March 19, 2025 • 39 mins
Ora Washington was a force to be reckoned with on both the basketball and tennis court. Friend of the show Yves Jeffcoat shines a light on her story and legacy.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Anny and Samantha and welcome stuff will
Never Told You Protection by Heart Radio. Today it is
time for another edition of Female First, which means we
are once again thrilled to be joined by the awesome,
the adventurous Eves welcomes.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Thank you. I like adventurous.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
I feel called that, Like I don't really get called that,
so I appreciate that.
Speaker 4 (00:36):
I would.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
I would say, you are you are, You've always got
adventures to update us on.
Speaker 4 (00:41):
You're a globetrotter.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
What have you been up to, Eves?
Speaker 2 (00:45):
I have been.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
I feel like managing a pretty good balance of like
chilling and working and playing and being in community and
being isolated at the same time. Uh yes, I think
last time I was on the show, I did talk
about how was I was in Seattle at the time,
and I had a really good time there and I
(01:08):
really enjoyed being outdoors there. I really enjoyed being in
the city, and I definitely plan on going back at
some point sooner or rather than later. Other than that,
I've been, I've been hanging out.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Still.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
I feel like every time you've earned the label adventuresy.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
So that's what I'll say.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Thank you. You're up to things and traveling about. Uh
here's a question. I kind of half know the answer
to this. I think were you ever into sports as
a kid, Eves?
Speaker 3 (01:44):
I was, and I when I was younger. Okay, so
I started in track when I was in middle school,
so I But but it's interesting because I kind of
my mother ran track when she was younger, and I
think it was her who kind of was like, hey,
EVESI you should, you know, join track. But she never
(02:07):
pressured me into it. So it wasn't a thing where
it's like she forced me to do track because she
did it and she wanted me to continue on her paths.
She wanted to live vicariously through me. It wasn't like that.
I think she just kind of encouraged me to do it,
and I was, I'm pretty much I pretty much still am.
And I was then Okay, if if I'm willing to
do it, then I'll do it, and if it feels right,
then I'll do it. So I did two track, and
(02:30):
I was actually pretty good at it. Although I wanted
to be a spurner, and I think we might have
talked about this, I wanted to be a sprinner. They
wouldn't make me a spurner. They put me right there
on the cusp of sprinting, and I thought sprinners were
so cool, and I still think spriners are really cool.
But you know, I wanted to be a one hundred
or two hundred girly. Really two hundred felt a little
bit more right, because I don't know if I had
(02:50):
the explosiveness to do one hundred and do well at it,
But two hundred the curve and the two hundred felt
really good to me. Hurdles no go, so they I
ended up. I ended up being in the I tried
long jump, not good at it. Get a long jump,
triple jump two different things, right, I don't know one
of those I did. I try, I wasn't good at it,
so I'm just gonna put that out of my head.
(03:12):
And then I ended up in the four hundred though,
So that's where I ended up. I did pretty well
at it, but I didn't stay in it long enough
to like I think if I stayed in it longer,
I would have done pretty even better.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
I just didn't.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
I didn't dedicate myself to it to like could could
continue on the path of athletics in track specifically, and
then after that I did tennis for a couple of
years because I liked being an athlete and I wanted
to stay in athletics and I liked tennis, but I
didn't necessarily. It wasn't those one of those things where
I forecast it being some great I wasn't. I wasn't
(03:45):
ever an athlete. I want to be a professional athlete track.
But it was like, when I ended up being good
at them, I was like, huh, maybe there is something here.
But I think, you know, some some people when they're younger,
they start out like I really love this thing. I
really want to do it. I really want to climb
the ranks in it. And if I would have started
(04:07):
with that mindset, I think I could have ended up
doing athletics in a more serious way.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
You could have got out a whole different like branching line.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Right, I think so, honestly.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
But it's funny because I still really like physicality, and
I still really like having rigorous athletic and or just
physical practices through the cons of styles of yoga asana
that I would do usually it's more on the vigorous
side and through powerlifting. I just like I like things
(04:38):
that really challenged me physically, and so I feel like
I've still been able to, in a more leisurely way
than professional athletics, be able to keep that in my life.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah, that's great. I wish I wish I'd kept up
with a bunch of my stuff. But once the pandemic came, which,
by the way, today is at Quarantine University, so happy
Quarantine anniversary everybody.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
I was expecting that.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
I saw my calendar over here. I'm like, oh, yeah,
I remember this.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
I like a whole thing. I just go ahead and
I know about that.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
The last things I did that day, I do them
again in memory. That's pretty poetic. I'm a very big
tradition person. I don't know quite why, but it helps
me mark the passage of time. I think. So I'm like, okay,
this is when I eat this meal. I remember this
(05:40):
fair especially during the pandemic. That was useful because time
m m M. To say, I was kind of similar
to you Eves in terms of I liked playing sports.
I was pretty good at some of them, but once
usually once somebody came to me and was like, do
(06:00):
you want to compete professionally? I would always say no,
and then I would quit. I don't know. I to
quit ask you got like, oh god, no this is over.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
You've noticed me. I must hide it again.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Yeah kinda yeah, but I did.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
I really.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
I also played tennis. My dad really wanted me to
be I wouldn't say he pressured me, but he really
wanted me to be into it, and I wasn't too.
I liked it, but I was never like a lot
of times I was like, why don't have to go
do tennis right now? It's hot outside. Yeah that's about
where I was.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
So you didn't enjoy it when you were doing it.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
I enjoyed it when I played it with my friends,
but he signed me up for lessons and I didn't
like the lessons. And a running theme throughout me playing
sports was I've never wear the right clothes because I
was such a nerd. I was wearing I remember this
very specifically. I was wearing a Black Star Wars T
(07:02):
shirt that said don't Look Back, and it had the
picture of Darth Vader of the Shadow. It was a
horrible shirt to wear for exercise the heat, so I
didn't dress properly for it, and so a lot of
it was like I was tired after school and I
wasn't wearing the right thing. Well, when I played with
(07:23):
my friends, I did really love it that.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Yeah, yeah, what about you, Samantha, do you have any.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
Oh No, I was definitely Actually I cheerleaded, and I
know that could be a debate about whether or not
it's a sport, but I did. We did like competitive
stuff with dance and stunting, and I.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Was always the bass, so I.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
Was the one lifting thing throwing people because I got
those thick dyes helped me push people up. But with that,
I did try tennis and I'm bad at it, so
bad that the first time that I try to play
with someone who was actually really good and he was
trying to help me, he walked off the court and said,
don't do this me and walked away.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
From me, and to me, it was a personal offense,
Like he was so offended. I'm like, fair enough because
it was not working. He was he was done, he
was open, So it was not my thing. Uh.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
I kind of wish we had other types because again
I also was one of those that started working at
like thirteen fourteen, so I had to stop pretty much
everything in order to like get things in Edver, to
do things, so I did that, so less sports, more working.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
But yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
Not very competitive. I'm very slow. I'm also very slow.
Can't jump that high off the ground, but I can.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Yeah, you don't. You can't up.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
You don't need to have ups to be able to
do with sport. But that's why you were the base, right.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
That was because I was sturty on that ground.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
That makes sense. I mean, this is gravity does this
thing for a reason, and it kept me down. Fine,
I'm fine, I'm fine.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Yes, blame gravity, Yeah, thank you. I like that. Well,
I am very excited to talk about the person who
brought today. Eves is quite a wild story and it's
(09:25):
interesting to see how sports have changed so much. So
who are we talking about today?
