that neighborhood children could play organized sports. Gibson quickly became proficient in paddle tennis, and by 1939, at the age of 12, she was the New York City women's paddle tennis champion. Gibson quit school at the age of 13 and, using the boxing skills taught to her by her father, engaged in a life of what she would later refer to as "street fighting", girls basketball, and watching movies. Fearful of her father's violent behavior, after dropping out of school, she spent some time living in a Catholic protective shelter for abused children. In 1940 a group of Gibson's neighbors took up a collection to finance a junior membership and lessons at the Cosmopolitan Tennis Club in the Sugar Hill section of Harlem. At first, Gibson didn't like tennis, a sport she thought was for weak people. As she explained, "I kept wanting to fight the other player every time I started to lose a match." In 1941 she entered—and won—her first tournament, the American Tennis Association (ATA) New York State Championship. She won the ATA national championship in the girls' division in 1944 and 1945, and after losing in the women's final in 1946, won her first of ten straight national ATA women's titles in 1947. "I knew that I was an unusual, talented girl, through the grace of God," she wrote. "I didn't need to prove that to myself. I only wanted to prove it to my opponents." Gibson's ATA success drew the attention of Walter Johnson, a Lynchburg, Virginia, physician who was active in the African American tennis community. Under Johnson's patronage—he would later mentor Arthur Ashe as well—Gibson gained access to more advanced instruction and more important competitions, and later, to the United States Lawn Tennis Association (USLTA, later known as the USTA). In 1946 she moved to Wilmington, North Carolina, under the sponsorship of another physician and tennis activist, Hubert A. Eaton and enrolled at the racially segregated Williston Industrial High School. In 1949 she became the first Black woman, and the second Black athlete (after Reginald Weir), to play in the USTA's National Indoor Championships, where she reached the quarter-finals. Later that year she entered Florida A&M University (FAMU) on a full athletic scholarship and was a member of the Beta Alpha chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. Amateur career Despite her growing reputation as an elite-level player, Gibson was effectively barred from