Hero #010: Arthur Ashe … (05/24/16)
Born in 1943, Arthur Ashe was an American professional tennis player and social activist. Over the course of his career he won three Grand Slam singles titles, dozens of other tournaments, and peaked at #2 in the ATP computer rankings in May of 1976. An African American, Ashe was the first black player selected to the United States Davis Cup team and the only black man ever to win the singles title at Wimbledon, the US Open, and the Australian Open.
1972 proved especially momentous for Ashe when he was denied a visa by the South African government, and was thus kept out of that year’s South African Open. Ashe used this slight to publicize South Africa’s apartheid policies, and he publicly called for South Africa to be expelled from the professional tennis circuit. He was also arrested on January 11, 1985, for protesting outside the Embassy of South Africa in Washington, D.C. during an anti-apartheid rally, and was arrested on another occasion again on September 9, 1992, outside the White House for protesting the then harsh crackdown on Haitian refugees.
In 1979, Ashe suffered a heart attack, which surprised the public in view of his high level of fitness as an athlete. His condition drew attention to the hereditary aspect of heart disease. He underwent a quadruple bypass operation, and was on the verge of making his return to professional tennis only a few months thereafter when he developed chest pains while training. He continued to experience discomfort, retired from tennis in 1980, and eventually underwent a second heart surgery in 1983 to correct the previous one. It was presumably during this second operation that Ashe contracted the IV virus via one of his blood transfusions — a condition that was not discovered until five years afterward in 1988.
Ashe publicly announced his illness in 1992, and began working to educate others about HIV & AIDS. He founded the Arthur Ashe Foundation for the Defeat of AIDS and the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health before his death from AIDS-related pneumonia on February 6, 1993.
“I know I could never forgive myself if I elected to live without humane purpose, without trying to help the poor and unfortunate, without recognizing that the purest joy in life comes with trying to help others … I wanted to indulge and explore my love of humanity and especially my concern for persons less fortunate than myself … From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life … True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost … Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can … Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is more important than the outcome … You’ve got to get to the stage in life where going for it is more important than winning or losing … We must reach out our hand in friendship and dignity both to those who would befriend us and those who would be our enemy.” ~ Arthur Ashe
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