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Booing of Trump Drowns Out the Sounds of Arthur Ashe Spinning in His Grave [1]
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Date: 2025-09-08
Arthur Ashe — the first Black man ever to play tennis in apartheid South Africa and the namesake of the stadium where the U.S. Open was played this weekend — fought the exact sort of bigotry the president and his movement work to impose on the U.S. daily.
I’m a journalist and an historian who fancies herself a creative type that tries to expose ugly truths to the average people in new and interesting ways. I researched fourteen great humans for my book Magic Diary, one of whom was Ashe. In the book, a kid gets a journal to help her with a pretty severe life struggle. While she sleeps, these fantastic people share the story of their lives as a way to encourage her.
Lest you think I’m trying to sell you my book, I’m reprinting the letter that I imagined Ashe would write to Genevieve. No need to buy anything!
And yeah, it was a highlight of the book to research Ashe. Bear with the whimsey of the tale long enough to learn about this great man, civil rights icon and — if I may speak for him one more time — a person who would not tolerate the current president’s threats to history books, museums and decency.
PS as you’ll see, the little girl’s name is Genevieve. I hope you like learning more about Ashe as well as his remarkable brother too.
Hi Genevieve,
Thanks for the shout out to black athletes. I am not here to say anything negative about Babe Ruth or Roger Clemens or any other white competitor. I guess when you’ve beaten as many white athletes as I have, you come to respect the enormous amount of effort it takes to get to first place — regardless of racism. You sure don’t get to number one, in my sport, without being tested by white guys with lots of talent, determination and strength. Trust me. Those white athletes I played against: they were tough.
Did you ever hear of Jimmy Connors? Well, I beat him, and that victory may have impressed me more than it did anyone. Beating Jimmy made me the greatest tennis player in the world. Not just the best Black player, (not much of an accomplishment because there were only a handful of us) but the best player regardless of race.
Besides, becoming the greatest tennis player of my lifetime wasn’t the greatest challenge I ever faced. It wasn’t even the greatest accomplishment.
Still, I never could’ve become world champion if others hadn’t sacrificed for me and believed in me.
See, Genevieve, Black men — and women — have to stand up against a lot of odds before they ever get into the ring, or onto the field, or dive in a pool, or step out on the court.
My whole life story is different from other Black pros because of the sport that attracted me. I didn’t have to excel in a Black league like Jackie Robinson. Because nobody pushed enough tennis in Black neighborhoods, we never ended up with a segregated sport. Nope, one day I walked onto the court of white athleticism and stunned them.
Did you hear of Robert Frost? Robert Frost was a poet. He was poet laureate for the United States back in John Kennedy’s administration. One of his poems went like this:
“I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
— I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
Genevieve, that road less traveled by, it sure made all the difference in my life. Let me tell you a little about that road.
I was born in the segregated south, back in 1943. My mom, dad and my brother lived in Richmond, Virginia. My mom died when I was little, just six years old. My brother was five years younger. Our dad worried that his two little boys might get into trouble, so he watched over us every minute of every day.
Our dad worked hard, and he cared about others. He taught us to care about others too.
Our dad worked the kind of jobs Black men could get in those days. He chauffeured wealthy folks around and one of those fat cats got him a job as a security guard at the park where I went to play.
From the moment I picked up a tennis racket, it felt right in my hand. Lucky for me, some great coaches and players noticed that I could play. I got scholarships and offers to play on prestigious teams. Ever hear of the Davis Cup? Well, I won’t go into all that here. Suffice to say in 1965, I became the first African American to win the NCAA singles crown.
But the Vietnam War had started by then. I had enlisted in the Army Reserves so I could finish college. When I graduated from UCLA, my kid brother had just finished a tour in Vietnam. The U.S. government had a rule back then. No two brothers could be in combat at the same time. My brother, Johnnie, re-enlisted and went back to Vietnam so they wouldn’t take me. So I could keep on playing tennis.
Genevieve, more than any other person who helped me in my career, my brother Johnnie sacrificed to make sure I’d become the man history needed me to be.
Being a star athlete changed my life in a way that no other force could have. I made history. I shattered stereotypes. I broke records. I fought apartheid.
Genevieve, by now you’ve noticed that famous people have a spotlight that follows them around. If the best tennis player in the world gets a visa for South Africa and plays in the South African open, the world notices. If that man is Black, the world gasps with fright or delight — depending on the observer.
See, in 1973, South Africa maintained a policy they called Apartheid. It mirrored our own segregation but with a touch of slavery thrown in too. Nobody (no South African white leadership) much cared when Blacks were killed or disappeared. Black African civil rights leaders got locked up and the South African government threw away the key.
Unlike the United States, South Africa’s ruling white people were the minority race. Afraid of the consequences of their domination, whites maintained control with murderous oppression tactics employed to stifle dissent among the Black majority. As in the American Jim Crow Deep South, blacks were slaughtered for speaking out. But in the late 20th century, what had been a river of murder and shame in the U.S. was a torrent in South Africa. When I first tried to play in the South African Open, the authorities stopped me. I was denied a visa three times before the South African government allowed me to enter their country. I played the whitest sport In THE white supremacist country. Along with my doubles partner, Tom Oaken from the Netherlands, I won.
