September 1958

Althea Gibson won her second consecutive US Open championship and second consecutive Wimbledon title in 1958, capping two years of dominance in women's tennis. Gibson had become the first Black player to win a Grand Slam singles title at the 1956 French Open, breaking the color barrier in professional tennis.

Martin Luther King Jr. published Stride Toward Freedom, his account of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and his philosophy of nonviolent resistance. The book reached wide audiences and established King as a moral voice and intellectual force, not just an organizer. He was stabbed by a mentally ill woman at a Harlem book signing the same day.

Sidney Poitier received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his role in The Defiant Ones, playing a Black prisoner chained to a white prisoner. The film's treatment of racial interdependence made it a cultural landmark, and Poitier's nomination marked only the second time a Black actor had been nominated in a leading role.