Althea Gibson was a trailblazing athlete who became the first African American to win championships at Grand Slam tournaments such as Wimbledon, the French Open, the Australian Doubles and the United States Open in the late 1950s. Gibson had a scintillating amateur career in spite of segregated offerings earlier in the decade. She won 56 singles and doubles titles during her amateur career in the 1950s before gaining international and national acclaim for her athletic prowess on the professional level in tennis. Gibson was a 1953 graduate of Florida A&M University.
North Carolina has long been fertile ground for pioneering African-Americans to make their mark in sports. As Black History Month continues and the CIAA Tournament kicks into high gear at Charlotte's Time Warner Cable Arena, we take a look at 10 of these influential figures - athletes, coaches and administrators who were either born in North Carolina or arrived in the state later in life.
They share one characteristic: An influence on American sports and society that wasn't confined to North Carolina's borders, often reaching far beyond. Three of the 10 have direct ties to the CIAA: Winston-Salem State's Clarence "Big House" Gaines, N.C. Central's John McLendon and Dr. LeRoy Walker. Gaines, providing scholarships to players in a time when that advantage was rare for black athletes, guided Winston-Salem State to the 1967 NCAA Division II national championship - a first for a predominately black school.
Meadow "Meadowlark" Lemon is a professional basketball player, actor and minister. For 22 years, Lemon was known as the "Clown Prince" of the touring Harlem Globetrotters basketball team. He played in more than 16,000 games for the Globetrotters and is a 2003 inductee of the NBA Basketball Hall of Fame and received the NBA Lifetime Achievement – John Bunn Award in 2000. He was born in Wilmington, North Carolina and attended Florida A&M University. A born-again Christian, Lemon became an ordained minister in 1986 and received a Doctor of Divinity degree from Vision International University in Ramona, CA in 1998. He currently has his own comedic basketball team, the Meadowlark Lemon’s Harlem All Stars™
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“Dr. LeRoy Walker is an icon. As an athlete, coach and educator, ... We proudly salute our own Dr. LeRoy T. "PoBelly" Walker, Class of 1940.