I see you studied World War II in school this year. Perhaps your history books told you about Jesse Owens who stunned a gape-jawed Adolf Hitler by winning four Olympic gold medals in Germany. But Genevieve, there were 18 Black people on that team. Owens is the only name anyone has remembered. That’s how history remembers minorities who change the world. As loners.
As my brother Johnnie’s sacrifice points out, nothing could be further from the truth.
Even more erased from history than the many Black athletes who competed in the 1936 Olympics, Genevieve, were the U.S. Jews in the competition. The two Jewish athletes sent by the U.S. to those Berlin games weren’t allowed to compete at all. No one ever talks about them. They were denied their Olympic dream because the U.S. Olympic Committee Chairman, Avery Brundage, didn’t want to embarrass Hitler when the Jews won gold medals.
I know, Brundage displayed a despicable lack of courage.
But I want you to know that the famous one, the one Black man that got all the attention. He didn’t waste his spotlight. That’s right. Jesse Owens spoke up for Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller. He offered his place in the 400 meter relay so that one of them could win a gold. This is what great men do with their celebrity. While weak men that history will rightfully forget, like Avery Brundage, often make what little name they have by trampling on the greatness of others.
We all know the unfortunate outcome of a world willing to tolerate Hitler.
In my time, the South African persecution of Black people harkened back to that evil.
When I got my spotlight, I had to find a way to defeat white athletes in a segregated nation. I had to prove my fundamental equality to prove the fundamental equality of all people.
As for my personal stand against apartheid? No, it sure didn’t feel like I changed anything at all. Apartheid lived on, long past my exhibition of Black equality back in 1973. The agony of segregation, subjugation and exploitation along with the continued incarceration of South African civil rights leaders slogged on until 1994. In fact, Genevieve, I never saw it end. The year before the white supremacist government fell, I died of pneumonia caused by the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome knowns as AIDS.
Here’s something I want you to take to heart, Genevieve. Long debilitating illnesses complicate our lives, but they don’t have to stop us from being great. We can triumph in spite of them.
As for me, my healthcare challenges began in 1979 when I had a heart attack that ended my career playing tennis. A blood transfusion during a coronary bypass surgery infected me with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and that, in turn, caused a brain tumor. During the surgery to remove the tumor the doctors discovered that I had the underlying HIV infection.
But I still had a lot to do.
I went on to champion the cause of Haitian refugees when the Unites States deported them and — subsequently — repatriated them. Because I was rich and famous, and I didn’t have to care (as much) if my skin — like theirs — was Black: when my government arrested me at a protest in 1992, they immediately set me free. I stunned the media when I spoke out for other people of color who suffered without a voice. Politicians and my peers noticed my actions. Sports Illustrated magazine named me “Sportsman of the Year.”
I spoke about human rights to everyone who would hear me. I worked as hard for inner city kids in the U.S. as I did for kids from Haiti or South Africa. I started health programs and youth organizations. I hoped to discover other young tennis greats in a community where no one else bothered to look. Serena and Vanessa Williams played tennis in one of my programs. If you don’t know who they are, look them up. You’ll be impressed.
Boy, I feel like I’m just bragging about my life to you, Geneveive. It would be hard not to boast, with all the good fortune I’ve had. But I don’t want you to think I’m unique.
I’m only one of so many excellent African Americans: athletes or otherwise. If this letter piques your interest, read my book, Hard Road to Glory: A History of the African American Athlete. Our struggle and triumph makes for an amazing tale I think you may find fascinating.
One last thing, Genevieve As my comments about Glickman and Stoller imply, many minorities suffered oppression. Many minority athletes inspired their own people and cried out for social justice when the white power structure considered them spectacles rather than role models. To make that point, I invited the man that 20th century sports writers named the best athlete of the century to contact you. Perhaps you’ve heard of him. He’s accepted my invitation and has joined me here to write to you next.
Warmest wishes,
Arthur Ashe.
If you’re still here, thanks for reading. I wrote this book in 2017 — luckily it’s a history book so the old facts are all true, but the way we put them have changed. The language we use. Thankfully I don’t think the current administration can remove the important lessons that the George Floyd protests and other events of the last eight years have taught us. Magic Diary is just a humble attempt to remind folks — especially white folks — that greatness was brought to our nation, by people different from ourselves and often against burdensome, often brutal, resistance.
Too many of us know very little of our history. And the current administration wants us to know even less.
BTW, if you’re curious about who came back from history to write to Genevieve next — it was Jim Thorpe.
Thanks for reading and if you do decide you want a copy of Magic Diary, may I recommend a local book seller. I will never buy another book from a man who sat on the dais at the capitol this past January 20th.
Thanks to wiki for the pic
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