Fifty years ago, Arthur Ashe achieved a remarkable victory, defying expectations to become the first Black man to win the Wimbledon Men’s Singles title, defeating fellow American Jimmy Connors. However, this achievement was not what he wanted to define his life.
His commitment to breaking down racial barriers was paramount, and apartheid South Africa became a key battleground in this fight.
“I don’t want to be remembered in the final analysis for having won Wimbledon… I take applause for having done it, but it’s not the most important thing in my life – not even close,” Ashe stated in a BBC interview a year before his death in 1993.
Nevertheless, his Centre Court triumph on July 5, 1975, remains a spine-tingling sporting moment that captivated audiences worldwide, regardless of their interest in tennis, and it is being commemorated with a special display at the Wimbledon museum.
Ashe was in his early 30s, known for his tall stature, composed demeanor, and quiet strength. Connors, a decade younger and the defending champion, was known as an aggressive player often labeled as “brattish.”
Ashe’s achievements, skills, and courage on the court were undoubtedly matched by his actions off the court.
In the early 1970s, South Africa repeatedly denied Ashe a visa to travel to the country with other US players.
The white-minority government had legalized an extreme system of racial segregation, known as apartheid, in 1948.
Authorities cited his “general antagonism” and outspoken remarks about South Africa as the reason for barring him.
However, in 1973, the government relented and granted Ashe a visa to participate in the South African Open, a premier tournament at the time.
This marked Ashe’s first visit to South Africa. While he stipulated that he would only play if the stadium was open to both Black and White spectators, his decision sparked controversy among anti-apartheid activists in the US and strong opposition from some within South Africa’s Black community.
British journalist and tennis historian Richard Evans, a lifelong friend of Ashe, was part of the press corps during that South Africa tour.
Evans noted that Ashe was “painfully aware” of the criticism and accusations that he was legitimizing the South African government. However, Ashe was determined to witness firsthand the living conditions in the country.
“He felt that he was always being asked about South Africa, but he’d never been. He said: ‘How can I comment on a place I don’t know? I need to see it and make a judgment. And until I go, I can’t do that.'”
Evans recalls that during the tour, South African writer and poet Don Mattera organized a meeting between Ashe and a group of Black journalists, but the atmosphere was tense.
“As I passed someone,” Evans told the BBC, “I heard someone say: ‘Uncle Tom'” – a derogatory term for a Black person perceived as subservient to White people.
“And then one or two very vociferous journalists stood up and said: ‘Arthur, go home. We don’t want you here. You’re just making it easier for the government to be able to show that they allow someone like you in.'”
However, not all Black South Africans were vehemently opposed to Ashe’s presence.
South African author and academic Mark Mathabane grew up in the Alexandra township, located north of Johannesburg. These townships were established under apartheid on the outskirts of cities for non-white residents.
Mathabane first learned about Ashe as a boy while accompanying his grandmother to her gardening job at a British family’s mansion in a whites-only suburb.
The lady of the house gifted him a September 1968 edition of Life magazine from her collection, featuring Arthur Ashe at the net on the cover.
Mathabane was captivated by the image and its cover line, “The Icy Elegance of Arthur Ashe,” and he aspired to emulate him.
When Ashe toured South Africa in 1973, Mathabane had one goal: to meet Ashe or, at least, get close to him.
The opportunity arose when Ashe took a break from competition to host a tennis clinic in Soweto, a township south of Johannesburg.
The 13-year-old Mathabane traveled by train to attend and join the scores of other Black, mostly young, people who had come to see the tennis star, whom they nicknamed “Sipho.”
“He may have been honorary white to white people, but to us black people he was Sipho. It’s a Zulu word for gift,” Mathabane, now aged 64, told the BBC.
“You know, a gift from God, from the ancestors, meaning that this is very priceless, take care of it. Sipho is here, Sipho from America is here.”
The excitement generated at the Soweto clinic spread throughout the country, he said.
From rural reservations to shebeens (bars), wherever Black people gathered, Ashe’s visit was the topic of conversation.
“For me, he was literally the first free black man I’d ever seen,” said Mathabane.
After the 1973 tour, Ashe returned to South Africa several more times. In early 1976, he helped establish the Arthur Ashe Soweto Tennis Centre (AASTC) for aspiring players in the township.
However, shortly after its opening, the center was vandalized during the student-led uprisings against the apartheid regime that began in June of that year.
It remained neglected for many years before undergoing a major refurbishment in 2007 and was reopened by Ashe’s widow, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe.
The complex now features 16 courts, a library, and a skills development center.
The goal is to produce a Grand Slam champion from the township, and legends like Serena and Venus Williams have since conducted clinics there.
For Mothobi Seseli and Masodi Xaba, both former South African national junior champions and current members of the AASTC board, the center’s impact extends beyond tennis.
They believe its fundamental purpose is to instill a work ethic that encompasses various life skills and self-belief.
“We’re building young leaders,” Ms. Xaba, a successful businesswoman, told the BBC.
Mr. Seseli, an entrepreneur raised in Soweto, agrees that this aligns with Ashe’s vision: “When I think about what his legacy is, it is believing that we can, at the smallest of scales, move the dial in very big ways.”
Ashe initially favored challenging apartheid through dialogue and participation, believing that his visibility and success in the country could undermine the regime’s foundations.
However, his experiences in South Africa, coupled with international pressure from the anti-apartheid movement, convinced him that isolation, rather than engagement, would be the most effective path to change.
He became a powerful advocate for an international sporting boycott of South Africa, addressing the United Nations and the US Congress.
In 1983, at a joint press conference organized by the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and the UN, Ashe discussed the goals of Artists and Athletes Against Apartheid, which he had co-founded with American singer Harry Belafonte.
The organization lobbied for sanctions against the South African government and, at its peak, had over 500 members.
Ashe participated in numerous protests and rallies. His arrest outside the South African embassy in Washington DC in 1985 drew further international attention to the cause and amplified global condemnation of the South African regime.
He was the captain of the US Davis Cup team at the time, and he always believed that the arrest cost him his position.
Ashe used his platform to address social injustice wherever he encountered it, not only in Africa and South Africa, but also in the US and Haiti.
He was also an educator on various issues, particularly HIV/AIDS, which he contracted from a blood transfusion during heart surgery in the early 1980s.
However, he felt a particular connection to South Africa’s Black population living under a repressive regime.
He explained that he identified with them due to his upbringing in racially segregated Richmond, Virginia.
Unsurprisingly, Ashe was one of the key figures that South African anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela was eager to meet during a trip to New York, inviting him to a historic town hall gathering in 1990 shortly after his release from 27 years in prison.
The two met on several occasions. However, Ashe did not live to see Mandela become president of South Africa following the 1994 election, which ushered in democratic rule and the end of apartheid.
Like Ashe, Mandela used sport to advocate for change, helping to unify South Africa, particularly during the 1995 Rugby World Cup when he famously wore the Springbok jersey, once a symbol of apartheid.
To commemorate the anniversary of Ashe’s victory, the Wimbledon Championships feature an installation in the International Tennis Centre tunnel and a new museum display dedicated to him. They are also hosting a trailblazer workshop to honor his achievement.
His Wimbledon title was the third of his Grand Slam victories, following his wins at the US and Australian Opens.
However, for many, including Mathabane, who became the first Black South African to earn a tennis scholarship to a US university in 1978, Arthur Ashe’s legacy lies in his activism, not just his tennis.
“He was literally helping to liberate my mind from those mental chains of self-doubt, of believing the big lie about your inferiority and the fact that you’re doomed to repeat the work of your parents as a drudge,” he said.
“So that was the magic – because he was showing me possibilities.”
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