Jimmie McDaniel, Don Budge, and the 1940 Exhibition Tennis Match in Harlem

This article assesses the significance of the July 29, 1940, interracial exhibition tennis match between Jimmie McDaniel and Don Budge held at the Cosmopolitan Tennis Club in Harlem. Sponsored by the Wilson Sporting Goods Company, the match was brimming with racial symbolism, pitting Budge, the great white champion, against Jimmie McDaniel, an outstanding Black player from Xavier University in New Orleans, at a time when the United States Lawn Tennis Association refused to sanction contests between Black and white players. The exhibition match was also a short-term but important crack in the seemingly unbreakable commitment to racial segregation in tennis and helped in acclimatizing society to Black and white athletic contests and prompting the ultimate eradication of the color line in Major League Baseball and other sports.