Long Beach Main Library To Be Renamed After Billie Jean King

The 75-year-old American legend, Billie Jean King gets the main library of her birthplace, Long Beach in California, US renamed after her. She is regarded as the most famous native of the Californian city and with a clear cut major of votes in the City Council, the building will be soon known as Billie Jean King Main Library.

 The American soccer player, David Ochoa commended about the social justice icon, King. “A woman can do anything a man can do — and sometimes, she can do it better,” Ochoa said. “If there’s anyone in Long Beach who deserves the Main Library to be named after them, it’s Billie Jean King, because her influence spreads beyond Long Beach’s boundaries. It spreads across the country, to women everywhere across this country.”

In the year 2009, Billie Jean King was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by the former US president, Barrack Obama.

Their city is happy to entitle their library after their living legend.“Proud that our new Downtown Library will be named after Long Beach legend Billie Jean King,” Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia tweeted. “She is a sports legend, a pioneer in the women’s rights movement, an LGBTQ champion, and a leading figure in the fight for pay equity. An honor worthy of our most decorated hometown hero.”

In the year 1973, King founded the Women’s Tennis Association and its inaugural tournament was the Virginia Slims. For all her on and off the court works for the women’s game, which includes her 39 Grand Slam titles and her historic victory in the Battle of the Sexes, King received the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award. Till date, King, Martina Navratilova, and Borg Bjorn are the only tennis players who are recipients of the BBC award.