The Althea Gibson Narrative and Race, Class, and Gender in the Twentieth Century America

African American narratives are rooted in identity, and identity is rooted in history. While reading and analysing the autobiography of an African American sportswoman from mid-twentieth century as an African American narrative, this paper will critically analyse the autobiography of Althea Gibson, the pioneer African American athlete and her rise from the impoverished childhood in Harlem and breaking the colour barrier in her sport and her travails as an “outsider” in the lily-white sport of tennis in mid-twentieth century. It will be read through theoretical frameworks of (black) feminism reading, and critical race theory, and specifically in terms of the intersectionality of race, class and gender in the context of racial segregation in mid-twentieth century America.Althea Gibson's autobiography is used as an example for black sport autobiography as literature that can be used to examine modern sport in relation to its broader social-political contexts, and in voicing a certain kind of counter-hegemonic ways of knowing and telling- of challenging assumptions.