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Yeah, Actually our conversation about tennis is pretty appropriate because
we are talking about Aura Washington today and she was
the first black woman to win seven consecutive singles titles
in the American Tennis Association and also kind of I've
seen it put as like the first black American woman's
sports celebrity, and we'll get into later. I think some
(09:52):
more dig into that word celebrity. I mean, I feel
like celebrity is already a loaded word, but the way
that her legacy kind of panned out, and how she
was recognized during her time, I think maybe could have
been uplifted a little bit more as a little teaser.
But we can start a little bit earlier than that.
Where she was born, So she was born in the
(10:14):
late eighteen nineties. Not really clear exactly when she was born,
but it might have been eighteen ninety eight or eighteen
ninety nine. And she was born on a family farm
in Caroline County, Virginia. I think that's Caroline. If somebody
knows how to pronounce it, maybe it's Carolyn. I know
sometimes place names have specific pronunciations, but as far as
(10:36):
I know, Caroline County, Virginia, and her parents were James
Thomas Washington and Laura Young Washington. And she was the
fifth of nine children, and they were part of a
community of people who own farmland. And according to a
family member, tobacco was a family's biggest crop, but they
also grew corn, wheat, and rye. And the way the
(11:00):
family had it organized was kind of like the boys
worked outside and the fields and the girls worked inside
and on. There's not a ton of information about this
time in her life, but on the nineteen ten census,
Aura it's listed as being twelve years old, which would
put her as having been born sometime around eighteen ninety eight.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Now, we already have.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Talked about many times on female first how there's a
lot of dubiousness around the dates that people were born,
and people would not know themselves, and then people would
make stuff up and the senses would be wrong, So
of course, making room for that, but that is that,
I think that gives us a general sense of around
the age she was at this time. And by this
point her mom is already dead. Her mom died giving
(11:45):
birth to the ninth sibling, and of course, yeah, it
became hard for her dad to take care of everyone
in the family farm and the family all of his own.
So I'm not sure exactly what happened to all of
the their siblings and the family, but it's clear that
Aura moved to Germantown and Philadelphia and moved in with
(12:07):
her aunt Maddie sometime around the mid nineteen tens. And
this is in Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania is where her story
with sports starts. So just for a little context, in
the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds, I'm sure
y'all have talked about it on the show before, but
(12:28):
with women in sports, but women and particularly kind of
more well to do white women who had luxury of
time and luxury of resources were encouraged to exercise. So
middle and upper class women were forming athletic clubs. That's
what they were spending their time doing, exercise in these clubs.
And at the same time, women who are more working
(12:51):
class and black women didn't have as much time and
as much luxury to be involved in sports. Of course,
exercise is kind of a it's a constructed thing because
a lot of the time people were moving their bodies
and the work that they were doing, they're spending time outside.
So this is not to say, I don't want to
make it seem like this is like, oh, white women
(13:11):
and upper class people were the only people who were
more healthier or who were more capable, who were more
capable of moving their bodies or doing sports. It wasn't
like that. It was just like in this constructed way
and group participation and in participation to facilities and more
resources like that, more middle to upper class people and
(13:31):
non black people were the ones who were having those experiences.
But at the same time, of course, people would recognized
that and it was being addressed. So there were organizations
that aimed to help with these kinds of societal issues
like poverty and being able to give black children and
(13:52):
girls and women places where they could go to have
similar experiences and exercise, and one of them was the
Young Women's Christian Association or YWCA, which has its own
long history, but there was a Black YWCA in Germantown
(14:13):
where Aura was, and that is where her story in
sports starts. That's where she was given access to lessons
where she was able to learn more and that now
it wasn't like she dropped everything and had ample and
infinite time to participate in sport us because on the
(14:37):
nineteen twenty census at least, and so during this entire time,
essentially she's still working. She's listed as one of two
servants working in a wealthy white home in Philly, so
she does do domestic work at this time to obviously
help herself and probably her family as well. So it's
not even clear how she got interested in tennis. It's
(15:00):
like I haven't seen any of her own personal records,
any of her personal narratives about like, this is how
I was inspired by somebody to get into tennis, this
is who I saw playing, this is what I liked
about tennis. There's not really much of that reflection that
I have that I am aware of to go, and
I don't think it really exists. It hasn't popped up yet,
(15:23):
but there, you know, it is more information about her
as she becomes more involved in sports. There's just not
a lot of personal information about her personal life and
her own.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Reflections about it.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
But it might have been sometime around nineteen twenty three,
when she first started playing in national Black women's competitions.
There was an article that noted how she held the
racket almost halfway up to handle, which is, of course,
if you're familiar with tennis and a more unusual way
of handling.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
The racket, usually hold it farther down.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
But in ten twenty four, we're skipping a lot. So
I just want to recognize that. I want to call
that out because we're going to get right into like
when she started winning, she's actually playing.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Now, you know, it's kind of like we have.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
To skip the whole month the training montage because I
don't know any of that that information isn't available, but
of I am curious about what percentage of that was
and the lessons she got, what percentage of that was
naturally came to her. So I did see noted in
some of the articles about her, like, oh, she had
(16:33):
natural talent. But I do think I know y'all know,
oftentimes in these articles about people, it's a little bit
of inflation, there's a little bit of embellishment. So how
I don't really know how a person can judge what
is someone's natural talent versus what is someone's development through
the skills that they gained and the lessons that they took.
(16:54):
And I also don't want to diminish, you know, the
actual work that she put into it, especially considering I
don't really know what she did to put the work
into it. So yeah, but she did start winning pretty early.
In nineteen twenty four, she won the city championship in Wilmington, Delaware,
and women's singles and doubles and mixed doubles titles, and
(17:19):
in nineteen twenty five she won the New York City
and New York State championships, and notably she beat Isadora Channels,
who had won ATA national championships twice, and ATA as
in the American Tennis Association, so I'll be saying ATA
when they come up from now on. But she also
(17:40):
that same year won the women's doubles titles at the ATA,
and the ATA was a national black tennis organization that
was founded in nineteen sixteen. Since black folks were barred
from playing against white folks, so this was a situation
where as we'll continue to talk about later, Or had
(18:00):
to stay in the black folks lane because she wasn't
really competing against white people during this time because of segregation.
So at the time, Aura would trade top spots with
Isidora Channels and Lula Ballard, and she played doubles with Lula,
and she had some difficulties beating them at nationals, and
(18:21):
she would beat them at the state levels. But in
July nineteen twenty seven she won at the Pennsylvania Open,
and she got that title again the next year. But
during all this time, she was still having to work.
So yes, she was she was getting more titles in
the sports that she was playing, but she also had
(18:42):
to continue working. And around the spring of nineteen twenty nine,
she moved to Chicago, and when she was there, She
worked as a domestic worker in the hotel for a
couple of years, and she beat Francis Gittins in nineteen
nine and that's when she got a women's national title,
(19:04):
and that was the first of men need more to come.
