Athletics have always driven fans to assemble together, but not always in equitable ways.
“In the Arena” features a 1930s national championship trophy earned by Ora Washington, a tennis player from Philadelphia’s Germantown considered the greatest Black woman athlete of her era. However because of her race, Washington was not allowed to compete in major tournaments put on by the United States Lawn and Tennis Association — now the U.S. Tennis Association.
Ora Mae Washington (right), winner of the Pennsylvania Open (July 24-30, 1939), poses with Dorothy Morgan, runner up. Washington was the reigning champion of the American Tennis Association (ATA) from 1929 to 1935, and was the star player for the Philadelphia Tribune’s and Germantown Hornets women’s basketball teams. (John W. Mosley Photograph Collection, Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection, Temple University Libraries)
Washington could only play in the American Tennis Association, a Black league. Despite her athletic accomplishments, including winning 23 national championships, she was never able to let go of her day job. She worked as a housekeeper for most of her life, including during her championship years.
“Ora Washington during her career was overlooked as a tennis player,” said museum educator Tyler Fuller. “Although she was the best of her time, in the public eye she was not seen.”
Washington died in 1971. In 2024, the USTA inducted her into its hall of fame.
“The very ability to assemble has not always been something that everybody has been able to take advantage of,” Hammond said. “Sports are just as much a part of the American story as apple pie or the Constitution.”
Ora Mae Washington poses behind her tennis awards. Washington was an exceptional athlete in the early twentieth century, excelling in both basketball and tennis. She was the reigning champion of the American Tennis Association (ATA) from 1929 to 1935, and was the star player for the Philadelphia Tribune’s and Germantown Hornets women’s basketball teams. By the time she retired from play, she had played twelve years of undefeated tennis and earned 201 trophies for both tennis and basketball. (John W. Mosley Photograph Collection, Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection, Temple University Libraries)
“In the Arena” includes a short sweep of racial advancement in sports, including the story of Ora Washington; an athletic duffel bag once owned by Jackie Robinson, who broke professional baseball’s race barrier in 1947; and a pair of Nike Air Jordan sneakers, which represent the apex of professional sports accomplishment – the most lucrative commercial contract ever signed by an athlete, and a Black athlete at that. Michael Jordan earned that feat in 1984.
“In the Arena” has a stainless steel torch used during the 1936 Olympic Games, which took place in Berlin, Germany. That was the first year of the tradition of relaying fire from Athens, Greece, across several national borders by runners to the site of the games.
“The 1936 Olympic torch really shows the beginning of an international assembly, where for the first time in the modern Olympics, they start doing the international torch relay,” educator Fuller said. “It really demonstrates this idea that beyond national borders, beyond ideologies, people can gather for something like sports.”
The 1936 Olympics was hosted by Germany’s ruling Nazi party, which attempted to shape the games as a demonstration of white supremacy. The effort was thwarted by Jesse Owens, the Black athlete from America, who won four gold medals.
Eighty years later in 2016, President Barack Obama met the families of the 18 Black athletes who had competed in Germany and had “taught them a thing or two about democracy.”