In LOVE with Humanity

Hero #010: Arthur Ashe
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 to be an especially momentous year 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. As a consequence, his condition drew attention to the hereditary aspect
of heart disease. He thereafter underwent a quadruple bypass operation and was on the verge
of making his return to professional tennis 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; and yet what we give is what makes
a life ... True heroism is remarkably sober
and 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 simply 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 as well as to those who would
be our enemy.‖ ~ Arthur Ashe
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