And she continued to do well in the black tennis realm,
but in the off season she turned to basketball.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
So basketball was kind.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Of more It was the thing that a lot of
women played, and it was a little bit more easily
accessible to black women and to the working class. And
it was like she would in the warmer months play
in the spring and summer play tennis, and then she
was able to in the fall and winter play basketball,
and so she kind of had she had a real
(19:38):
year round sports practice. And in nineteen thirty she joined
the Germantown Hornets, which played at the local YWCA.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
And they were doing really well.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
So by March of nineteen thirty one, they were up
fourteen games to one game and Aura was.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Usually the high scorer in the game.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
In the articles about her, they talk about, oh Aura,
she she carried the team. Basically, we were passing into her,
she was making the points. There was a lot of that,
Like Aura was a star on the team she was on,
and the Hornets soon became a professional team and they
ended up playing other black women's teams, so white women's teams,
(20:18):
and sometimes they even play black men's teams. But there
was a big defeat in nineteen thirty two, and that
was against the Philadelphia Tribune Girls, which was related to
the Philadelphia Tribune.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
They sponsored.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
That's why they were called that because the Philadelphia Tribune,
which was a black newspaper, did sponsor them. So they
beat Aura when she was on the Hornets to win
the national title after this really intense championship series of
five games to determine who was going to be the
Black women's champions, and Otto Briggs, who was the circulation
(20:56):
director for the Philadelphia Tribune, got her to switch team,
enjoining the Tribunes as captain in the fall of nineteen
thirty two, so she wasn't even on hornetstat long when
they lost. She was like, Okay, I'm good. I would
love to know how that conversation went. But I wonder
how much convincing it took her to switch teams. But
(21:17):
it's a nice rivalry story, I feel like. And so
then she's switched over she switched teams, and Ora did
get a small salary for playing on the team, but
she didn't earn enough to stop doing domestic work still.
So as in many of the other stories we talk
about on Female First, it's like, okay, yeah, we were
(21:39):
talking about their accomplishments now in hindsight. And sometimes they
got notoriety while they were alive. Sometimes they didn't get
it until they were dead already. But oftentimes they weren't
making money to match whatever whatever kind of recognition they
were getting at the time, and that was a case
(21:59):
for Aura. She kept working and at the same time,
the team kept winning games. By January of nineteen thirty three,
they had won eleven consecutive games. The Philadelphia Tribunes did
and in the book A Spectacular Leap by Jennifer H. Lansberry,
the author says that Aura had great stamina and she
(22:21):
had the ability to pass or shoot with either hand,
so they were doing well. A lot of that was
attributed to Aura, although it was definitely a team effort.
In nineteen thirty four, the Tribunes went on tour and
they were doing their thing, and Aura herself, she was
still on the tennis side as well, so I got
(22:42):
this basketball thing going on, We're going back to tennis now.
Back on that side, she lost the ATA singles title
for the first time since she first won it in
nineteen twenty nine, so she was winning for a while,
but in nineteen thirty seven she did win it again.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
However, she.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Planned on retiring, so around nineteen thirty eight, she retired
from her tennis singles career. However, she did plan to
keep competing in doubles matches.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Out of curiosity.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Do y'all like, do y'all prefer singles or doubles in tennis,
whether that's playing or watching.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
I prefer playing doubles most of the time. I watched
tennis at singles, But I don't know if that's a
preference thing or if that's just how it has panned
out for me in my life.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
I don't really watch tennis. I'm just gonna admit it.
Speaker 4 (23:39):
Like, if I were there live and this is for
all sports, I think for me, I would enjoy it.
But watching it on DV is not my favorite. So
the few clips that I've seen are those like because
I like the person, you know what I'm saying. So
I don't know much about because I have recently watched
the fact that they are now micing a lot of
the editor so that's been interesting.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
Yeah, okay, sorrysure, okay, Yeah, I was asking because I
you know, I know that or I did both, so
she did both singles and doubles, and when I played,
they put me in doubles more. I think I just
wasn't strong enough in tennis, Like I just I mean,
(24:23):
I wasn't strong.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
I wasn't strong as a tennis player enough. In general.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
I had a lot more work I needed to do
to get better. I was decent. I was decent, but
I think there were I think there was a market
just advantage that other players had over me because they
started younger.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
I started in high school.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
And then there were the people who were like a
little bit wealthier, you know, they were like U upper
middle class, and they had the ability to get tennis
lessons starting from a young age, and I was just
outclassed when I would go to compete a lot of
the time. But I do know that if I would
have been able to have more time and lessons that
I could have done better. But I enjoy watching singles
(25:06):
a lot as well. I think when I do I've
watched tennis. I'll watch singles more, but I do really
like playing doubles and it's fun to have a partner
on your side, you know.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
I don't know, but.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
It's at this point in Aura's journey in tennis where
she kind of she leaves singles behind, at least for
the moment, and then keeps stealing doubles matches. So back
on the basketball side. In nineteen thirty eight, the Tribunes
went on tour in the South again. This time they
went to Orangeburg, South Carolina. They went to Atlanta, Biloxi, Mississippi,
(25:41):
New Orleans, and the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. And writer
Rick Roberts wrote a feature on Aura in the Atlanta
Daily World, and he said this Miss Washington, unlike most females,
affects the burden of national prominence with dignity and grace.
She is wholly unaffected, has a most obliging and pleasing personality,
(26:05):
and is a favorite of all her associates. So that
was a pretty glowing albeit you know, a lot of
outdated terminology UT data terminology, and clearly focused a lot,
very heavily on her personality, which doesn't I mean I
(26:26):
mean as part of a person, of course, but not
sure what how how this is relevant to like her
prowess and her sports playing. But yeah, she and she
also didn't get her feedback about women in general and
sports and about Aura wasn't always so ingratiating because it
(26:48):
was like women were kind of expected to still be
more dainty, to still be more you know, refined around
the edges. Yes, and she didn't always fit that mold
for everyone, but doesn't matter. She was winning, and they
won a bunch of consecutive championship titles. And back on
(27:14):
the tennis side in nineteen thirty nine, because she was
going back and forth between the two in a single year.
In nineteen thirty nine, she came out of retirement just
to play Flora Lomax, who was new, like hot on
the scene. She was the ATA national champion. And Aura
said this in a Baltimore Afro American interview. She said, quote,
certain people said certain things last year. They said Aura
(27:37):
was not so good anymore. I had not planned to
enter singles this year, but I just had to go
up to Buffalo to prove somebody was wrong.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
And she did.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
She still on her word, and she beat Flora and
she was just going to take a break from singles
for a little bit. It seems like she kind of
backed away from the whole retirement plan, was like, I'm
going to take a break. But then she was injured
in a basketball game in nineteen forty one and she
just completely retired from tennis singles. And she had been
(28:08):
the only player to win national titles in the singles,
doubles and mixed doubles in the same year, and back
to basketball she was still doing that and she was
still captain for the Tribunes, but she that point she
didn't really play on the court much. And around nineteen
forty two or nineteen forty three she left the Philadelphia
(28:31):
Tribune Girls when it disbanded, and she did keep playing doubles,
and nineteen forty seven is when she won her last
mixed doubles title in the ATA and she played with
George Stewart for that match, and in the she had
like eight singles championships, twelve consecutive doubles titles, and three
(28:52):
mixed doubles titles.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
And yeah, at this point, her varied career in.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Basketball and in tennis kind of dwindles down. She in
the nineteen forties, bought a house in Philly with her
younger sister and lived with her sister and her sister's
husband and their brother, and she died on May twenty ninth,
nineteen seventy one, and Philadelphia.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
She had had a long career in both of those sports.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
She had really made a name for herself, and she
had won the ATA doubles titles every year from nineteen
twenty five to nineteen thirty six. She had won the
ATA women's singles titles every year from nineteen twenty nine
to nineteen thirty five, and she had gained notoriety in
those black circles, but she didn't get rich and she
didn't garner mainstream fame, which is how we were talking
(29:55):
about in the beginning, kind of like what the word
celebrity means. I mean, in our hindsight and our recognition
of her, should consider her as a person who was
really a pioneer in one being really skilled in tennis
and skilled in basketball and helping take her teams to
(30:16):
victory and being a highlight of the games, you know,
being really proficient at what she did, and also garnering
attention and a lot of the black press specifically, but
she wasn't getting the attention that some of her white
counterparts who were doing similar things in the white leagues were,
So it was also in general just a very the
landscape was shifting a lot, because this was the early
(30:38):
nineteen hundreds, so sports for everyone was changing a lot,
sports for women was especially changing a lot, and basketball.
