NEWARK, N.J. (AP) – Several hundred mourners filed past the coffin of Althea Gibson at the Newark Museum on Wednesday, paying their respects to the woman who broke color barriers in tennis and golf. Gibson, the first black player to win Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, died of respiratory failure Sunday at a hospital in East Orange, the working-class suburb of Newark where she had lived for decades.

Mourners filed into the center of the museum, passing photographs of Gibson in her heyday.

nearly half a century ago.

“I came to say goodbye to an icon,” said Wayne Edwards, 60, a customer service representative who lives in Newark.

Gibson, 76, was involved in public service for decades but had become reclusive in the last years of her life.

“She wanted people to remember her the way that she was and not the way that she had become,” said Harry Carson, the former New York Giants linebacker who worked with Gibson in recreation during the 1980s.

Others who paid their respects included Gov. James E. McGreevey and former Gov. Brendan Byrne, who in 1975 appointed Gibson as the state’s first black female athletics commissioner.

In 1950, Gibson became the first black woman to compete in a major U.S. tennis championship, and later dominated the game. She won 11 Grand Slam titles, including singles at the French Open in 1956 and the U.S. Open and Wimbledon in 1957 and 1958.

In 1963, she became the first black woman on the LPGA golf tour, though she never won a tournament.

“My mom really admired her,” said Dorothy Boone, 38, of Elizabeth, a public school teacher in Newark. She said her students appreciated Gibson’s significance when told that she had paved the way for modern stars like Venus and Serena Williams.

AP-ES-10-01-03 1941EDT