Arthur Robert Ashe Jr (1943 - 1993)

Born 10 Jul 1943 in Richmond, Virginia, United States

Ancestors

Died 6 Feb 1993 at age 49 in New York, United States

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Biography

Arthur Ashe Jr is Notable.

Arthur Ashe Jr is a Military Veteran.
Served in the U.S. Army

Arthur Ashe, an American professional tennis player who won three Grand Slam titles, was the first Black player selected for the United States Davis Cup team, and the first and so far only Black man to win the singles title at Wimbledon, the U.S. Open, and the Australian Open. He was also an activist and humanitarian.^[1]

He was born in Richmond, Virginia, on 10 July 1943.^[2] His mother, Mattie Cordell Cunningham Ashe died when he was 6 years old. His father, Arthur Robert Ashe, Sr. was a parks policeman/caretaker in Richmond, and Arthur grew up in the caretaker's house inside 18 acre Brook Field Park,^[3] a segregated public park for Black residents, where he learned to play tennis at an early age.^[4] He had two brothers and a sister; his younger brother Johnnie Ashe, born in 1948, made a significant sacrifice during the Viet Nam War to help Arthur's career.^[1]

Arthur became a standout tennis player as a teenager, initially with support from Dr. Walter "Whirlwind" Johnson, of Lynchburg, Virginia, a physician who coached and mentored a number of Black tennis prodigies, including the renowned Althea Gibson. Young Arthur Ashe reached the semifinals of the junior national championships on his first attempt in 1958. He won the indoor singles title in 1960 and 1961, and completed high school first in his class^[4] at Sumner High School in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1962 he was the fifth-ranked junior in the United States and received a full scholarship to the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), where he studied business administration and joined the ROTC and the Upsilon chapter of the Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity on campus.^[4] In 1963, while a university student, he joined the U.S. Davis Cup team. By the time of his graduation in 1966, one renowned tennis teacher called him "the most promising player in the world."^[5] In addition to becoming the first person on his paternal side to complete college, Arthur had in 1965 won the individual National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) championship and had significantly contributed to UCLA’s winning the team NCAA tennis championship.^[4]

After graduation, Arthur served in the U.S. Army from 1966-68. While stationed at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in New York, he reached the rank of first lieutenant. During his time in the army he continued to play tennis, participating in the Davis Cup and other tournaments.^{[4] [6]}

His professional tennis titles included U.S. Open Champion in 1968, Australian Open Champion in 1968, and Wimbledon Champion in 1975. When he won the U.S. Open, he was still an amateur and therefore unable to accept the prize money-- which was instead given to the man he had defeated in the finals.^[4] (The rules began to change later that same year, with the beginning of the "Open Era" of tennis.) In 1975, after winning Wimbledon, he was ranked the #1 tennis player in the world.^[7]

Arthur married his wife Jeanne Moutoussamy in 1977 in Manhattan, New York.^[8] Their only child, a daughter, was born in 1986.

A heart attack led to the discovery of advanced cardiovascular disease, and after undergoing heart surgery in December 1979, he officially retired from competition on April 16, 1980, at the age of 36. His career record was 818 wins, 260 losses and 51 titles.^[1]

His retirement from competition only led to other outlets for his energy. While writing for Time Magazine, The Washington Post, Tennis Magazine, and commentating for ABC Sports and HBO, he was appointed captain (coach) of the U.S. Davis Cup team, which won the Cup in 1981 and 1982. In 1981 he served as national chairman of the American Heart Association. He continued his activism for civil rights and against the South African apartheid regime, and was arrested in 1985 for protesting outside the Embassy of South Africa in Washington, D.C., during an anti-apartheid rally; he was arrested again in 1992 for protesting a U.S. crackdown on Haitian refugees. He agreed to teach "The Black Athlete in Contemporary Society," a course at Florida Memorial College, and finding no current textbook, was inspired to write his own, the three volume, A Hard Road To Glory, published in 1988.^[4]

An activist and humanitarian, in his lifetime he went from being denied opportunities to play and compete in the late 1950s to integrating (and winning) the previously segregated junior national singles championship in 1960; in 1969 he co-founded the National Junior Tennis League, to expose underprivileged children to tennis while fostering a sense of discipline and attention to academics.^[4] From boycotting and protesting against apartheid in the late 1960s through the 1980s, in 1992 he was a delegate who went to observe political change in South Africa as it approached racial integration.^[1] From being a champion unable to accept prize money because of his amateur status, and unable to freely choose which tournaments to play or skip, he saw the beginning of the "Open Era," whereby professionals were allowed to play the Grand Slam tournaments, and he supported the founding of the Association of Tennis Professionals to protect players from promoters and associations.^[1]