At first the women were playing competitively and by similar
rules that the men were playing, but at a certain
point women were expected to not be so quote unquote
(30:58):
rough and competitive. And you'll see in some of those
articles people talk about yeah, like you know, yeah, the
team was, it was good, they won, but like they
were a little too rough. They weren't playing as sensitively
as they expected women to play at the time, where
it was more participatory sport than a competitive and like
(31:19):
physical sport as someone would.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Expect basketball to be today. And she did though, like.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Although at her time she got some feedback that was
in that vein later posthumously, she was inducted into many
halls of fame. In nineteen seventy six, she was inducted
into the Black Athletes Hall of Fame. But there is
a story about how and I feel like it's called
out because it is. It's pretty indicative and symbolic of
(31:54):
her legacy, is that at the ceremony for her being
inducted into the Hall of Fame, they expected her to
be there in nineteen seventy six, but as we said,
she died in May of nineteen seventy one, so of
course she wasn't going to be there. But they didn't
know that. They didn't know that she had passed away already.
They were ready to give her her commemorative items and
(32:14):
they were on stage like, hey, we have all these
things for you, and she didn't show.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Up to get her award.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
So yeah, I know, it's kind of morbidly funny, right,
Like she had died in such like there had been
little fanfare around her legacy around the time of her death.
She had apparently been sick up until her time of death,
like so in her last year, she was already getting
sick up until the time she died.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
And it just wasn't known.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
Although you know, I do wonder about the backstory because
somebody had to have done some research into her to
know that she deserved this award. It makes me wonder
what the vetting process is like. But she did deserve
the a war because she was a pioneer in the field.
(33:06):
And but yeah, that it was just that's a pretty
weird story.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
I have so many questions.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Oh yeah, right.
Speaker 4 (33:15):
I was like, how do you how how do you
not check the say there's still a lie?
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Like, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
That seems like an obvious question.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Yeah, because you're.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
Also wondering like, how is she going to get there
to the ceremony? Is anybody bringing her? Did anybody reach
out to her before?
Speaker 4 (33:31):
He is, Yeah, did they send the letter be like hey,
we're gonna honor you. No, one like looked at it,
so they're just like, obviously she said yes.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
No answer is that? Yes?
Speaker 3 (33:40):
Right, Yeah, it's an odd story. Well I can't explain it.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Still, he congratulations she deserved the award.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Yeah she did.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
And then later and she was also inducted into other
halls of fame. So in two thousand and nine, she
was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of In twenty eighteen,
she was also inducted into the Nasmith Memorial Basketball Hall
of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts, and historians have done more
work to uncover parts of her life. I know historian
(34:13):
Pamela Grundy is one person who has been doing the
diligent work of looking up more details of what happened,
more so her personal life. And Ora's former teammates also
later said that she was seen as less feminine than
the other players. So you can go and look at
pictures of Ura and pictures of her and the rest
(34:34):
of her team as well. They talked about in the
articles how she was five to seven and despite her
being five to seven, she was still really great at
basketball and dominated on the court. But yeah, so y'all
can see her as well. And her great nephew later on,
his name is Gregory Price. He said in interviews that
(34:55):
she was gay and that she was reclusive because of it,
so that's also part of her. But we don't really
have her talking about that in her own words. So
I think there was some like homophobia in the commentary
surrounding her, maybe in more public forums of speculation around it,
but there is no personal narrative. But her great great
(35:16):
nephew did comment on that. And then there is a
podcast called BBC Untold Legends that tells her story. It's
like six parts and folks can go listen to it
and hear more of what the historians and family members
and teammates and like that, and people who were closer
to her and knew more about her had to say.
So there definitely was a recovery of her legacy, even
(35:40):
though in nineteen seventy six people didn't even know she died,
and the people who were honoring her didn't even know
she died.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
So imagine what people who had never heard of Aura.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
It's like I didn't even know about her, you know,
didn't know anything about her at all, because the people
who were honoring her didn't even know that she was gone.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Yeah, that is that's or a story.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
Yeah, and it's really interesting because I actually had heard
about her before, but I only I knew the tennis part.
I didn't know about the basketball part. That's wild. And
you know, as a lot of interviews I was reading
about her pointed out, it's so fascinating that, you know, today,
athletes like Serena Williams make millions and have all these
(36:28):
products with their name on it, and meanwhile she's in
basketball antennas and winning all these awards and not getting
paid much, if at all, and then kind of just
being forgotten after she retired. It's a very It's interesting
(36:48):
because we're still having conversations about you know, coverage, equal
coverage of women's sports versus men's sports, and equal pay,
but that it's shifted so much to like we're talking
in millions now or you know what I mean. It
was interesting to hear this story and to think about
(37:09):
all the things that have changed and all the things
that still haven't.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Yeah, it is like she didn't get sponsorships, she didn't
wasn't paid a lot in her salary when she did
get a salary when she was on the basketball team,
which is a huge difference from how athletes, you know,
are able to navigate their compensation today. So yeah, I
at least according to her family members that it seems
(37:34):
like she wasn't sad, is what I think what Gregory
Price said, Like, Okay, she wasn't sad and she was
happy with her accomplishments, and at least according to them,
it didn't seem like and definitely not in interviews that
she gave, it didn't seem like she was so feeling
(37:55):
so dejected about not having got those things at the time.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
Yeah, for sure, But I mean, so many awards It's
amazing what she did accomplish. So thank you as always
use for bringing this story to us. Where can the
good listeners find you?
Speaker 3 (38:17):
So everyone can find me at Evesjeffcote dot com so
you can just go there and find a lot of
other things. That's spelled y V E S J E
F F C O A T dot com.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
You can sign up for my newsletter there.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
If you want to go straight to Instagram, you can
go to not Apologizing and you can also find me
on many other episodes of Sminty talking about female first
accomplishments of women in history.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Yes, go check all that stuff out listeners, if you
have not already, and you can find us in many ways.
You can emails at hello at stuff iever told you
dot com. You can find us on Blue Sky, on
a podcast, or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff I
Never Told you for also on YouTube. We have tea
public store, and we have a book you can get
wherever you get your books. Thanks, it's always to our
super producer Christina, our executive ducer My and your coontruder Joey.
