New Handover Library
Eaton's successful litigation led to the desegregation of New Hanover County schools, hospitals, the Municipal Golf Course, and the Public Library. Although he lost three attempts for a seat on the New Hanover County Board of Education, making him the first African American to seek public office since the coup d'etat and massacre of 1898.

Eaton later served on the Board of Trustees of Cape Fear Technical Institute (now Cape Fear Community College) from 1963-1973, and he was on the trustees of the University of North Carolina Wilmington from 1977-1985, becoming the first African American chair of UNCW Board of Trustees, July 15, 1981.
In 1984, he published his autobiography, "Every Man Should Try." In 1996, Eaton Elementary School in Wilmington was named in his memory.
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Dr. Hubert Eaton: Wilmington’s Own Civil Rights Leader
By Clayton Hamerski - Oct 1, 2021

Dr. Hubert Eaton. Dr. Eaton was a pioneer of civil rights leadership who took drastic, courageous action to correct the injustices that he found in his home, Wilmington, North Carolina.

Hubert Eaton was a medical doctor and nationally ranked tennis player best known for leading the charge in desegregating New Hanover County Schools in 1971, along with the local YMCA. Eaton and his wife Celeste took in a young Althea Gibson and raised her during her high school years, and provided her the guidance that would later allow her to go on and win Wimbledon and the US Open.

In 1952, Dr. Eaton ran for New Hanover County Board of Education. This was especially significant because it was the first time that an African American had run for office in New Hanover County since the events of 1898.

In 1984, Dr. Eaton published his autobiography entitled “Every Man Should Try,” which detailed his battle to end Jim Crowism in New Hanover County, and fight the injustices of segregation.

The book opens with the scene that sparked Dr. Eaton’s activism. As a medical doctor, Eaton explains, there was one occasion on which he was called into court to testify as an expert witness. When he entered the courtroom to be sworn in, the judge rifled through a desk, and gave Eaton a ragged, old Bible that had the work “Colored” labeled on it. Eaton wrote;

“There were measly black schools, segregated hospitals, segregated tennis courts, all-white government, segregated libraries, and segregated Bibles.”
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Library of Congress - African American Innovation, Invention, and Entrepreneurship in the Manuscript Division

Hubert A. Eaton (1916-1991) was an African American physician, civil rights advocate, and tennis coach. After graduating from Johnson C. Smith University in North Carolina, Eaton earned degrees in zoology and medicine at the University of Michigan. Returning home to North Carolina to practice medicine, by 1950 Eaton had joined a lawsuit against the New Hanover Board of Education, demanding that the board upgrade existing facilities and build new ones to serve the county's African American students.

In 1957, Eaton joined a lawsuit against a local hospital to secure admitting privileges for African American doctors, and admittance for African American patients. Eaton was also a noted tennis player and coach, and rose to become president of the American Tennis Association. Correspondence, memoranda, and notes related to Eaton's legal cases can be found in records of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Legal Defense and Education Fund.
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Wikipedia

Hubert Arthur Eaton (1916–1991) was an American physician, civil rights activist, and tennis player in North Carolina.[2] The son of a Winston-Salem physician, Eaton attended Johnson C. Smith University on a tennis scholarship after winning the 1933 national junior championship of the American Tennis Association (ATA), the African American counterpart to the United States Tennis Association. He would go on to win the ATA national doubles championship, and served as the coach and mentor of Althea Gibson, the first black Wimbledon champion.[3][4] He also played in the 1954 U.S. Championships, losing his match to top seed Tony Trabert.[1]

He attended the University of Michigan Medical School and then established a practice in Wilmington, North Carolina, where he was a distinguished physician and noted civil rights activist, fighting for access to recreational facilities, the desegregation of public schools, and, most notably, the fight for access to public hospital facilities for Black physicians.[3]

In 1956, Eaton was a plaintiff in a lawsuit against the James Walker Memorial Hospital, which, by policy, granted hospital privileges exclusively to white physicians.[5] After he prevailed in court, Eaton remarked, "If you don't know what to do, go to court; that is the only way we know of in Wilmington, North Carolina."[6] Eaton later worked to desegregate patient wards, stating that the Black community "[did not] want a partially integrated hospital where everything will be integrated except patients".[7]

In 1964, Eaton was charged with second-degree murder in the death of a patient. A trial was held, but the judge ordered a directed verdict of not guilty by reason of insufficient evidence before the jury began deliberations.[8]
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Dr. Hubert A. Eaton: A Visionary Benefactor
By Doug Smith - USTA | February 08, 2022

Two well-dressed physicians sat high in the bleachers during the 1945 American Tennis Association (ATA) National Championships focusing their attention on wiry Althea Gibson, who faced petite Roumania Peters in the women’s final at Central State (Ohio) University. The whispered conversation between Dr. Robert Walter ‘Whirlwind’ Johnson of Lynchburg, Va., and Dr. Hubert A. Eaton, of Wilmington, N.C., laid the groundwork that set 18-year-old Gibson on the path to greatness.

