Truly great lives can resonate far beyond the dusty pages of history textbooks. Through their passion, verve, and determination, some live in the consciousness of civilization for eternity. These are the few, for they have changed the cultural fabric of our world. Virginia is proud to call one such man its son.
Arthur Robert Ashe Junior was born in Richmond, on July 10, 1943. Growing up black in segregated society, he faced a daunting and uncertain future from his first breath. A frail and awkward child, he leaned heavily on his mother and was devastated by her death in 1950. Adversity would become a familiar theme in his life.
Aged seven, Ashe began playing tennis at Brookfield Park, a racially divided facility close to his home where his father worked as a parks policeman. "Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can," he would later reflect. Soon enough, his obvious talent attracted the attention of a local coach named Ronald Charity.
Charity arranged for him to spend a summer with Dr Walter Johnson, a man who was later daubed the "godfather of black tennis," having also helped Althea Gibson to the 1957 Wimbledon singles title. Frustrated by having to travel outside of Richmond to compete against white players, Ashe then transferred to Sumner High School in St. Louis for his senior year.
Aided by the dedicated lobbying of Dr. Johnson, the gangly teenager became the first African-American to compete in the interscholastic tournament. With a game based on elegant stroke play and fierce determination, he duly won the competition for Sumner High. Graduating in 1961, he earned a prestigious scholarship at the University of California in Los Angeles, where he gained a B.S in Business Administration and became intercollegiate tennis champion.
In 1963, the Virginian became the first African-American to represent USA in Davis Cup tennis. "Since no black player had ever been in the team, I am now part of history," he wrote in his book Days of Grace. Over a 10-year period, he amassed 27 Davis Cup singles victories from just 32 matches, a record only bettered only by John McEnroe's total of 41.
In a glittering solo career, Ashe won three majors, including the inaugural U.S. Open in 1968. He remains the only African-American to win singles titles at Wimbledon and the Australian Open, reaching number one in the world rankings and winning over 800 matches in the process.
It is through his work outside of the tramlines, however, that Ashe has left an indelible mark on the world. Inside the athlete stood a man as articulate and passionate as any president. "My life has been a failure if all I am remembered for is being a tennis player," he once said.
In 1970, he applied for a travel visa to play in the South African Open in Johannesburg. A routine procedure for any overseas event, Ashe was understandably shocked to see his application denied on the grounds of race. Apartheid had intervened, and with the memory of segregated Richmond close to his heart, he felt compelled to act.
"Some folks call tennis a rich man people's sport, or a white person's game. I guess I started too early because I thought it was something fun to do," he said.
Determined to raise awareness of apartheid, Ashe appealed to the International Lawn Tennis Association, demanding they withdraw South Africa's right to host tour events. He received widespread backing from his fellow professionals, and on March 23, 1970, South Africa was banned from Davis Cup competition.
When John McEnroe was offered $1 million to appear at a showcase event in the South African "homeland" of Bophuthatswana, it was Ashe who convinced him to back out. Such state funded events were no more than elaborate smoke screens, and Ashe demanded apartheid be as transparent as the hypocrisy it fostered.
In 1973, Arthur Ashe was finally granted a visa to play tennis in South Africa; an opportunity he celebrated by becoming the first black athlete to win a title there, claiming the South African Open doubles crown with Tom Okker. "You have shown our black youth that they can compete with whites and win," wrote local poet Don Mattera.
Mattera, a black writer who had grown up in the ghettos of Sophiatown, used his meeting with Ashe to inspire the following poem:
I listened deeply when you spoke
About the step-by-step evolutionOf a gradual harvest,
Tendered by the rains of tolerance
And patience.
Your youthful face,
A mask,
Hiding a pining, anguished spirit,
And I loved you brother —
Not for your quiet philosophy
But for the rage in your soul,
Trained to be rebuked or summoned
South African blacks nicknamed Ashe "sipho", which means "a gift from god" in Zulu, and he continued to fight against apartheid for the rest of his life. "South Africa," he said, "was testing the credibility of Western civilization. If you didn't come out against the most corrupt system imaginable, you couldn't look yourself in the eye.
In 1983, singer Henry Blofield joined Ashe in co-chairing "Artists and Athletes Against Apartheid", encouraging an embargo of South Africa. When Nelson Mandela was released from prison after 27 years, he named Ashe as the American he wanted to meet first. "South Africa could never shrug off racial discrimination without the monumental work of Arthur Ashe," said Mandela.
Following his retirement from professional tennis, Ashe continued to be heavily involved in humanitarian causes. Intent on improving opportunities for underprivileged children, he formed several charitable organizations, including the National Junior Tennis League, the ABC Cities Tennis Program, the Athlete-Career Connection, and the Safe Passage Foundation.
"So many people are just interested in achieving the most in their sport, making the most money they can. He believed there was more to his life on earth than hitting a tennis ball. He took his stature in tennis and parleyed it into a way to impact millions and millions of people," explained 1996 Wimbledon runner-up Malivai Washington.
Both on and off the courts, he was an understated, self-effacing, and humble man, who garnered respect wherever he went. "He had the frailest of bodies, but moved mountains," wrote Sports Illustrated journalist Roy S. Johnson.
Tragically, Ashe was diagnosed HIV positive in 1988, a condition doctors linked to a blood transfusion in 1983. Worried for his family, and the prejudice attached to his plight, he kept the news from the media until April 23, 1992, when fears of a newspaper running the story prompted a press conference announcement. Ashe told the world he had AIDS.
Far from hiding behind the illness, he used his final months to campaign for AIDS awareness, forming the Arthur Ashe Foundation for the Defeat of AIDS and addressing the United Nations on World AIDS day. He was also awarded the first annual AIDS leadership award from the Harvard AIDS institute.
"I do not like being the personification of a problem, much less a problem involving a killer disease, but I know I must seize these opportunities to spread the word," he wrote in Days of Grace.
Arthur Ashe died on February 6, 1993, following a bought of pneumonia. He was just 49-years-old. More than 11,000 people attended funeral services in Richmond and New York City, with mourners all over the world paying tribute to his remarkable life.
"Words cannot suffice to capture a career as glorious, a life as fully lived, or a commitment to justice as firm and as fair as was his," said then New York mayor David N. Dinkins.
Earlier this year, the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) recognized Arthur Ashe as the second most influential college athlete in history. Sandwiched between Jackie Robinson and Jesse Owens, he was in distinguished company. Where Robinson had broken barriers in baseball, and Owens in athletics, Ashe had changed professional tennis forever. Future black tennis stars like James Blake will eternally reap the benefits of Ashe's tireless campaigning.
"I owe [Ashe] a great debt of gratitude for being able to deal with the pressures and situations," said Blake. "It took a great man and a great athlete like him to do that ... to really break the color barrier in tennis and be such a great champion; and to be so well respected as a sportsman to where people could really add no disparaging remarks about him with any valid basis ... I'm very grateful."
When Ashe beat Jimmy Connors to win Wimbledon in 1975, he found time to reflect on his journey from segregated Richmond to world conquering black athlete. "When I took the match point, all the support I received over the years came together. It's a long way from Brookfield to Wimbledon."
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