inspired other black players to seek competition outside of the ATA. Dr. Robert “Whirlwind” Johnson would see white players participating in a junior tournament on the campus of The University of Virginia, and would have the gumption to ask the director if “Negro children could participate. When he was told, yes, if they could qualify, he would begin his sojourn into Junior Tennis and the results would be Arthur Ashe, Althea Gibson, Athletic scholarships, and change!  Players such as George Stewart, a left-handed player who used heavy topspin, would go on to win seven National titles. He would also, along with Dr. Reginald Weir, become the first African Americans to compete in the U.S. Nationals in 1952. He was also the first black man to enter the NCAA Tennis Championships. When we marvel with pride at the athletic exploits of Coco Gauff, Francis Tiafoe, Ben Shelton, or Alycia Parks, we should always take a moment to reflect on the 80-year process it took them to get here. I would ask that you think about that Harlem summer in 1940 when two men met at the net, spun the racquet, and played into the future.