On what would have been her 95 birthday, a street was renamed in honor of Althea Gibson.

“A street is something that moves you from one place to another. And Althea Gibson had many things going against her but she chose to move,” Secretary of American Tennis Association, Toni Wiley, said.

On Thursday, her nieces helped introduce Althea Gibson Way at a ceremony outside the Harlem apartment Gibson grew up in.

Gibson was a tennis giant, breaking the color barrier in the sport. She was the first Black tennis player to compete in the U.S. National Championships and the first Black player to compete at Wimbledon.

Family and supporters say her legacy will live on in a neighborhood that they say made her into the success story.

“She really did pave the way for a lot of young people a lot of people don’t even know who she is so when I say I’m her niece cool as that sounds like to tell people sometimes who she was and I don’t mind,” Crystal Thorne, Gibson’s great niece, said.

Gibson was born in South Carolina but moved to Harlem as a young girl.

In 1957, she won in Wimbledon and at the U.S. Open the following year.

Gibson was 76 years old when she died in 2003.

Her story is inspiring for young athletes like 9-year-old Amanda Marcano James.

“Even now, sometimes when I go to my tournaments, I’m probably one or two, or maybe the only Black girl there,” James said. “And I am when I feel down. I feel like when I want to give up, I remember that I stand on the shoulders of Althea Gibson.”