Long before Art Carrington played tennis on the world stage, he learned the game by hitting balls against walls in segregated Elizabeth.
Earlier this month, the city where that journey began broke ground on new public courts bearing his name — a tribute decades in the making.
Arthur Carrington, 79, grew up in Elizabeth and later became one of the first Black American men to earn a world tennis ranking. He initially learned the game at the North End Tennis Club.
Decades later, the coach and author, known as Art Carrington professionally, reflected on how those courts changed the course of his life.
“When I started with tennis, it just opened my world up,” Carrington said.
With shovels in hand, city and state officials declared the new Arthur Carrington Tennis and Pickleball Complex, located at 625 Pulaski St., will feature modern tennis and pickleball courts designed for recreational players and competitive use.
“This naming was special to me because Art is a friend, a tennis role model and a fellow historian,” said Lt. Gov. Dale Caldwell, 65, a lifelong player who in in 2021 was inducted into the Eastern Tennis Hall of Fame. “It is wonderful that Elizabeth chose to name these courts after one of the best Black Tennis Players in history who happens to be from Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth Mayor J. Christian Bollwage, who hosted the groundbreaking ceremony on March 9, said the project highlights the importance of expanding access to sports and recreation while honoring local pioneers.
“Naming this new tennis and pickleball complex in Carrington’s honor is a meaningful way to recognize a fellow Elizabethan whose dedication to the sport and to mentoring young people reflects the spirit of our community,” Bollwage said.
Carrington says the club gave him access to a community that shaped far more than his game. In segregated Elizabeth, the North End Tennis Club became his entry point into a wider Black world of mentorship, education and ambition.
Through that community, Carrington rose from a child hitting balls against a wall to a nationally ranked player, coach, author and mentor whose family has carried the sport across generations.
Segregation at home and abroad
Carrington spent his early childhood in Pioneer Homes, a public housing complex in Elizabeth. The development was mostly white, with one section for Black people where Carrington’s family lived.
“That’s what it was called — the colored court,” he said. “I started life knowing race.”
When he was 10, his parents bought a house on Catherine Street. Around that time, Carrington discovered tennis.
His mother, Aline Carrington, worked as a playground director for 15 years at Brophy Field in Elizabeth and encouraged her children to participate in sports.
Carrington remembers taking his mother’s racket and hitting balls against a wall in the housing project.
“I didn’t even know there was a game called tennis,” he said.
He soon realized that even in tennis, racial lines were clear.
Just a short distance away was the Elizabethtown Country Club, a prestigious tennis venue with exclusionary membership rules.
“But they didn’t accept Jews or Blacks,” Carrington recalled. “It was an old-school white Anglo-Saxon club.”
Later, when Carrington’s career took him around the world, he encountered similar barriers.
During South Africa’s apartheid era, which lasted from 1948 to 1994 and enforced strict racial segregation including in sports, officials allowed him to compete only after assigning him a special classification.
“They made me an honorary white,” he said.
The seeds of becoming a tennis great
Carrington’s mother encouraged him to visit the North End Tennis Club, a small two-court facility that became the center of Elizabeth’s Black tennis community.
In the early 20th century, the courts were built in the backyard of a white doctor on North Broad Street. The courts backed up against a Black neighborhood on Pennsylvania Avenue, and the doctor allowed local Black residents to play there.
Eventually, when the area developed commercially, the doctor deeded the courts to the Black community.
“That little club became the hub,” Carrington said.
Carrington also shared a close friendship with another tennis player his age, a relationship that helped fuel his success in the sport.
“There was a guy named Eddie Eleazer who lived near the club, who was a very good player,” he said. “We went from fifth grade through Hampton Institute together. Eddie and I graduated from Hampton together and we won all the conference and national Black titles together in doubles.”
The club opened a new world for Carrington. It exposed him to Black professionals, introduced him to historically Black colleges and universities, and connected him to a national Black tennis circuit.
“It wasn’t just tennis,” he said. “It was a whole social elevation.”
The Black tennis circuit
At the time, tennis was largely divided along racial lines.
White players competed through the United States Tennis Association, while Black players built their own competitive network through the American Tennis Association. As opportunities slowly opened during the civil rights era, Carrington began competing in both worlds.
He was also surrounded by top-level Black tennis talent.
Althea Gibson — who broke tennis’s color barrier in 1950 and later won Wimbledon and the U.S. Open — occasionally visited the Elizabeth courts.
Carrington even received coaching from Gibson’s instructor, Sydney Llewellyn, who traveled from Harlem to Elizabeth to teach young players on weekends.
“I met him when I was 12,” he said. “He came from Jamaica at about 18 years old to New York. I learned a tremendous amount from Sydney about life and spirituality and family and manhood. He was a tremendous mentor of mine.”
“That’s how I started,” he said.
From Elizabeth to the U.S. Open
Carrington’s talent soon attracted national attention.
Recruited by several colleges, Carrington chose Hampton Institute, now Hampton University, a historically Black college in Virginia, where he received a full tennis scholarship.
While attending Hampton, he met Suzanne Jordan, a student from Massachusetts. The two married and remained together for 58 years until her death last year.
After graduating in 1969, Carrington briefly taught history at Thomas Jefferson High School in Elizabeth while continuing to pursue tennis.
Tennis was entering a new era. In the late 1960s, the creation of the Open era allowed professional and amateur players to compete together for prize money.
Carrington’s professional career spanned eight years. After competing at the 1973 U.S. Open, he reached a career‑high world ranking of No. 241 on June 3, 1974 — making him one of the highest-ranked Black American men in professional tennis after Arthur Ashe.
Ashe, who won both Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, became both a mentor and practice partner.
“He was something special,” Carrington said. “Arthur Ashe was what Obama was to a lot of people later.”
Coaching and legacy
Carrington competed against — and practiced with — legendary players Bjorn Borg, Vitas Gerulaitis and Rod Laver.
He coached Vera Zvonareva, who reached a career-high world ranking of No. 2 in women’s tennis on Oct. 25, 2010.
After working at an indoor tennis club in Westfield, Carrington moved to Massachusetts in 1980 and later helped establish a tennis and athletic facility at Hampshire College in Amherst.
Over decades of coaching, he has helped hundreds of young players develop their games and earn college scholarships.
He also wrote and self-published a book in 2009 documenting the history of the sport — “Black Tennis, An Archival 1890 to 1962 Collection.”
Carrington says the story of Black tennis remains largely unknown.
Tennis also became a family tradition.
Carrington’s brother Bruce played tennis at Rutgers, and his son, Arthur “Lex” Carrington III, became a nationally ranked junior player and internationally known coach.
Two of Carrington’s granddaughters, Safiya and Noor, attended Louisiana State University on tennis scholarships, continuing the family’s connection to the sport.
Carrington says nearly every major part of his life — from his career to his family — traces back to those first tennis courts in Elizabeth.
“I got everything from tennis,” he said.
The next generation
Recreation Director Stan Neron said the facility will become the future home of Elizabeth’s varsity tennis teams while also supporting open community play and youth programming through the city’s recreation department. The new courts will be ready for play this September.
“It is an honor to recognize Arthur Carrington, a trailblazer whose legacy extends far beyond the tennis court,” Neron said. “His journey represents perseverance, excellence, and the power of opportunity. He is inspiring the next generation of young people in our community to dream bigger and achieve more.”
Alia Sayed, 13, is a National Honor Society member with a 4.1 GPA.
“I love how there are going to be tennis courts right across the street, said the William F. Halloran School #22 student. ”It is so beneficial for me because I will be able to practice and get better at the sport I love.