Ashe, Arthur Robert, Jr., 1943-1993

Arthur Ashe, African-American tennis champion and human rights activist, was born in Richmond, Virginia in 1943 and first played tennis on local segregated park courts. Educated at UCLA, he played on and captained numerous Davis Cup teams, and competed in tournaments throughout the world winning the United States Open in 1968, the Australian Open in 1970, and Wimbledon in 1975. He served as an early director of the Association of Tennis Professionals, a players' union which attempted to reform the sport in the 1970s, as well as on other boards and advisory committees concerned with education, civil rights, sports, and health. Ashe actively campaigned against Apartheid in South Africa, and, after his retirement from tennis in 1980 due to a heart condition, became a noted writer and commentator on sports and society. In 1992, after announcing that he had AIDS, acquired from a blood transfusion following heart bypass surgery, Ashe became active in raising funds and increasing awareness of the disease. He was the author of a three-volume history of African-American athletes, "A Hard Road to Glory: a History of the African-American Athlete," as well as instructional books and three autobiographies, "Portrait in Motion with Frank Deford," "Off the Court with Neil Amdur, and Day of Grace: a Memoir, with Arnold Rampersad." Ashe died in New York City in 1993.