“To understand ourselves, we must revisit the steps of our ancestors”
If I said that there was a tennis player dominating her sport, consistently winning titles every year but one for 10 years taking 12 straight doubles titles in both single, doubles and mixed doubles matches and winning her final ATA championship in her late forties. Alongside that, this tennis player also dominated the world of Basketball playing 12 seasons for the Philadelphia Tribunes and being hailed as one of the greatest girl players in the world, wouldn’t you expect to know who I am talking about?
Well Ora Washing did just that. Ora Washington was the Serena and Venus Williams (and some) of her time.
Ora Belle Washington was an American athlete from the Germantown neighbourhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Washington excelled in both tennis and basketball, and she was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2009 and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2018. I came across Ora about 3 weeks ago when I was introduced to the BBC Sounds Untold Sports Legends series. Ora dominated black women’s tennis, which was segregated in the 1920s and 1930s. She won seven titles in a row, from 1929 to 1935. She was the star player for the Philadelphia Tribunes and Germantown Hornets women’s basketball teams. By the time she retired, she had played 12 years of undefeated tennis and earned 201 trophies for both tennis and basketball. Her accomplishments have placed her among the top female athletes of the 20th century and set the stage for later players such as the ground-breaking Althea Gibson and the inspiring Williams sisters. Ora Washington is a name that everyone should know.
During, and after her sporting career (not sure if you can call an unpaid job a career), Ora worked as a maid. Because of the segregation in sport and the lack of interest from those outside of the black community, being a black athlete in those days meant that you also had to support yourself by other means. I was amazed at Ora’s determination. She started learning tennis at an age that other players would have been well-established going on to win her first title 2 years after her introduction into the sport. I wonder what was behind that determination. When you learn about Ora it’s clear that she wasn’t looking for attention, although I think she held a sadness around not having the same opportunities and recognition that players who came after her had because she was about 10 years too early. Not only was she dominating the tennis world but she also simultaneously dominated in basketball. How she worked, trained and played to the level she was playing in 2 sports we’ll never know. When people hear about what I do I get asked, with amazement and sometimes, awe “is there nothing you don’t do?” Until now I’ve never really stopped to think about the weight of this question, I’d shrug my shoulders wondering why others thought that what I did was unusual, listening to Ora’s story I realise that there are not many of us who will hold such a unique position. I realised how uniquely special I am.
Ora never married or had children, it seems that she was gay and in her time Ora probably wouldn’t have been accepted for her sexuality, maybe this is a reason why she remains relatively unknown. Whatever the reason today I honour Ora and her ancestral spirit that I embody. Thank you Ora for being the badass trailblazer that you were that made it possible for black women to rise
#blackhistorymonth #BlackNomoRoleModels
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