Ashley Brown – Associate Professor and Allan H. Selig Chair in the History of Sport and Society – has continued to receive many accolades for her biography of the iconic American tennis player and golfer Althea Gibson. Serving Herself: The Life and Times of Althea Gibson (Oxford University Press, 2023) offers a revealing look at the rise and fall of a fiercely independent trailblazer wo satisfied her own needs and simultaneously set a pathbreaking course for Black athletes.
Acclaim
Professor Ashley Brown was interviewed by the New Jersey State Golf Association and featured in the New Jersey Golf publication. “A Powerful Serve,” the interview conducted by Thomas Dunne, is an in-depth look at Professor Brown‘s biography of the trailblazing tennis player who preceded Arthur Ashe, Venus and Serena Williams, and Coco Gauff. Gibson holds an important place in the history of golf. In 1963, she became the first African American to compete on the Ladies Professional Golf Association Tour. Gibson played professional golf until 1978.
An interview with Professor Brown appeared on the Bloomberg Businessweek Podcast, and in October 2024, she presented her research to the USGA and the World Golf Hall of Fame in Pinehurst, North Carolina.
Serving Herself has been featured on The Wall Street Journal’s list of five best books on women in tennis, and among Booklist’s “Top Ten Sports Books” of 2023 and on The Atlantic’s recommendations of seven books “that will change the way you watch” the Olympics and Paralympics. Michael Waters, who compiled recommendations for The Atlantic, praised the book as “remarkable” and “a richly detailed biography” that “cements Gibson as one of the most important athletes of the 20th century, while exploring what happens after a star leaves the spotlight.”
Awards
The book has won the Association of Black Women Historians’ Letitia Woods Brown Book Prize in recognition of the best book in Black women’s history and the Popular Culture Association’s Harry Shaw and Katrina Hazzard-Donald Award for outstanding work in African American popular culture studies.
Serving Herself also received the United States Golf Association’s Herbert Warren Wind Award for exceptional contributions to golf literature, Professor Brown accepted the honor on March 2, 2024 in Nashville, Tennessee, at the Annual USGA Service Awards Dinner, where she was warmly received. As the USGA explains, the prize “recognizes and honors outstanding contributions to golf literature,” “acknowledges and encourages outstanding research, writing and publishing about golf,” and celebrates books devoted to “broadening public interest in the game.” Read Jessica Marksbury’s article about the book for Golf.com: https://golf.com/news/features/biography-barrier-breaking-female-golfer-won-award/. The USGA has placed Serving Herself on display at its museum and library in Liberty Corner, New Jersey, alongside artifacts from Gibson’s golf career. On February 14, Professor Brown spoke about the award and her book on Golf Channel’s program “Golf Today.”
2025 Shapiro Book Prize
Most recently, Serving Herself: The Life and Times of Althea Gibson won the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Garden’s 2025 Shapiro Book Prize, awarded to an outstanding first scholarly monograph in American history and culture. The committee gave Professor Brown’s work high praise, calling it “history at its best.”
Ashley Brown says, “Winning the Shapiro Book Prize is a validation of the years I spent uncovering the stories of Althea Gibson and other historically significant yet overlooked figures in tennis and golf. I hope this award brings more readers to Gibson’s story and inspires them to see her as a dynamic and determined individual who navigated life with grit, humor, and ingenuity.”
Read the full article from the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens at https://huntington.org/news/ashley-brown-wins-2025-shapiro-book-prize.