Celebrating Black History Month: A Look Back at the Breaking the Barriers Exhibit
February is African American History Month. USTA Colorado joins in paying tribute to the generations of African Americans who struggled with adversity to achieve full citizenship in American society.
The 2011 USTA Colorado Breaking the Barriers: An Exhibition in Courage exhibit, which incorporated the International Tennis Hall of Fame’s exhibit of the same name, completed a three-month run at the Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library in Denver, and left a major impact on the state of Colorado. Nearly 10,000 people toured the exhibit, which featured an historical timeline of African-Americans in tennis, dating from the 1800s to Arthur Ashe’s historical Wimbledon win in 1975.
Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Barry Gutierrez was the visionary behind the lens for all three Breaking the Barriers projects. The first, entitled An Exhibition in Courage, debuted in 2011 and focused on Colorado’s African-American tennis community.