(39:10):
Thank you and thanks to you for listening. Stuff I've
Never Told You is production by heart Radio. For more
podcasts from My heart Radio, you can check out the
heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Hey, this is Anny and Samantha and welcome stuff will
Never Told You Protection by Heart Radio. Today it is
time for another edition of Female First, which means we
are once again thrilled to be joined by the awesome,
the adventurous Eves welcomes.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Thank you. I like adventurous.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
I feel called that, Like I don't really get called that,
so I appreciate that.
Speaker 4 (00:36):
I would.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
I would say, you are you are, You've always got
adventures to update us on.
Speaker 4 (00:41):
You're a globetrotter.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
What have you been up to, Eves?
Speaker 2 (00:45):
I have been.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
I feel like managing a pretty good balance of like
chilling and working and playing and being in community and
being isolated at the same time. Uh yes, I think
last time I was on the show, I did talk
about how was I was in Seattle at the time,
and I had a really good time there and I
(01:08):
really enjoyed being outdoors there. I really enjoyed being in
the city, and I definitely plan on going back at
some point sooner or rather than later. Other than that,
I've been, I've been hanging out.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Still.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
I feel like every time you've earned the label adventuresy.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
So that's what I'll say.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Thank you. You're up to things and traveling about. Uh
here's a question. I kind of half know the answer
to this. I think were you ever into sports as
a kid, Eves?
Speaker 3 (01:44):
I was, and I when I was younger. Okay, so
I started in track when I was in middle school,
so I But but it's interesting because I kind of
my mother ran track when she was younger, and I
think it was her who kind of was like, hey,
EVESI you should, you know, join track. But she never
(02:07):
pressured me into it. So it wasn't a thing where
it's like she forced me to do track because she
did it and she wanted me to continue on her paths.
She wanted to live vicariously through me. It wasn't like that.
I think she just kind of encouraged me to do it,
and I was, I'm pretty much I pretty much still am.
And I was then Okay, if if I'm willing to
do it, then I'll do it, and if it feels right,
then I'll do it. So I did two track, and
(02:30):
I was actually pretty good at it. Although I wanted
to be a spurner, and I think we might have
talked about this, I wanted to be a sprinner. They
wouldn't make me a spurner. They put me right there
on the cusp of sprinting, and I thought sprinners were
so cool, and I still think spriners are really cool.
But you know, I wanted to be a one hundred
or two hundred girly. Really two hundred felt a little
bit more right, because I don't know if I had
(02:50):
the explosiveness to do one hundred and do well at it,
But two hundred the curve and the two hundred felt
really good to me. Hurdles no go, so they I
ended up. I ended up being in the I tried
long jump, not good at it. Get a long jump,
triple jump two different things, right, I don't know one
of those I did. I try, I wasn't good at it,
so I'm just gonna put that out of my head.
(03:12):
And then I ended up in the four hundred though,
So that's where I ended up. I did pretty well
at it, but I didn't stay in it long enough
to like I think if I stayed in it longer,
I would have done pretty even better.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
I just didn't.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
I didn't dedicate myself to it to like could could
continue on the path of athletics in track specifically, and
then after that I did tennis for a couple of
years because I liked being an athlete and I wanted
to stay in athletics and I liked tennis, but I
didn't necessarily. It wasn't those one of those things where
I forecast it being some great I wasn't. I wasn't
(03:45):
ever an athlete. I want to be a professional athlete track.
But it was like, when I ended up being good
at them, I was like, huh, maybe there is something here.
But I think, you know, some some people when they're younger,
they start out like I really love this thing. I
really want to do it. I really want to climb
the ranks in it. And if I would have started
(04:07):
with that mindset, I think I could have ended up
doing athletics in a more serious way.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
You could have got out a whole different like branching line.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Right, I think so, honestly.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
But it's funny because I still really like physicality, and
I still really like having rigorous athletic and or just
physical practices through the cons of styles of yoga asana
that I would do usually it's more on the vigorous
side and through powerlifting. I just like I like things
(04:38):
that really challenged me physically, and so I feel like
I've still been able to, in a more leisurely way
than professional athletics, be able to keep that in my life.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah, that's great. I wish I wish I'd kept up
with a bunch of my stuff. But once the pandemic came, which,
by the way, today is at Quarantine University, so happy
Quarantine anniversary everybody.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
I was expecting that.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
I saw my calendar over here. I'm like, oh, yeah,
I remember this.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
I like a whole thing. I just go ahead and
I know about that.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
The last things I did that day, I do them
again in memory. That's pretty poetic. I'm a very big
tradition person. I don't know quite why, but it helps
me mark the passage of time. I think. So I'm like, okay,
this is when I eat this meal. I remember this
(05:40):
fair especially during the pandemic. That was useful because time
m m M. To say, I was kind of similar
to you Eves in terms of I liked playing sports.
I was pretty good at some of them, but once
usually once somebody came to me and was like, do
(06:00):
you want to compete professionally? I would always say no,
and then I would quit. I don't know. I to
quit ask you got like, oh god, no this is over.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
You've noticed me. I must hide it again.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Yeah kinda yeah, but I did.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
I really.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
I also played tennis. My dad really wanted me to
be I wouldn't say he pressured me, but he really
wanted me to be into it, and I wasn't too.
I liked it, but I was never like a lot
of times I was like, why don't have to go
do tennis right now? It's hot outside. Yeah that's about
where I was.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
So you didn't enjoy it when you were doing it.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
I enjoyed it when I played it with my friends,
but he signed me up for lessons and I didn't
like the lessons. And a running theme throughout me playing
sports was I've never wear the right clothes because I
was such a nerd. I was wearing I remember this
very specifically. I was wearing a Black Star Wars T
(07:02):
shirt that said don't Look Back, and it had the
picture of Darth Vader of the Shadow. It was a
horrible shirt to wear for exercise the heat, so I
didn't dress properly for it, and so a lot of
it was like I was tired after school and I
wasn't wearing the right thing. Well, when I played with
(07:23):
my friends, I did really love it that.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Yeah, yeah, what about you, Samantha, do you have any.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
Oh No, I was definitely Actually I cheerleaded, and I
know that could be a debate about whether or not
it's a sport, but I did. We did like competitive
stuff with dance and stunting, and I.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Was always the bass, so I.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
Was the one lifting thing throwing people because I got
those thick dyes helped me push people up. But with that,
I did try tennis and I'm bad at it, so
bad that the first time that I try to play
with someone who was actually really good and he was
trying to help me, he walked off the court and said,
don't do this me and walked away.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
From me, and to me, it was a personal offense,
Like he was so offended. I'm like, fair enough because
it was not working. He was he was done, he
was open, So it was not my thing. Uh.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
I kind of wish we had other types because again
I also was one of those that started working at
like thirteen fourteen, so I had to stop pretty much
everything in order to like get things in Edver, to
do things, so I did that, so less sports, more working.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
But yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
Not very competitive. I'm very slow. I'm also very slow.
Can't jump that high off the ground, but I can.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Yeah, you don't. You can't up.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
You don't need to have ups to be able to
do with sport. But that's why you were the base, right.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
That was because I was sturty on that ground.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
That makes sense. I mean, this is gravity does this
thing for a reason, and it kept me down. Fine,
I'm fine, I'm fine.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Yes, blame gravity, Yeah, thank you. I like that. Well,
I am very excited to talk about the person who
brought today. Eves is quite a wild story and it's
(09:25):
interesting to see how sports have changed so much. So
who are we talking about today?
