Althea Gibson, Wilmington trailblazer and tennis legend, to be featured on US currency

Explore Our Galleries

An NAACP flyer campaigning for the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in 1922, but was filibustered to defeat in the Senate. Dyer, the NAACP, and freedom fighters around the country, like Flossie Baily, struggled for years to get the Dyer and other anti-lynching bills passed, to no avail. Today there is still no U.S. law specifically against lynching. In 2005, eighty of the 100 U.S. Senators voted for a resolution to apologize to victims' families and the country for their failure to outlaw lynching. Courtesy of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Some Exhibits to Come – One Hundred Years of Jim Crow

Bibliography – One Hundred Years Of Jim Crow

Claude, age 23, just months before his 1930 murder. Courtesy of Faith Deeter.

Freedom’s Heroes During Jim Crow: Flossie Bailey and the Deeters

Souvenir Portrait of the Lynching of Abram Smith and Thomas Shipp, August 7, 1930, by studio photographer Lawrence Beitler. Courtesy of the Indiana Hisorical Society.

An Iconic Lynching in the North

Claxton Dekle – Prosperous Farmer, Husband & Father of Two

Ancient manuscripts about mathematics and astronomy from Timbuktu, Mali

Some Exhibits to Come – African Peoples Before Captivity

Shackles for Adults & Children from the Henrietta Marie

Some Exhibits to Come – The Middle Passage

What I Saw Aboard a Slave Ship in 1829

Life After Hate: A Former White Power Leader Redeems Himself

Breaking News!

Today's news and culture by Black and other reporters in the Black and mainstream media.

Click Here

Ways to Support ABHM?

Click Here

October 20, 2023

By WECT Staff

WILMINGTON, N.C. (WECT) – The United States Mint announced on Tuesday, Oct. 17, that the selections have been made for its American Women Quarters Program for 2025.

“This is the fourth and final year of this historic program featuring coins with reverse (tails) designs emblematic of the accomplishments and contributions of American women. The Mint facilities at Philadelphia and Denver will manufacture these circulating quarters honoring these women,” the announcement states.

The 2025 honorees include:

Althea Gibson
Stacey Park Milbern
Dr. Vera Rubin
Juliette Gordon Low
Ida B. Wells

“Althea Gibson was a trailblazing multi-sport athlete who accomplished an impressive list of firsts throughout her athletic career,” the release says. “As the first black athlete to break the color barrier at the highest level in tennis, Gibson won 11 Grand Slam titles by the end of the 1950s, including multiple championships at Wimbledon, the U.S. Open, and the French Open in both singles and doubles.

“She was voted the 1958 Female Athlete of the Year by the Associated Press and was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame and the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. Not content with one sport, she also became the first Black player to compete in the Women’s Professional Golf Tour.”

Gibson’s connection to Wilmington began in 1946 when the high school dropout and promising tennis player was taken into the family of the late Dr. Hubert Eaton, a prominent black physician who excelled in the sport of tennis himself.

Finish the article or see the quarter designs.

Discover more about Althea.

Find more stories like this in our breaking news archive

Comments Are Welcome

Note: We moderate submissions in order to create a space for meaningful dialogue, a space where museum visitors – adults and youth –– can exchange informed, thoughtful, and relevant comments that add value to our exhibits.

Racial slurs, personal attacks, obscenity, profanity, and SHOUTING do not meet the above standard. Such comments are posted in the exhibit Hateful Speech. Commercial promotions, impersonations, and incoherent comments likewise fail to meet our goals, so will not be posted. Submissions longer than 120 words will be shortened.

See our full Comments Policy here.