RICHMOND, Va. – Arthur Ashe was only 49 years old when he passed away in 1993, but the tennis superstar accomplished so much in his life—from becoming the face of tennis to the face of activism. Ashe was also the first and only African American man to win both Wimbledon and the U.S. Open singles titles.
Arthur Ashe was born on July 10, 1943, in Richmond. Ashe was close with his mother, who had him reading by the age of 4. Unfortunately, a life that was already difficult for Ashe became even tougher when his mother died at the age of 27 due to complications from a toxemic pregnancy in 1950. Ashe was only 6 years old.
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Ashe’s father was tasked with taking care of Ashe and his brother. Ashe Sr. was described as a strict disciplinarian and encouraged Arthur and his brother to excel in the classroom and extracurriculars. However, Ashe Sr. forbade Arthur from playing football, a popular youth sport at the time in Richmond.
It was only a year after the death of his mother that Ashe picked up a tennis racket and started playing at a park near his house. Ashe’s knack for the game of tennis and raw talent at the age of 7 caught the eye of Dr. Robert Walter Johnson Jr., a tennis coach from Lynchburg.
Under the direction of Johnson, Ashe was able to hone his skills and quickly advanced to the junior national championships in his first tournament, a tournament the young phenom would eventually win in 1960 and ’61.
Ashe eventually accepted a scholarship from UCLA, and in 1963, he became the first African American to be recruited by the U.S. Davis Cup team. Five years later, Ashe accomplished a stunning feat in the tennis world, becoming the first African American to win a U.S. Open title. Seven years after that, Ashe became the first African American to win at Wimbledon in 1975.
The win at the U.S. Open propelled the ever-talented Ashe to become the first African American to be ranked No. 1 in the world in tennis.
Throughout his 20-plus-year career in tennis, Ashe was able to break and overcome barriers. In Richmond, during his early childhood, Ashe was barred from competing against white kids and was also banned from using indoor courts.
In 1973, Ashe won the South African Open, breaking the color barrier 20 years before the fall of apartheid.
In 1979, at the age of 36, Ashe suffered a heart attack while hosting a tennis clinic in New York and required quadruple bypass surgery. A year later, Ashe retired from tennis but not before amassing a career record of 996-398 while securing 47 open-era titles along the way.
After tennis, Ashe continued a life of activism, serving on a delegation with 31 prominent African Americans who were selected to oversee South Africa’s racial integration. In 1988, Ashe even published a book titled A Hard Road to Glory, a three-volume history of the African American athlete, an accomplishment he would say was “better than any tennis title.”
Ashe remained a staunch activist throughout the last 14 years of his life despite dealing with an overwhelming amount of health issues. Ashe passed away in February 1993 due to complications from AIDS-related pneumonia.
Ashe’s legacy continues to live on through those who watched him play. The ESPYs also award an athlete with the “Arthur Ashe Award,” an award given to those who possess strength in the face of adversity. A perfect award that embodies the spirit of Arthur Ashe.