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Yeah, Actually our conversation about tennis is pretty appropriate because
we are talking about Aura Washington today and she was
the first black woman to win seven consecutive singles titles
in the American Tennis Association and also kind of I've
seen it put as like the first black American woman's
sports celebrity, and we'll get into later. I think some
(09:52):
more dig into that word celebrity. I mean, I feel
like celebrity is already a loaded word, but the way
that her legacy kind of panned out, and how she
was recognized during her time, I think maybe could have
been uplifted a little bit more as a little teaser.
But we can start a little bit earlier than that.
Where she was born, So she was born in the
(10:14):
late eighteen nineties. Not really clear exactly when she was born,
but it might have been eighteen ninety eight or eighteen
ninety nine. And she was born on a family farm
in Caroline County, Virginia. I think that's Caroline. If somebody
knows how to pronounce it, maybe it's Carolyn. I know
sometimes place names have specific pronunciations, but as far as
(10:36):
I know, Caroline County, Virginia, and her parents were James
Thomas Washington and Laura Young Washington. And she was the
fifth of nine children, and they were part of a
community of people who own farmland. And according to a
family member, tobacco was a family's biggest crop, but they
also grew corn, wheat, and rye. And the way the
(11:00):
family had it organized was kind of like the boys
worked outside and the fields and the girls worked inside
and on. There's not a ton of information about this
time in her life, but on the nineteen ten census,
Aura it's listed as being twelve years old, which would
put her as having been born sometime around eighteen ninety eight.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Now, we already have.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Talked about many times on female first how there's a
lot of dubiousness around the dates that people were born,
and people would not know themselves, and then people would
make stuff up and the senses would be wrong, So
of course, making room for that, but that is that,
I think that gives us a general sense of around
the age she was at this time. And by this
point her mom is already dead. Her mom died giving
(11:45):
birth to the ninth sibling, and of course, yeah, it
became hard for her dad to take care of everyone
in the family farm and the family all of his own.
So I'm not sure exactly what happened to all of
the their siblings and the family, but it's clear that
Aura moved to Germantown and Philadelphia and moved in with
(12:07):
her aunt Maddie sometime around the mid nineteen tens. And
this is in Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania is where her story
with sports starts. So just for a little context, in
the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds, I'm sure
y'all have talked about it on the show before, but
(12:28):
with women in sports, but women and particularly kind of
more well to do white women who had luxury of
time and luxury of resources were encouraged to exercise. So
middle and upper class women were forming athletic clubs. That's
what they were spending their time doing, exercise in these clubs.
And at the same time, women who are more working
(12:51):
class and black women didn't have as much time and
as much luxury to be involved in sports. Of course,
exercise is kind of a it's a constructed thing because
a lot of the time people were moving their bodies
and the work that they were doing, they're spending time outside.
So this is not to say, I don't want to
make it seem like this is like, oh, white women
(13:11):
and upper class people were the only people who were
more healthier or who were more capable, who were more
capable of moving their bodies or doing sports. It wasn't
like that. It was just like in this constructed way
and group participation and in participation to facilities and more
resources like that, more middle to upper class people and
(13:31):
non black people were the ones who were having those experiences.
But at the same time, of course, people would recognized
that and it was being addressed. So there were organizations
that aimed to help with these kinds of societal issues
like poverty and being able to give black children and
(13:52):
girls and women places where they could go to have
similar experiences and exercise, and one of them was the
Young Women's Christian Association or YWCA, which has its own
long history, but there was a Black YWCA in Germantown
(14:13):
where Aura was, and that is where her story in
sports starts. That's where she was given access to lessons
where she was able to learn more and that now
it wasn't like she dropped everything and had ample and
infinite time to participate in sport us because on the
(14:37):
nineteen twenty census at least, and so during this entire time,
essentially she's still working. She's listed as one of two
servants working in a wealthy white home in Philly, so
she does do domestic work at this time to obviously
help herself and probably her family as well. So it's
not even clear how she got interested in tennis. It's
(15:00):
like I haven't seen any of her own personal records,
any of her personal narratives about like, this is how
I was inspired by somebody to get into tennis, this
is who I saw playing, this is what I liked
about tennis. There's not really much of that reflection that
I have that I am aware of to go, and
I don't think it really exists. It hasn't popped up yet,
(15:23):
but there, you know, it is more information about her
as she becomes more involved in sports. There's just not
a lot of personal information about her personal life and
her own.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Reflections about it.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
But it might have been sometime around nineteen twenty three,
when she first started playing in national Black women's competitions.
There was an article that noted how she held the
racket almost halfway up to handle, which is, of course,
if you're familiar with tennis and a more unusual way
of handling.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
The racket, usually hold it farther down.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
But in ten twenty four, we're skipping a lot. So
I just want to recognize that. I want to call
that out because we're going to get right into like
when she started winning, she's actually playing.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Now, you know, it's kind of like we have.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
To skip the whole month the training montage because I
don't know any of that that information isn't available, but
of I am curious about what percentage of that was
and the lessons she got, what percentage of that was
naturally came to her. So I did see noted in
some of the articles about her, like, oh, she had
(16:33):
natural talent. But I do think I know y'all know,
oftentimes in these articles about people, it's a little bit
of inflation, there's a little bit of embellishment. So how
I don't really know how a person can judge what
is someone's natural talent versus what is someone's development through
the skills that they gained and the lessons that they took.
(16:54):
And I also don't want to diminish, you know, the
actual work that she put into it, especially considering I
don't really know what she did to put the work
into it. So yeah, but she did start winning pretty early.
In nineteen twenty four, she won the city championship in Wilmington, Delaware,
and women's singles and doubles and mixed doubles titles, and
(17:19):
in nineteen twenty five she won the New York City
and New York State championships, and notably she beat Isadora Channels,
who had won ATA national championships twice, and ATA as
in the American Tennis Association, so I'll be saying ATA
when they come up from now on. But she also
(17:40):
that same year won the women's doubles titles at the ATA,
and the ATA was a national black tennis organization that
was founded in nineteen sixteen. Since black folks were barred
from playing against white folks, so this was a situation
where as we'll continue to talk about later, Or had
(18:00):
to stay in the black folks lane because she wasn't
really competing against white people during this time because of segregation.
So at the time, Aura would trade top spots with
Isidora Channels and Lula Ballard, and she played doubles with Lula,
and she had some difficulties beating them at nationals, and
(18:21):
she would beat them at the state levels. But in
July nineteen twenty seven she won at the Pennsylvania Open,
and she got that title again the next year. But
during all this time, she was still having to work.
So yes, she was she was getting more titles in
the sports that she was playing, but she also had
(18:42):
to continue working. And around the spring of nineteen twenty nine,
she moved to Chicago, and when she was there, She
worked as a domestic worker in the hotel for a
couple of years, and she beat Francis Gittins in nineteen
nine and that's when she got a women's national title,
(19:04):
and that was the first of men need more to come.
