The Prairie’s Tennis Problem

Prairie Club President Jimmy Johnson, longtime members Donna Strickland and Barbara Searles and Junior Development Chair Ronald Mitchell pose for a portrait on the damaged tennis courts at the Chicago Prairie Tennis Club in May 2024. Credit: Block Club Chicago.

Kamau Murray, who coached Sloane Stephens to her U.S. Open victory in 2017, learned tennis there. As did you about Katrina Adams, who played college tennis uptown at Northwestern University, turned pro and became the first Black woman president of the United States Tennis Association (USTA).  As did Lorraine Williams Bryant, “the girl with the pigtails” who became the the first Black player to win a U.S. National Championship in 1953 — four years before Althea Gibson made her debut at Forest Hills and in the days when the American Tennis Association (ATA) provided the “Negro leagues” of tennis, alongside the segregated USTA.

But nearly 100 years later, the nation’s oldest Black tennis club announce in June that it needed to raise $50,000 necessary to make the courts playable again. A month later, it had reached nearly half of its request after launching a crowdsourcing campaign to resurface four of its tennis courts and would now be looking to revamp the lobby and bathrooms, while the company that owns the club house has plans to renovate that facility. The Prairie Tennis Club, on the city’s South Side — just a few miles North of the Obama Presidential Library and the University of Chicago — must remove the cracked and weed-filled acrylic courts built on a former ice rink and replace them with something more fitting of its pedigree. Funds raised on the website will also go to its Junior Development Program, established nearly 50 years ago to offer professional-level training to younger members, thus levelling the playing field for more Black players.

The damaged tennis courts at the Chicago Prairie Tennis Club. Credit: Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago.

“For over a century, generations of Black Chicagoans have come together at the Bronzeville tennis club in the spirit of friendly competition, to enjoy a sport that historically shunned — or outright banned — anyone outside of elite, upper-crust white players,” Club President Jimmy Johnson told Block Club Chicago. “The history of the club itself, the Junior Development Club, was basically formed to develop opportunities for kids to play tennis. We’ve had a lot of juniors come through our program, and we want to build it back up.”

But the request also begs the question of why such organizations as the Chicago District Tennis Association — a junior offshoot of the USTA Midwest section — which earned about $700K in 2023 and has a mission to sustain and grows enthusiasm for the game of tennis throughout Chicagoland, hasn’t stepped in to help. Or that the WTA, which hosts the Chicago Women’s Open attracting top players such as Jasmine Paolini, Elina Svitolina and even Venus Williams with a prize purse of more than $200K, hasn’t kicked in some money for the renovation or the training programs. In the recent past, both Venus Williams with Lacoste and Naomi Osaka with Nike, have restored courts used largely by black and Latino players in the Bronx and Queens.

Weeds grow through a crack on the damaged tennis courts. Credit: Block Club Chicago.

The story of the country’s oldest Black tennis club begins a five-minute drive away, near the intersection of 35th Street and Prairie Avenue. That’s where tennis enthusiast Mary Anne “Mother” Seames starting playing tennis around 1910 with a handful of others — including Nathan E. Caldwell, an official from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People — who loved the game but were blocked from white clubs because of racism.

Led by Seames, — also known for her reigning presence on the courts and her “Non-Returnable Poison Service” — a small group of African Americans formed the Chicago Prairie Tennis Club (CPTC) in 1912 believing that “athletic competition and good sportsmanship are prerequisites for building personalities and character.” Seames, who started in tennis supposedly to improve her health, had already set up several dirt and clay courts at 37th and Prairie Avenue (hence the name), before moving to a nearby armory and finally settling on four courts that she and her husband built at 32nd and Vernon Avenue in 1920. CPTC had the first private grounds for a Black tennis club in the United States.

Mrs. C.O. (Mother) Seames, the driving force behind the Chicago Prairie Tennis Club (circa 1926), left, and Katrina Adams, the former USTA President, who played many matches at CPTC while growing up in Chicago.

Seames, a fierce competitor known to defeat ATA competitors half her age — even at age 58 — also helped found the Tri-City Classic, held annually for 73 years among the CPTC, the Forest City Tennis Club in Cleveland and the Motor City Tennis Club in Detroit. The club also started its own junior program in the early 1980s, eventually helping produce regional and college champions. Seames, who extolled tennis “as a form of beneficial exercise,” superior to the Charleston, according to the St. Louis Post Dispatch, would have been proud.

“We think our history is not important, so we don’t hang onto it the way we should. I didn’t learn about Mother Seames and her history with tennis until I joined the organization,” said Donna Strickland, her great-grandniece, which she said is indicative of a larger problem within the Black community. “My mother remembers her and the home she built around 30th and Prairie. [Black people] create their own spaces, but we’re not recording the history or think it’s as important.

Clockwise, from left: Women gather at an ATA Tournament, the logo of the CPTC and E. Davidson Washington (center) in the middle of a family portrait with father, Booker T. Washington was well known on the courts of the Tuskeegee Institute.

The founding of Chicago Prairie Tennis Club came at a time when Black people weren’t allowed to play on any of the city’s tonier facilities, said Barbara Searles, who served as the second female president of the organization. “We couldn’t play anywhere else. It was a difficult thing. When I think about it, the same path tennis took — we had Mother Seames to help us with that — but sports like golf, swimming and skiing were not available to Blacks because some didn’t have the money for the equipment,” Searles added.

As the unofficial historian of the group, Searles has lovingly collected important memorabilia through the years, from grainy black-and-white images of the club in its early years to programs from milestone gala celebrations, including one signed by Arthur Ashe. But one of the things of which the club is most proud is watching former youth members blazing their own paths to success, including doctors, lawyers, dentists and entrepreneurs. Many of them still play and come out to support the organization that was such a huge part of their formative years, Searles said.

As for the future. “I’d like to see us in a home of our own and not be juggled around by the powers that be or the money that is forthcoming or who’s trying to make a profit,” Ron Mitchell, another former president told Block Club Chicago. “I’d like to see it become a feeder club for professionals and community-based children because that’s why all of those pictures in our club house are up there — the children.”