Serena Williams is a talisman for a lot of Black girls as a result of the one traces she ever stayed inside had been on a tennis court docket. Even her presence there, on the time of her and her sister Venus’s debuts within the late Nineteen Nineties, was radical, greater than 40 years after Althea Gibson grew to become the primary Black participant to win a Grand Slam title.
Williams made the critics of her physique, her trend and her profession selections look silly due to her success: 23 Grand Slam trophies, a file within the Open period, and a file $94 million in profession earnings. She and sister Venus opened a pipeline of range in tennis, making a once-hostile surroundings extra hospitable. She endured racism, reached the mountaintop anyway, then planted herself there, respiration straightforward within the skinny air.