And she continued to do well in the black tennis realm,
but in the off season she turned to basketball.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
So basketball was kind.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Of more It was the thing that a lot of
women played, and it was a little bit more easily
accessible to black women and to the working class. And
it was like she would in the warmer months play
in the spring and summer play tennis, and then she
was able to in the fall and winter play basketball,
and so she kind of had she had a real
(19:38):
year round sports practice. And in nineteen thirty she joined
the Germantown Hornets, which played at the local YWCA.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
And they were doing really well.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
So by March of nineteen thirty one, they were up
fourteen games to one game and Aura was.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Usually the high scorer in the game.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
In the articles about her, they talk about, oh Aura,
she she carried the team. Basically, we were passing into her,
she was making the points. There was a lot of that,
Like Aura was a star on the team she was on,
and the Hornets soon became a professional team and they
ended up playing other black women's teams, so white women's teams,
(20:18):
and sometimes they even play black men's teams. But there
was a big defeat in nineteen thirty two, and that
was against the Philadelphia Tribune Girls, which was related to
the Philadelphia Tribune.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
They sponsored.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
That's why they were called that because the Philadelphia Tribune,
which was a black newspaper, did sponsor them. So they
beat Aura when she was on the Hornets to win
the national title after this really intense championship series of
five games to determine who was going to be the
Black women's champions, and Otto Briggs, who was the circulation
(20:56):
director for the Philadelphia Tribune, got her to switch team,
enjoining the Tribunes as captain in the fall of nineteen
thirty two, so she wasn't even on hornetstat long when
they lost. She was like, Okay, I'm good. I would
love to know how that conversation went. But I wonder
how much convincing it took her to switch teams. But
(21:17):
it's a nice rivalry story, I feel like. And so
then she's switched over she switched teams, and Ora did
get a small salary for playing on the team, but
she didn't earn enough to stop doing domestic work still.
So as in many of the other stories we talk
about on Female First, it's like, okay, yeah, we were
(21:39):
talking about their accomplishments now in hindsight. And sometimes they
got notoriety while they were alive. Sometimes they didn't get
it until they were dead already. But oftentimes they weren't
making money to match whatever whatever kind of recognition they
were getting at the time, and that was a case
(21:59):
for Aura. She kept working and at the same time,
the team kept winning games. By January of nineteen thirty three,
they had won eleven consecutive games. The Philadelphia Tribunes did
and in the book A Spectacular Leap by Jennifer H. Lansberry,
the author says that Aura had great stamina and she
(22:21):
had the ability to pass or shoot with either hand,
so they were doing well. A lot of that was
attributed to Aura, although it was definitely a team effort.
In nineteen thirty four, the Tribunes went on tour and
they were doing their thing, and Aura herself, she was
still on the tennis side as well, so I got
(22:42):
this basketball thing going on, We're going back to tennis now.
Back on that side, she lost the ATA singles title
for the first time since she first won it in
nineteen twenty nine, so she was winning for a while,
but in nineteen thirty seven she did win it again.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
However, she.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Planned on retiring, so around nineteen thirty eight, she retired
from her tennis singles career. However, she did plan to
keep competing in doubles matches.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Out of curiosity.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Do y'all like, do y'all prefer singles or doubles in tennis,
whether that's playing or watching.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
I prefer playing doubles most of the time. I watched
tennis at singles, But I don't know if that's a
preference thing or if that's just how it has panned
out for me in my life.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
I don't really watch tennis. I'm just gonna admit it.
Speaker 4 (23:39):
Like, if I were there live and this is for
all sports, I think for me, I would enjoy it.
But watching it on DV is not my favorite. So
the few clips that I've seen are those like because
I like the person, you know what I'm saying. So
I don't know much about because I have recently watched
the fact that they are now micing a lot of
the editor so that's been interesting.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
Yeah, okay, sorrysure, okay, Yeah, I was asking because I
you know, I know that or I did both, so
she did both singles and doubles, and when I played,
they put me in doubles more. I think I just
wasn't strong enough in tennis, Like I just I mean,
(24:23):
I wasn't strong.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
I wasn't strong as a tennis player enough. In general.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
I had a lot more work I needed to do
to get better. I was decent. I was decent, but
I think there were I think there was a market
just advantage that other players had over me because they
started younger.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
I started in high school.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
And then there were the people who were like a
little bit wealthier, you know, they were like U upper
middle class, and they had the ability to get tennis
lessons starting from a young age, and I was just
outclassed when I would go to compete a lot of
the time. But I do know that if I would
have been able to have more time and lessons that
I could have done better. But I enjoy watching singles
(25:06):
a lot as well. I think when I do I've
watched tennis. I'll watch singles more, but I do really
like playing doubles and it's fun to have a partner
on your side, you know.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
I don't know, but.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
It's at this point in Aura's journey in tennis where
she kind of she leaves singles behind, at least for
the moment, and then keeps stealing doubles matches. So back
on the basketball side. In nineteen thirty eight, the Tribunes
went on tour in the South again. This time they
went to Orangeburg, South Carolina. They went to Atlanta, Biloxi, Mississippi,
(25:41):
New Orleans, and the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. And writer
Rick Roberts wrote a feature on Aura in the Atlanta
Daily World, and he said this Miss Washington, unlike most females,
affects the burden of national prominence with dignity and grace.
She is wholly unaffected, has a most obliging and pleasing personality,
(26:05):
and is a favorite of all her associates. So that
was a pretty glowing albeit you know, a lot of
outdated terminology UT data terminology, and clearly focused a lot,
very heavily on her personality, which doesn't I mean I
(26:26):
mean as part of a person, of course, but not
sure what how how this is relevant to like her
prowess and her sports playing. But yeah, she and she
also didn't get her feedback about women in general and
sports and about Aura wasn't always so ingratiating because it
(26:48):
was like women were kind of expected to still be
more dainty, to still be more you know, refined around
the edges. Yes, and she didn't always fit that mold
for everyone, but doesn't matter. She was winning, and they
won a bunch of consecutive championship titles. And back on
(27:14):
the tennis side in nineteen thirty nine, because she was
going back and forth between the two in a single year.
In nineteen thirty nine, she came out of retirement just
to play Flora Lomax, who was new, like hot on
the scene. She was the ATA national champion. And Aura
said this in a Baltimore Afro American interview. She said, quote,
certain people said certain things last year. They said Aura
(27:37):
was not so good anymore. I had not planned to
enter singles this year, but I just had to go
up to Buffalo to prove somebody was wrong.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
And she did.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
She still on her word, and she beat Flora and
she was just going to take a break from singles
for a little bit. It seems like she kind of
backed away from the whole retirement plan, was like, I'm
going to take a break. But then she was injured
in a basketball game in nineteen forty one and she
just completely retired from tennis singles. And she had been
(28:08):
the only player to win national titles in the singles,
doubles and mixed doubles in the same year, and back
to basketball she was still doing that and she was
still captain for the Tribunes, but she that point she
didn't really play on the court much. And around nineteen
forty two or nineteen forty three she left the Philadelphia
(28:31):
Tribune Girls when it disbanded, and she did keep playing doubles,
and nineteen forty seven is when she won her last
mixed doubles title in the ATA and she played with
George Stewart for that match, and in the she had
like eight singles championships, twelve consecutive doubles titles, and three
(28:52):
mixed doubles titles.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
And yeah, at this point, her varied career in.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Basketball and in tennis kind of dwindles down. She in
the nineteen forties, bought a house in Philly with her
younger sister and lived with her sister and her sister's
husband and their brother, and she died on May twenty ninth,
nineteen seventy one, and Philadelphia.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
She had had a long career in both of those sports.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
She had really made a name for herself, and she
had won the ATA doubles titles every year from nineteen
twenty five to nineteen thirty six. She had won the
ATA women's singles titles every year from nineteen twenty nine
to nineteen thirty five, and she had gained notoriety in
those black circles, but she didn't get rich and she
didn't garner mainstream fame, which is how we were talking
(29:55):
about in the beginning, kind of like what the word
celebrity means. I mean, in our hindsight and our recognition
of her, should consider her as a person who was
really a pioneer in one being really skilled in tennis
and skilled in basketball and helping take her teams to
(30:16):
victory and being a highlight of the games, you know,
being really proficient at what she did, and also garnering
attention and a lot of the black press specifically, but
she wasn't getting the attention that some of her white
counterparts who were doing similar things in the white leagues were,
So it was also in general just a very the
landscape was shifting a lot, because this was the early
(30:38):
nineteen hundreds, so sports for everyone was changing a lot,
sports for women was especially changing a lot, and basketball.
