African American, Alaska Highway, 97th Regiment Medical Detachment.
Born: 8 September 1918, Biloxi, MS. Died: 9 February 2003, Biloxi, MS. Enlisted: 28 October 1941, Jacksonville Army Air Field, FL and discharged 25 December 1945.
Education: Two years high school. Thomy Lafon and J.W. Hoffman schools in New Orleans. After the war he studied offset printing at Louisiana Industrial Training School in Farmerville.
Civilian occupation: mechanic, repairman and in 1940 census he was an attendant at a gas station. After the war he worked nights as a supervisor at a Coca-Cola plant.
His father was Charles “C.C.” Atkinson, initially a laborer in transportation then a Pastor and finally a Bishop of the Christ Holiness Church. His mother was Josephine Atkinson.
Nehemiah was a medical corpsman with the segregated 97th Engineer Regiment. They arrived at Valdez, Alaska in April of 1942. Snow covered the ground and the surrounding mountains. The temperature was in the low 20’s.
The 97th Engineers built the northern section of the Alaska Highway. They left Alaska in September 1943, returned to Camp Sutton, N.C. and in April of 1944 were shipped out to Milne Bay, New Guinea, Philippines.
The following information was obtained from an obituary written by Billy Crawford and an article by Mr. Robert G. Miller, “Elderly Tennis Phenom Nehemiah Atkinson Spends his Golden Years on the World’s Tennis Courts,” April 2001.
Nehemiah, a black southern boy in New Orleans, hit his first tennis ball when he was nine. Tennis was a game for the whites and the elites. Nehemiah was not bothered by the racial barriers of Jim Crow. He was attracted to the game of tennis, not baseball or football.
After WW2, he returned to New Orleans and began teaching the game of tennis to the youth and the affluent whites. He used public parks and the tennis courts at Xavier University. For twenty-three years he was a tennis instructor advancing to director for the New Orleans Recreation Department . He retired in 1995.
He volunteered at the American Tennis Association. The Nehemiah Atkinson Scholarship Foundation was established and many young tennis players of various ethnic backgrounds attended college because of Nehemiah Atkinson.
“His crowning achievements as a tennis pro came in 1999. He reaped the benefits of his perseverance in high-level competition by winning four gold balls in national and international matches. After years of finishing near the top in his age division in national competition, Atkinson succeeded in winning a national singles championship in the Men’s 80s (age bracket) National Hard Court Championship in San Diego. This milestone victory came on the heels of Atkinson winning the gold ball in doubles with his Florida partner Gardnar Mulloy against a Spanish team during the World International Senior Tennis Championships in Barcelona, Spain. He is currently ranked number one in nine southern states.”
Nehemiah remarked “I’ve got better wheels than most people I play. Also I play a lot of young folks and I’m simply out on the court a lot. Tennis keeps you young. It stimulates your heart, keeps your body in shape and your eyes sharp.”
To read more about this tennis pro and war veteran visit url cityparktennisclub.com/2014/01/coach-nehemiah-atkinson.
Serial #34153269
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