By Betty Miller Buttram
FWIS Contributing Writer

This is the story of two black female athletes whose names are Ora Washington from the Germantown community in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Isadore Channels from Chicago, Illinois: each were tennis and basketball champions in the 1920’s through the 1940’s.

In 1976, the founders of the Black Athletes Hall of Fame put together their first year’s class of inductees and decided to honor Ora Washington, the preeminent black female athlete of the early 20h century from the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was too late; she had died in Philadelphia five years earlier. Who was Ora Washington?

Ora Washington was born around 1899 in a farming community in rural Caroline County, Virginia. The exact date of her birth is unknown because after the Civil War, the state of Virginia owed so much debt and saved money by not issuing birth certificates from 1896-1912. Washington was the fifth of nine children of James and Laura Washington. The Washingtons owned their own farm and raised pigs and grew wheat, corn, and vegetables but they struggled in the poor economy. Laura Washington died in childbirth in 1908; the family farm was mortgaged, and James was unemployed for months. The family became part of the first wave of the Great Migration of African Americans from the South and moved to Philadelphia somewhere around 1910 or later looking for better opportunities.

Washington’s tennis career began at the YMCA that opened in 1918 to serve black members of the Germantown neighborhood. She won the Wilmington, Delaware city championships in singles, doubles, and mixed doubles. Among some of her other achievements in tennis was defeating the reigning national African American singles champion Isadore Channels. Washington won her first national title in 1925 at a national doubles tournament of the all-Black American Tennis Association and she would win for the next eleven years. She moved to Chicago in 1929 where she won her first singles championship that same year. She won the title seven more times by 1937. She completely retired from playing tennis in the mid-1940’s.

Washington first played basketball in 1930 with the Germantown Hornets. The Hornets were originally sponsored by the same Germantown YWCA that introduced Washington to tennis. The Hornets gained popularity and separated from the YMCA and became fully professional. Wahington led the Hornets to thirty-three consecutive victories. She later played with the Philadelphia Tribute Girls from 1932-1942 and was the team’s center, leading scorer, and coach.

Washington supported herself during her athletic career and the remainder of her life as a housekeeper and working at the YMCA. She never married and died in 1971 after a long illness. She is buried in her Virginia hometown.

Isadore Channels was born somewhere around 1900 in Louisville, Kentucky to farm laborer Allen Channels, and his wife Fannie. Isadore was their only child. The Channels migrated to Chicago somewhere between 1910 and 1920 during the first wave of the Great Migration also seeking freedom and opportunity. Isadore Channels began her training in tennis in a private organization called the Prairie Tennis Club which was owned by African Americans of middle-class status. The Prairie Tennis Club was a member of a larger organization of African American tennis clubs, named the American Tennis Association (ATA) and its founding in 1916 was based on the long history of segregated tennis in the United States. The first twelve years of the ATA Women’s Singles Championship were dominated by four black women tennis icons and Channels was one of them. She won the Championship in 1922, 1923, 1924, and 1926.

Channels was also building a reputation as one of the top amateur women basketball players in Chicago. She was a founding member of the Roamer Girls, which was formed during the 1920-21 season. The Roamers were formed from a group of girls in the Grace Presbyterian Sunday School in 1920. The Roamer Girls played highly competitive games. They disbanded in 1926 but came together again for the 1927-28 season and disbanded again at the end of the season. However, they came together again in the 1929-30 season and Ora Washington and Isadore Channels were on the same team. The Roamers won the weeks long tournament in early February but by the end of the season, they disbanded.

In July 1927, Channels moved to Roanoke, Virginia and pursued nursing education. She became a Registered Nurse and worked as a nurse in Atlanta, Georgia, Knoxville, Tennessee, and Sikeston, in southeastern Missouri. She got a position in Sikeston as a Public Health Nurse where she originally served the African American population in the counties of Scott and Mississippi. By 1953, she worked in the Sikeston school system, serving as the school nurse for Lincoln School. The notices in the local newspaper mentioned Channels’ positions and some community activities but made no mention of her previous status as a tennis champion. Channels died on June 30, 1959. Her death certificate shows no known relatives. Her death went unreported in any kind of press, black or white and remained unknown for decades.

Ora Washington and Isadore Channels were before Althea Gibson, Serena Williams, Brittney Griner and more who came after these two prominent athletes.

We need to be aware of whose shoulders we are standing on.