At first the women were playing competitively and by similar
rules that the men were playing, but at a certain
point women were expected to not be so quote unquote
(30:58):
rough and competitive. And you'll see in some of those
articles people talk about yeah, like you know, yeah, the
team was, it was good, they won, but like they
were a little too rough. They weren't playing as sensitively
as they expected women to play at the time, where
it was more participatory sport than a competitive and like
(31:19):
physical sport as someone would.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Expect basketball to be today. And she did though, like.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Although at her time she got some feedback that was
in that vein later posthumously, she was inducted into many
halls of fame. In nineteen seventy six, she was inducted
into the Black Athletes Hall of Fame. But there is
a story about how and I feel like it's called
out because it is. It's pretty indicative and symbolic of
(31:54):
her legacy, is that at the ceremony for her being
inducted into the Hall of Fame, they expected her to
be there in nineteen seventy six, but as we said,
she died in May of nineteen seventy one, so of
course she wasn't going to be there. But they didn't
know that. They didn't know that she had passed away already.
They were ready to give her her commemorative items and
(32:14):
they were on stage like, hey, we have all these
things for you, and she didn't show.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Up to get her award.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
So yeah, I know, it's kind of morbidly funny, right,
Like she had died in such like there had been
little fanfare around her legacy around the time of her death.
She had apparently been sick up until her time of death,
like so in her last year, she was already getting
sick up until the time she died.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
And it just wasn't known.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
Although you know, I do wonder about the backstory because
somebody had to have done some research into her to
know that she deserved this award. It makes me wonder
what the vetting process is like. But she did deserve
the a war because she was a pioneer in the field.
(33:06):
And but yeah, that it was just that's a pretty
weird story.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
I have so many questions.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Oh yeah, right.
Speaker 4 (33:15):
I was like, how do you how how do you
not check the say there's still a lie?
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Like, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
That seems like an obvious question.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Yeah, because you're.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
Also wondering like, how is she going to get there
to the ceremony? Is anybody bringing her? Did anybody reach
out to her before?
Speaker 4 (33:31):
He is, Yeah, did they send the letter be like hey,
we're gonna honor you. No, one like looked at it,
so they're just like, obviously she said yes.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
No answer is that? Yes?
Speaker 3 (33:40):
Right, Yeah, it's an odd story. Well I can't explain it.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Still, he congratulations she deserved the award.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Yeah she did.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
And then later and she was also inducted into other
halls of fame. So in two thousand and nine, she
was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of In twenty eighteen,
she was also inducted into the Nasmith Memorial Basketball Hall
of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts, and historians have done more
work to uncover parts of her life. I know historian
(34:13):
Pamela Grundy is one person who has been doing the
diligent work of looking up more details of what happened,
more so her personal life. And Ora's former teammates also
later said that she was seen as less feminine than
the other players. So you can go and look at
pictures of Ura and pictures of her and the rest
(34:34):
of her team as well. They talked about in the
articles how she was five to seven and despite her
being five to seven, she was still really great at
basketball and dominated on the court. But yeah, so y'all
can see her as well. And her great nephew later on,
his name is Gregory Price. He said in interviews that
(34:55):
she was gay and that she was reclusive because of it,
so that's also part of her. But we don't really
have her talking about that in her own words. So
I think there was some like homophobia in the commentary
surrounding her, maybe in more public forums of speculation around it,
but there is no personal narrative. But her great great
(35:16):
nephew did comment on that. And then there is a
podcast called BBC Untold Legends that tells her story. It's
like six parts and folks can go listen to it
and hear more of what the historians and family members
and teammates and like that, and people who were closer
to her and knew more about her had to say.
So there definitely was a recovery of her legacy, even
(35:40):
though in nineteen seventy six people didn't even know she died,
and the people who were honoring her didn't even know
she died.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
So imagine what people who had never heard of Aura.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
It's like I didn't even know about her, you know,
didn't know anything about her at all, because the people
who were honoring her didn't even know that she was gone.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Yeah, that is that's or a story.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
Yeah, and it's really interesting because I actually had heard
about her before, but I only I knew the tennis part.
I didn't know about the basketball part. That's wild. And
you know, as a lot of interviews I was reading
about her pointed out, it's so fascinating that, you know, today,
athletes like Serena Williams make millions and have all these
(36:28):
products with their name on it, and meanwhile she's in
basketball antennas and winning all these awards and not getting
paid much, if at all, and then kind of just
being forgotten after she retired. It's a very It's interesting
(36:48):
because we're still having conversations about you know, coverage, equal
coverage of women's sports versus men's sports, and equal pay,
but that it's shifted so much to like we're talking
in millions now or you know what I mean. It
was interesting to hear this story and to think about
(37:09):
all the things that have changed and all the things
that still haven't.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Yeah, it is like she didn't get sponsorships, she didn't
wasn't paid a lot in her salary when she did
get a salary when she was on the basketball team,
which is a huge difference from how athletes, you know,
are able to navigate their compensation today. So yeah, I
at least according to her family members that it seems
(37:34):
like she wasn't sad, is what I think what Gregory
Price said, Like, Okay, she wasn't sad and she was
happy with her accomplishments, and at least according to them,
it didn't seem like and definitely not in interviews that
she gave, it didn't seem like she was so feeling
(37:55):
so dejected about not having got those things at the time.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
Yeah, for sure, But I mean, so many awards It's
amazing what she did accomplish. So thank you as always
use for bringing this story to us. Where can the
good listeners find you?
Speaker 3 (38:17):
So everyone can find me at Evesjeffcote dot com so
you can just go there and find a lot of
other things. That's spelled y V E S J E
F F C O A T dot com.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
You can sign up for my newsletter there.
Speaker 3 (38:33):
If you want to go straight to Instagram, you can
go to not Apologizing and you can also find me
on many other episodes of Sminty talking about female first
accomplishments of women in history.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Yes, go check all that stuff out listeners, if you
have not already, and you can find us in many ways.
You can emails at hello at stuff iever told you
dot com. You can find us on Blue Sky, on
a podcast, or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff I
Never Told you for also on YouTube. We have tea
public store, and we have a book you can get
wherever you get your books. Thanks, it's always to our
super producer Christina, our executive ducer My and your coontruder Joey.
(39:10):
Thank you and thanks to you for listening. Stuff I've
Never Told You is production by heart Radio. For more
podcasts from My heart Radio, you can check out the
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