Venus Williams on Billie Jean King Featured on New AMERICAN MASTERS Podcast
By: Caryn Robbins Sep. 01, 2016
Celebrate the 2016 U.S. Open with episode six of the AMERICAN MASTERS Podcast, featuring tennis superstars Chris Evert and Venus Williams, who discuss athlete and social icon Billie Jean King's impact both on and off the tennis court, as well as her predecessor, tennis champion Althea Gibson, with American Masters: Billie Jean King (2013) filmmaker James Erskine: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/digital-archive/women-women-venus-williams-chris-evert-billie-jean-king/
Hosted by series executive producer Michael Kantor, new episodes of the AMERICAN MASTERS Podcast are available biweekly on the In Their Own Words: The AMERICAN MASTERS Digital Archive website, iTunes, Soundcloud and Stitcher. Season one, "Women on Women," features long-form interviews with influential women discussing women cultural icons.
King won 39 Grand Slam titles, including a record 20 titles at Wimbledon, and was the first female athlete to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. A lifelong champion for social change and equality, she's created new inroads for both genders in and out of sports. The unlikely queen of the highly segregated tennis world in the 1950s, Gibson was the first African American to cross the color line, playing and winning at Wimbledon (1957 and 1958) and at the U.S. Nationals (1957 and 1958 -- precursor of the U.S. Open).
In a never-before-seen video from In Their Own Words: The AMERICAN MASTERS Digital Archive,Williams reflects on the sacrifices made by trailblazers such as Gibson and King, without whom, the game of women's tennis would not be where it is today.
"I think by the time I got to the sport, I had an opportunity just to let my racket do the talking. I think when Billie Jean [King] first started, you had to do more than play tennis. When Althea Gibson [first started], she really had no opportunities. So for me, I felt like I had not only opportunities on the court, but off the court in terms of endorsement, because of the work that many of the leaders had done for women's rights and also for African American rights. So there were a lot of people before me, [who] made it easier for me: those women who believed in something even though it was hard to believe and to see it through....You have to think, not only is tennis a full-time sport, but it's a lifestyle. It's a full-time job, so to do more than tennis is extremely challenging, especially something so stressful...without them, I mean, who can hypothesize where women's tennis would be." --Venus Williams filmed for American Masters: Billie Jean King (2003).
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