In March 1976, New York City hosted the annual ceremony of the newly created Black Athlete Hall of Fame. There was an empty chair on the stage where she was usually supposed to sit. Time in Washington DC. For three decades, the African-American athlete has competed in both tennis and basketball, seeking recognition. But the prejudices of the time about the color of her skin and sexual preferences always left her aside. Even event organizers couldn’t find her, with The New York Times writing the next day, “The silver bowl, gold ring, and medal she should have received have been returned to the Hall of Fame offices. in NYC. And Miss Washington’s whereabouts remain a mystery.” What no one seemed to know was that Washington had been dead for five years.

Ora Washington was one of the most unusual black athletes of the 20th century. Also African-American, three-time Grand Slam winner Arthur Ashe once called her “the first black woman to dominate the sport”. She faced obstacles throughout her life, and all that was left in the end was that racism robbed her of both the opportunity and the recognition she deserved.

Washington was born in January 1899 in a small farming community called Caroline County, Virginia. Her family owned a small farm and she was the fifth of nine children. As residents of Virginia and under current law, Washingtons will remain second-class citizens at every stage of their lives.

At the same time, a mass movement of Negro immigration to the North began in the United States, which historians called the “Great Migration.” Ora Washington also left the family farm in the south and began to look for a new life in Philadelphia, where she had relatives. Although—like most girls from the South—she took a job as a housekeeper in a wealthy household, the new world that opened up gave Ora opportunities she would never have had in Virginia, like sports. Tennis was the first thing that piqued her interest, so she enrolled in the Germantown Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) chapter, which she said was created to “give girls and women of color the opportunity to enjoy the benefits that have been around for so long.” used by white girls and women.” women of the community.

According to reports at the time, and mostly from newspapers in the African-American community such as the Philadelphia Tribune – the oldest in the United States (founded in 1884), Washington first began participating in black women’s national matches in 1923. Its first major success was recorded in 1925, which marked the start of her career in the sport, culminating in the seven years from 1929 to 1935 when she won the ATA Women’s Trophy so many times. Of course, in pre-war America, Washington’s success remained in … isolation, since he could not compete in the national championship with white athletes. So, despite the successes, she continued to work as a housekeeper or maid.

What is surprising is that at the same time that she took to the court, her name began to appear on women’s basketball lists, which created her reputation as the best black player in the United States. One of the first basketball teams that Washington played for was the Germantown YWCA Hornets – the so-called “Black Fives” or “Black Quint” team because these teams were for black girls only.

Through basketball and the team’s success, the Philadelphia Tribune saw an opportunity to advance black rights to recognition and equality, and thus took on sponsorship of the club. Also at the helm of the paper was activist Joe Rainey, grandson of Joseph Rainey, the first black person to serve in the US House of Representatives. “Sports was seen as a really important place for civil rights, especially because sports were meritocracy, at least in theory,” says Dr. Amira Rose Davis, assistant professor of history and African American studies at Pennsylvania State University. “It was a place that many black politicians and political leaders saw as an opportunity to expand and show that blacks are entitled to citizenship and equal rights.”

In 1932, Washington became the team’s captain, and at the end of the game together they won eleven championships in a row.
While playing for the Tribune, Washington received a small salary for the first time in her life, but she was never paid enough to quit her day job. In the late 1930s, she decided that it was time to leave the courts, but this did not happen quietly, like nothing in her life. After winning the ATA tennis title again in 1937, she announced her retirement from singles. Many accused her of doing this to avoid confrontation with the young Flora Lomax, who had already managed to make herself known in sports, stealing impressions. The hype was so great that in 1939 Washington returned from competitive inactivity to face and eventually defeat Lomax at the Buffalo tournament before retiring from singles for good. On the contrary, she continued to compete in doubles until 1948, that is, until the age of 49. She last celebrated her doubles title at the ATA Championships in 1947. On the opposite side of the grid was 19-year-old Althea Gibson, who in 1950 became the first black athlete to be admitted to a national championship, while in 1956 she won her first of three Grand Slams (Roland Garros, Wimbledon and the Open Championship). USA), naturally following the path that was opened, perhaps without even knowing it, by Washington.

As for her last basketball game, she played it in 1942.

In 1950, according to the US Census, Washington lived in Philadelphia with her brother Larry and still worked as a domestic worker.
In 1969, two years before her death at age 72, she decided to interview Len Lear for the Philadelphia Tribune. They met where it all began for her: at the YWCA in Germantown. “As soon as I met her and asked her a lot of questions, I was completely blown away,” Lear commented and continued: “It’s hard to imagine that today people are making countless millions and putting their name on perfumes and all sorts of other products.” products. And he had nothing. Nothing. She was old and unhealthy, and, of course, could not know that she was almost the best athlete in the country in the first half of the 20th century, while working as a housekeeper.

One of the people she came into contact with during the last years of her life was her great-nephew Gregory Price. “You know, she looked big, bigger than life. She was tall and thin, with a baritone voice and beautiful eyes. And when she looked at you, you could see the sincerity in her eyes as she spoke. My aunt was a lesbian, we had no problem with her sexuality, but she was isolated because of it, so I think those who knew about her sexuality suppressed her achievements, even when she was at her best. It was rejected by the black community, even more so by the white community. Although everyone adored her as a player, they refused to recognize her as a person.
“They adored her as a player but refused to acknowledge her off the pitch because of her sexuality. If she were alive today and saw the racial and sexual changes that had taken place, she would certainly be proud.”

Ora Washington died in 1971 after a long illness and is buried in her hometown of Virginia. In 2009, she was elected to the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame and on March 31, 2018, she was also inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.