After a second heart surgery in 1983, he contracted HIV from a blood transfusion, and worked to raise awareness and funding for research and treatment of AIDS and HIV.^[4] He founded the Arthur Ashe Foundation for the Defeat of AIDS and the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health, and worked to educate others about HIV and AIDS, and especially to combat the belief that only gay men and intravenous drug users contracted AIDS.

He succumbed to AIDS-related pneumonia at the age of 49. He was buried beside his mother in Woodland Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia.^[9] He was survived by his wife, their daughter, two brothers and a sister, and numerous other relatives.^[7]

He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bill Clinton on 20 June 1993. In 1996, a statue of Arthur Ashe was dedicated on Richmond’s Monument Avenue. The statue shows him carrying books in one hand and a tennis racket in the other, symbolizing his love of knowledge and tennis. In 1997 the U.S. Tennis Association announced that the new center stadium at the U.S.T.A. National Tennis Center would be named Arthur Ashe Stadium in his honor.^[4] And in Asheville, North Carolina, named for the owner of hundreds of enslaved people, including the forebears of Arthur Ashe, there has been discussion of changing not the name of Asheville, but whom it honors.^[10]

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4} Wikipedia contributors, "Arthur Ashe," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Ashe
2. ↑ Birth: "Virginia, U.S., Birth Records, 1912-2015, Delayed Birth Records, 1721-1911"
   Virginia Department of Health; Richmond, Virginia; Virginia, Births, 1864-2016
   Ancestry Record 9277 #1772672 (accessed 22 June 2022)
   Arthur Robert Ashe born on 10 Jul 1943 in Richmond, Virginia, USA.
3. ↑ 1950 Census: "1950 United States Federal Census"
   United States of America, Bureau of the Census; Washington, D.C.; Seventeenth Census of the United States, 1950; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790-2007; Record Group Number: 29; Residence Date: 1950; Home in 1950: Richmond, Richmond, Virginia; Roll: 873; Sheet Number: 71; Enumeration District: 119-56
   Ancestry Sharing Link - Ancestry Record 62308 #113588339 (accessed 22 June 2022)
   Arthur R Ashe Jr (6) son in household of Arthur R Ashe (32) in Richmond, Richmond, Virginia, USA. Born in Virginia.
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9} The Arthur Ashe Legacy at UCLA, archived 6/22/2022 Life Story
5. ↑ Robin Finn, "Arthur Ashe, Tennis Star, Is Dead at 49," The New York Times, 8 Feb 1993.
6. ↑ Official Military Personnel File of Arthur R. Ashe https://catalog.archives.gov/id/40922125 232 images
7. ↑ ^{7.0 7.1} Funeral Program: "Virginia, U.S., African-American Funeral Programs, 1935-2009"
   Ancestry Sharing Link - Ancestry Record 61906 #320121 (accessed 22 June 2022)
   Arthur R Ashe Jr death 6 Feb 1993 (age 49) in New York City, New York.
8. ↑ Marriage: "New York, New York, U.S., Marriage License Indexes, 1907-2018"
   New York City Municipal Archives; New York, New York; Borough: Manhattan
   Ancestry Record 61406 #3922352 (accessed 22 June 2022)
   Arthur R Ashe Jr marriage to Jeanne Marie Moutoussamy in 1977.
9. ↑ Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 9 July 2020), memorial page for Arthur Robert Ashe, Jr (10 Jul 1943–6 Feb 1993), Find A Grave: Memorial #1662, citing Woodland Cemetery, Richmond, Henrico County, Virginia, USA; Maintained by Find A Grave.
10. ↑ John Boyle, "What to do with the Vance obelisk?" Asheville Citizen-Times, (August 2, 2020). Retrieved August 3, 2020.

See also:

• Arthur Ashe and Arnold Rampersad, Days of Grace: A Memoir, (New York: Knopf, 1993)
• Susan Winiecki, "Blackwell-Ashe family tree to take root in Richmond," The Richmond Magazine, (February 22, 2019). Retrieved April 14, 2020.
• Wikidata: Item Q53325