A Return to Form : Black Tennis Trailblazer Oscar Johnson Jr. Showing Youths the Path to Success

Oscar Johnson Jr., the “Jackie Robinson of Tennis,” has come a long way since that day in the late 1940s, when tennis was still a sport for “whites only.”

“I remember it like it was yesterday,” Johnson said. “It was July 4, 1948, in the Long Beach Junior Open. It was the first tournament I had entered and I won it. And then the next month, I won another one.”

This was 20 years before Arthur Ashe won the 1968 U.S. Open and eight years before Althea Gibson won the U.S. Open in 1956. “I was the first African American to break the color barrier in tennis,” Johnson said.

Now Johnson is breaking ground in the Central City as a board member and head tennis evaluator of the Inner City Tennis Foundation (ICTF).

“I feel great about this program,” Johnson said. “This is a unique situation where the community is coming together.”

The ICTF is a nonprofit institution created to promote tennis participation, competition and education to the diverse at-risk youth of Los Angeles County.

The ICTF, which targets youths ages 5 to 17, is implementing its tennis academies in South-Central, central Los Angeles, East Los Angeles, Santa Monica and Long Beach.

“Our main goal is to produce a long line of solid tennis players and great individuals,” said Edward Song, executive director.

And who better to serve as a mentor and role model than Johnson?

“I tell the kids that they can accomplish anything, because I did,” said the 64-year-old Johnson, who now lives in Inglewood.

In 1948, Johnson competed in the Long Beach Junior Open, which traditionally had been banned to African Americans. “I was surprised,” Johnson said. “I won that tournament and then the following month, I won the National Junior Public Parks Tournament at Griffith Park.”

In 1947, Johnson said, “Jackie Robinson had broken the color barrier in baseball, so the race issue was definitely on a lot of people’s minds.

“It wasn’t like blacks weren’t playing tennis before that. They just weren’t playing on the same courts” with whites.

Johnson didn’t get the media attention Robinson received at the time, but he was aware of his trailblazer status. “I was the pioneer,” Johnson said. “I was under a lot of pressure, being the first black out there.”

Sometimes that pressure became an ugly experience.

At the National Junior Indoor Tournament in St. Louis, members of the crowd hurled racial slurs at Johnson the moment he stepped onto the court.

“I learned to block all that out and play tennis,” Johnson said. “I put it behind me and did the best I could.”

Johnson lost in the quarterfinals to former world tennis champion Tony Trabert, and after that, he toured the country breaking the color barrier.

“I wasn’t the first black player, but I was the first to play on the United States Tennis Assn. (USTA) circuit.” Gibson came along about 1950. Ashe wasn’t until the ‘60’s.”

Pairing with Gibson in the mixed-doubles competition, they became the first African Americans to compete in the United States Nationals--now called the U.S. Open.

Johnson and Gibson made it to the quarterfinals, where they lost to the two top players in the world at that time--Lou Hoad and Maureen Connely.

Johnson’s career slowed when he was drafted for the Korean War, and he didn’t play for two years. “I was fortunate to come through that without any injuries,” Johnson said. “The worst I got was frostbite in both arms. That was painful.”

Johnson began playing again in 1953 and became the first black ever to play in the National Hardcourt Championship in St. Louis, where he reached the quarterfinals. Later, Johnson reached the second round of the prestigious U.S. Open.

In 1954, tennis promoter Jack Kramer offered Johnson a contract to become a professional.

“He was going out on a limb, but he was looking at a black player who could possibly become world champion,” Johnson said. “He was not only looking at my color, but my abilities.”

Johnson was ready to sign, but after snapping a tendon in his elbow, he was forced to sit out more than a year. He attempted a comeback, but it wasn’t successful. .

Johnson and tennis kept their distance, and the former star married and raised a son. He worked the next 23 years for a tire company and watched as Ashe became the first black person to make a big name and money from the game. “I was too far ahead of my time,” Johnson said. “There was no money for the pros (then), there was no money on the circuit.”

But after many years away from the game, Johnson dusted off his racket and won the senior division of the Pacific Coast Championship at USC in 1976. He won again in 1978.

“I had that kind of ability,” Johnson said.

“For a long time, I didn’t think tennis was doing right by me and I stayed away,” Johnson said. “But when I got back out there, I realized I loved it too much not to go back.”

Johnson missed tennis so much he began giving lessons and set up the Oscar Johnson Tennis Classic, which raised money to sponsor local junior talent.

Johnson rediscovered tennis, and tennis rediscovered him. He was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1987 for “outstanding service to the game,” joining professional stars such as Billie Jean King, Stan Smith and Dennis Ralston.

His legacy as a player assured, Johnson is going to work with the ICTF, which Song founded in 1994. Song, a sports and community activist who also serves on the California Governor’s Council of Physical Fitness and Sports, was dismayed at the fragmented and disorganized state of the game for minorities in Southern California.

“There hasn’t been any group or organization which has effectively gotten local professional instructors to work together with kids on a year-round basis,” Song said.

Youths receive free group and private instructions, rackets, T-shirts, apparel, tournament and travel opportunities and scholarships.

Although there are local and national associations that have programs for youths in the major cities, minority athletes are still underrepresented in high school collegiate and professional tennis.

“It is unrealistic for the USTA (United States Tennis Assn.) and more so for the Southern California Tennis Assn. to help in any way because they do not have a vested interest in the minority athlete,” Song said.

“The outcry from the community has been to form your own organization,” Song said. “In essence, the ICTF is the support group aimed solely at sponsoring and working with young minority talent in Los Angeles.”

Johnson said: “I remember when Bud Collins was inducted into the tennis hall of fame, and he said the USTA does nothing for minorities. And that’s very true. That’s why I joined the ICTF.”

The ICTF intends to set up a scholarship endowment for academic and tennis endeavors and coaching workshops to recruit and develop inner-city instructors.

For more information about the Inner City Tennis Foundation, contact the ICTF office at (213) 931-3223 or by fax at (213) 931-2038.