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- Angela Buxton, who passed away last month, engaged in a lifelong battle against race discrimination of all kinds.
- Buxton died at the age of 85 amid an outpouring of worldwide praise, headed by renowned tennis champion Billie-Jean King.
- "I never tired talking to Angela," said Billie-Jean King of Buxton in an obituary notice.
Sixty years and more before the "Black Lives Matter" movement has come to the forefront, British-born, South African-bred tennis star Angela Buxton launched a lone, heroic and lifelong battle against race discrimination of all kinds.
Buxton died recently at the age of 85 amid an outpouring of worldwide praise, headed by renowned tennis champion Billie-Jean King and United States Association president, Katrina Adams.
In 1981, Buxton, who was Jewish, was elected one of the first recipients to the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. Then, contrastingly, in 2015 she became an honorary member of the Black International Tennis Hall of Fame for her fight against race discrimination.
A tennis star in her own right, after learning her craft in South Africa when her father sent the family here to escape the horrors of World War 2, Buxton was widely remembered for her close association with the late African-American legend, Althea Gibson, the first Black player to win a grand slam tennis title at the French Open in 1956, who was afterwards ranked top women's player in the world after annexing five grand slam singles titles and six doubles titles - but whose life was invariably blighted by race prejudice.
Buxton partnered Gibson in securing two grand slam doubles titles while winning the French Open and Wimbledon women's doubles crowns.
She was in 1956 also the first British tennis player to reach a grand slam singles final in 17 years before losing to the United States' Shirley Fry.
But at the age of 22 in an environment where footballers rather than tennis players are placed on a pedestal - and with a long and successful tennis career beckoning - Buxton suffered a major hand injury that resulted in a crushing, premature retirement as a tournament player.
It did not, however, end her association with Gibson - or her ongoing condemnation of race discrimination - that continued until the American's death in 2003 and afterwards.
Despite Gibson's stature as a sporting legend, she suffered a life of continued bias and financial hardship because of the colour of her skin. After turning to golf "because in those days you could not make a living as a woman professional tennis player," she actually reached a level as one of the top 50 women players in the world in her adopted sport.
But it did not end her financial predicament and in 1995, after suffering from a life-threatening stroke, it was Buxton who launched an international charity fund that raised a million dollars and effectively saved Gibson's life.
"I never tired talking to Angela," said Billie-Jean King in an obituary notice.
"And listening to her high moral principles. The statue of Althea Gibson erected at the USA Tennis headquarters at Flushing Meadows last year could aptly carry a footnote honouring Angela Buxton as well. She supported Althea when few others helped out. "