“Whirlwind said to me, ‘You know Hubert, I wish we could do something to help that girl, Althea,”’ Eaton recalled. “She’s a good tennis player, but she’s not going to amount to much, doing what she’s doing now, hanging around on the streets of New York.”

The two doctors were convinced that Gibson--undisciplined and erratic, both on and off the court—needed to make major changes in her playing style and personality if she were to become a major talent.

Gibson was born in 1927 to Daniel and Anna Bell Gibson, who were sharecroppers on a South Carolina cotton farm. The family moved to Harlem, N.Y., in the early 1930s. An admitted tomboy, Gibson quit school at 13, and spent her free time playing stickball, an inner-city street game, using a broom stick and rubber ball. She also took boxing lessons from her father, hung out in pool rooms and played basketball before discovering tennis.

Gibson entered her first tournament at age 14 and at times, faced opponents with street-like intensity. “I kept wanting to fight the other player every time I started to lose a match,” she once said.
Knowing that the two doctors were in the stands on that day, Gibson showed little emotion while losing to Peters 6-4, 7-9, 6-3. But her loss didn’t change the doctors’ desire to lend her a helping hand. “I tell you what,” said Eaton to Johnson. “I don’t have anybody to practice with down in Wilmington. If she’s willing to come, and if her mother gives her permission, I’ll take her down to Wilmington to let her live with my family and finish high school.

“You keep her (in Lynchburg) during the summers and see to it that she gets to the tournaments.”

Whirlwind’s response: “That sounds all right. I’d be willing to participate in something like that.” So immediately after the match, the doctors approached Gibson at courtside and told her of their plan.

Eaton asked Gibson, “Are you interested?

“Who wouldn’t be interested in a deal like that?” she responded.

Under the doctors’ combined guidance, Gibson matured and prospered—as both a player and a person. She won the ATA National Women’s title 10 consecutive years (1947-1956), and in 1950, became the first Black to compete in the United States Lawn Tennis Association (USLTA) National Championships (now the US Open). She was, of course, elected into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1971.

Unlike Whirlwind, who found tennis later in life, Eaton was a promising junior, winning the ATA National Boys 18 title at 16. Three years later, he won the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA) Champion, while attending Johnson C. Smith University.

With Jim Crow laws barring Blacks from competing on public courts in the South, the ATA turned to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to host its adult and junior tournaments in southern cities. Social play in Black communities was limited. Some Black physicians and business professionals in southern states, built tennis courts in their backyards and organized their own tennis circuit.

“We’d play in Durham, Raleigh and Smithfield, North Carolina and we’d come here to Wilmington,” said Eaton. “Whirlwind joined us when he learned about it. Those sessions with his fellow professionals became the highlight of his social life. He was delighted to have found this group of friends who shared his interest and enthusiasm for the sport.”

Eaton graduated from Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, N.C., in 1937; earned his M.D. from the University of Michigan (1942) and became a civil rights activist on and off the court. He spearheaded moves in his hometown to desegregate Wilmington College (now UNC at Wilmington), the YMCA, the Municipal Golf Course and the County Library System. With Johnson’s support, Eaton was elected ATA president in 1960 and served for 10 consecutive years.

Eaton helped strengthened the ATA’s junior development program, which was founded by Johnson, and his passion for tennis and for opening doors for others into the sport burned brightly until his death in 1991. Eaton, too, eventually played his way into the U.S. National Championships, losing in the first round of Forest Hills in 1954 to defending champion Tony Trabert.

Nothing, however, pleased the two doctors more than the joy they shared in helping Gibson become a role model for youngsters, Black and white.

After capturing her first Wimbledon title (1957), Gibson paid tribute to her two doctors at the Wimbledon ball, saying, “I remember particularly Dr. Robert W. Johnson and Dr. Hubert A. Eaton. It was in Dr. Eaton’s home, while completing high school that I received love and encouragement. It was through Dr. Johnson’s efforts and assistance that I was able to travel all over the United States and gain much needed experience.” Gibson dedicated her first book, “I Always Wanted to Be Somebody,” to her two benefactors.
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