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1968 Martin Luther King Letter to Ashe, Winnie Mandela Inscribed Newsweek & Ashe D.C. Arrest Citation
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Description
While Arthur Ashe may be best known for his accomplishments on the court, through his life and actions he worked diligently to affect understanding and social change between the races. His most difficult balancing act was trying to retain the faith of the black race while he tried to work within the white system. As a Virginia youth struggling against whites who refused him to compete in tennis tournaments, one of his role models was Martin Luther King, Jr. for his belief to seak change by peaceful means.
Ashe writes in his book, Days Of Grace that, "I revered Martin Luther King, Jr., because, on the question of race, no African American commanded that ground as splendidly as he did, with surpassing eloquence...and consistency of argument."
In early 1968, Ashe recounts that he was asked by Reverend Jefferson Rogers "to speak at the Church of the Redeemer in Washington, DC. on the role of the black athlete in the wrenching changes taking place in American society....Reverend Rogers, an intelligent, influential black man deeply concerned with trying to merge religious conviction with the imperatives of race consciousness and progressive politics."
Ostensibly in response to Ashe's decision to speak, King wrote this letter thanking Ashe, as he writes "for your expression of support and solidarity in the fight for justice, freedom and dignity for all people in this country."
King further mentions looking forward to meeting Ashe. Unfortunately, King was assassinated in Memphis just two months later. Upon returning from his own speech, Ashe was reprimanded by his superiors as West Point for speaking out and Ashe, in his book Ashe agreed that "Army officers must be above or outside politics, and if silence was that price for maintaining distance, then so be it."
However, when Ashe left the Army and went to the tennis circuit full time, he began to speak out more for civil rights. He petitioned the South African government, which relented in 1973 and granted a visa to allow Ashe to play a tournament in the segregated country. Ashe then traveled to South Africa numerous times. During one of his visits in October 1985, at the height of the apartheid battle, Winnie Mandela, wife of a then jailed Nelson Mandela, smuggled a copy of Newsweek featuring the troops in Soweto, to Ashe, with the notation on the cover, "We shall not forget the solidarity of friends like you and Yusef and yourselves. We shall overcome soon. Nongamo Winnie Mandela."
Most likely, Ms. Mandela was praising Ashe for his efforts just a few months earlier when Ashe himself was arrested in Washington DC. On January 11th, while protesting apartheid with sixteen other demonstrators in front of the South African Embassy. This arrest citation features Ashe's signature and thumbprint. Ashe wrote of the demonstration in his book "The core of my opposition to apartheid was undoubtedly my memory of growing up under segregation in Virginia. The Whites Only signs in Johannesburg shocked me back to the days when I could play tennis in Brook Field park with other blacks or with a visiting white player looking for a good game, but not in the many better-equipped public courts reserved for whites." LOA's: PSA/DNA and Jeanne Moutoussamy Ashe. 4 Items.
Ashe writes in his book, Days Of Grace that, "I revered Martin Luther King, Jr., because, on the question of race, no African American commanded that ground as splendidly as he did, with surpassing eloquence...and consistency of argument."
In early 1968, Ashe recounts that he was asked by Reverend Jefferson Rogers "to speak at the Church of the Redeemer in Washington, DC. on the role of the black athlete in the wrenching changes taking place in American society....Reverend Rogers, an intelligent, influential black man deeply concerned with trying to merge religious conviction with the imperatives of race consciousness and progressive politics."
Ostensibly in response to Ashe's decision to speak, King wrote this letter thanking Ashe, as he writes "for your expression of support and solidarity in the fight for justice, freedom and dignity for all people in this country."
King further mentions looking forward to meeting Ashe. Unfortunately, King was assassinated in Memphis just two months later. Upon returning from his own speech, Ashe was reprimanded by his superiors as West Point for speaking out and Ashe, in his book Ashe agreed that "Army officers must be above or outside politics, and if silence was that price for maintaining distance, then so be it."
However, when Ashe left the Army and went to the tennis circuit full time, he began to speak out more for civil rights. He petitioned the South African government, which relented in 1973 and granted a visa to allow Ashe to play a tournament in the segregated country. Ashe then traveled to South Africa numerous times. During one of his visits in October 1985, at the height of the apartheid battle, Winnie Mandela, wife of a then jailed Nelson Mandela, smuggled a copy of Newsweek featuring the troops in Soweto, to Ashe, with the notation on the cover, "We shall not forget the solidarity of friends like you and Yusef and yourselves. We shall overcome soon. Nongamo Winnie Mandela."
Most likely, Ms. Mandela was praising Ashe for his efforts just a few months earlier when Ashe himself was arrested in Washington DC. On January 11th, while protesting apartheid with sixteen other demonstrators in front of the South African Embassy. This arrest citation features Ashe's signature and thumbprint. Ashe wrote of the demonstration in his book "The core of my opposition to apartheid was undoubtedly my memory of growing up under segregation in Virginia. The Whites Only signs in Johannesburg shocked me back to the days when I could play tennis in Brook Field park with other blacks or with a visiting white player looking for a good game, but not in the many better-equipped public courts reserved for whites." LOA's: PSA/DNA and Jeanne Moutoussamy Ashe. 4 Items.