Frank Thomas

Washington Notable Sports Figures
Awards and Accomplishments
1928-29, American Tennis Association (ATA) women’s doubles champion
1932, with Lula Ballard
1934-36
1929-35, ATA women’s singles champion
1937
1930-31 ATA women’s doubles champion with Blanche Winston
1933 ATA women’s doubles champion with Anita Grant
In 1931, in the midst of her highly successful tennis
career, Washington began playing basketball on a traveling
team. She played center for the Philadelphia Tribune,
a highly successful team sponsored by the popular
African-American newspaper of the same name. Washington
was considered one of the most valuable players
for the team. As the center, she was often their top scorer.
For several years she acted as coach. During most of
the 1930s, black papers named the Philadelphia Tribune
the women’s basketball national champions. According
to Arthur Ashe in A Hard Road to Glory, “The Philadelphia
Tribune was black America’s first premier female
sports team.” Their record was proof. The Tribune only
lost six times in games played during the 1930s.
Women’s basketball at the time was primarily played
with three players on offense and three on defense. Ashe
described the style, “The Tribune squad … played the
typical six-players-per-team style which had separate
threesomes for offense and defense at opposite ends of
the court. This was done so as to minimize the ‘strain’
on the players. It was still fervently, but erroneously, believed
that women had innately delicate natures and too
much exercise would damage their equilibrium.” Not all
games were played by women’s rules though. Washington’s
team often played by men’s rules, without any noticeable
strain. In fact, her team was successful playing
by either set of rules.
As a traveling team, the Philadelphia Tribune played
games throughout the East, Midwest, and South. They
played teams like their own, which were sponsored by
businesses or newspapers; they played white and black
teams; and they played against high school and college
teams. Wherever they played they would also sponsor
clinics to help other women and girls learn about basketball.
In total, Washington played basketball for eighteen
years for the Tribune and another Philadelphia team
called the Germantown Hornets.
One of their better attended games was in 1934
when they played against the women of Bennett College,
an elite black college in Greensboro, North Carolina.
The Tribune faced off against Bennett in a
three-game series that attracted attention even from the
white press. Their initial game was so well attended
that it was played at the Greensboro Sportsarena, a
venue in which blacks did not usually play. Rita Liberti
quoted a contemporary Greensboro News report in her
1718
American Tennis Association
On November 30, 1916, the American Tennis Association (ATA) was
founded in Washington, D.C. The intent of the ATA was to provide opportunities
for African Americans to compete on a national level. The ATA was
founded out of necessity because African Americans were excluded from
participation in the United States National Lawn Tennis Association
(USLTA), which was not integrated until the 1950s when Althea Gibson became
the first African American to play in the USLTA. From August 19 to
26, 1922, one of the first ATA National Championship tournaments was
held at the Germantown YWCA in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The ATA has been influential in establishing the early careers of several
outstanding African American tennis stars. Althea Gibson, who broke
the color barrier in the United States and abroad, was first successful within
the ATA. Arthur Ashe also got his start winning ATA junior championship
tournaments. The ATA is the oldest African American sports organization in
the United States and continues to hold true to its mission, “To promote the
sport of tennis among men and women of all races through sportsmanship,
unity and goodwill.”
article in the Journal of Sport History, “The Tribune
girls, led by the indomitable, internally famed and stellar
performer, Ora Washington, national women’s singles
champ in tennis, comes with enviable reputation.”
Not only was Washington the top scorer and team captain,
she dominated the court in a manner that is often
found in the modern game. Liberti noted Bennett player
Lucille Townsend’s response to Washington’s court
manner, “I told the referee she’s [Ora] hittin’ me in the
stomach every time I jump.” Despite the roughness,
Washington’s team prevailed in the series, winning all
three games.
Many historians consider Washington one of the premiere
athletes in women’s sports. Young compared
Washington with Gibson, “The difference in eras—consequently
in the styles of play—comprises the major
point of conjecture as to who was the greater of women
players, Althea Gibson or the earlier Ora Washington of
Philadelphia.… Washington … might well have been
‘the first Althea Gibson’ had she been the beneficiary of
the all-out sponsorship Miss Gibson received.” Washington’s
continuity and endurance were hallmarks of
long and distinguished careers in both basketball and
tennis. Even after her career ended, Washington continued
to help younger generations learn to play tennis in
her hometown of Germantown. Her historical anonymity
in the face of her accomplishments can be blamed on
the existence of racial segregation, bias, and lost opportunities.
In 1975, Washington was inducted into the
Black Athletes Hall of Fame. The organization was unaware
that she had died four years earlier in 1971.
FURTHER INFORMATION
Books
Ashe, Arthur. A Hard Road to Glory. New York: Amistad
Press, Inc., 1993.