by Olivia Gleason '26 on April 30, 2026
News
On Thursday, April 23, Providence College hosted a talk given by Ashley Brown, associate professor and the Allan H. Selig Chair in History of Sport and Society at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her talk, “A Trailblazer and Her Allies: Althea Gibson, Alice Marble, Mary Hardwick, Sarah Palfrey, and the Integration of Tennis,” gave special insight into her biography of Althea Gibson (Serving Herself: The Life and Times of Althea Gibson), which details the life of the African American tennis star and how she helped pave the way for the integration of tennis.
Brown’s visit to PC was largely made possible by professor of English Dr. John Scanlan, who taught Brown’s publication to his Writing Genres class this semester. The book, which boasts over 600 pages detailing Gibson’s story, is one that his students have enthusiastically engaged with. Dr. Scanlan credits this enthusiasm to Brown’s literary voice as well as her book’s focus on sports: “Today,” he said in a sit-down interview, “there is a special interest in sports as an entrée into a discussion of other issues,” as he noted that the subject of sports “enables and encourages us to talk about topics that are sometimes hard to discuss, topics with a certain degree of openness that are invigorating in a college environment.” His students’ response, he noted, “indicates that there is a real enthusiasm for great writing across campus.”
The talk was co-hosted by the Departments of English, American Studies, Black Studies, Political Science, Sociology, Development of Western Civilization, and Women’s and Gender Studies, as well as the Athletics Department and the Center for Engaged Learning. Such collaboration across a broad variety of sectors on campus is a testament to the invigorating subject matter Dr. Scanlan discusses as inherent to Brown’s book: “sports has this way of bringing us together,” he said, “not just because we’re all rooting for Red Sox vs. Yankees, but because sports enables us to talk about issues that we don’t talk about with enough of a range of people.”
Brown began the talk by detailing Gibson’s tumultuous upbringing and how she fought back against her circumstances and found her passion through playing sports throughout her childhood. This ultimately led to her discovery of paddle tennis, and later her love for tennis, as she developed her skills and entered the professional space. Her mobility in the sport was initially limited to the American Tennis Association, an African American association meant to uplift Black players as the predominantly white sport was segregated when Gibson began playing. Despite her impressive successes in the ATA, Gibson was continuously shut out from further tournament opportunities on account of her race.
As Brown detailed, however, this all changed with the help of three women—Alice Marble, Mary Hardwick, and Sarah Hammond Palfrey Danzig—who were well-established in the women’s tennis space. Walking the audience through what she called the “archives of allyship,” Brown demonstrated her skill as a historian in finding the exact moments of effort by these women and Gibson herself that worked to earn Gibson the tournament opportunities she deserved. These archives included articles written by the women, such as Marble’s column for the American Lawn Tennis magazine that highlighted Gibson’s talent and criticized the classism of professional tennis. The efforts of these women culminated in broadened opportunities for Gibson in the professional tennis space, including her invitation to play at Wimbledon, and strengthened Gibson’s role as a trailblazer for the integration of tennis in the United States—as Brown put it, she was a “trailblazer who prized her individuality.”
The invigoration and enthusiastic response from students was evident in the sheer turnout at Brown’s talk in the Ruane Fiondella Great Room, as well as in Dr. Scanlan’s Writing Genres class the next morning, where he witnessed firsthand the positive impact of Brown’s visit. His students were eager to discuss her presentation, and felt inspired to apply what they had learned from her. As Dr. Scanlan underscored, “so often in college, people go through the motions: good students getting good grades. But Ashley Brown raised the bar by example, and students wanted to join her in that.” Their enthusiasm was consistent in his students that come from a broad array of majors, which he noted is a testament to how “the study of literature is at the heart of a liberal arts education. And it’s very important, especially in the leadership of the College, not only to recognize but to celebrate and support it as strongly as they can.” Brown’s visit and the widespread, deeply positive response could be felt across PC’s campus. It was a lively celebration of the liberal arts, and of the individuals who spearheaded the Civil Rights Movement and made it so powerful.