Students at Williston Middle School were first in the country to screen the critically acclaimed film “ALTHEA” on Tuesday, in recognition of tennis great Althea Gibson and her graduation from Williston High School in 1949.
After each showing, the group of students went to the auditorium for a question-and-answer session with Lenny Simpson, who was mentored by Gibson and also featured in the film.
Click here to watch the trailer for the documentary.
“In addition to keeping the Althea legacy in Wilmington alive, we hope that further recognizing Althea each year will help raise awareness and appreciation for the opportunities and life changing aspects of tennis and programs like One Love that incorporate tennis, academic tutoring and character building,” Simpson said.
Williston was the first of all the New Hanover County schools to screen the film. Last week, the City of Wilmington officially honored Gibson with an official proclamation declaring the week beginning on the second Monday in September as “Althea Gibson Tennis Week.”
Gibson was the first African-American tennis player to win one of the four major singles tournaments and helped integrate her sport at the height of the civil rights movement. She twice won Wimbledon and the U.S. Championships (now known as the U.S. Open).
“ALTHEA,” which will be released to the public later this year, was inspired from a picture that hung on the wall of Rex Miller’s childhood bedroom. Miller is the film’s producer and director.
“I got interested in Althea’s story because of a photograph that hung on the wall of my childhood bedroom,” Miller said. “Taken in 1958, it shows two brown-skinned women, dressed in their tennis whites, holding tennis rackets and standing on the front lawn of the Merion Cricket Club, a prestigious tennis club outside of Philadelphia.
“One woman was my mother, Millicent Miller. The other was Althea.”
