Notebook on Black History Month 2012 (Part 2): Remembering Arthur Ashe
The word “iconic” is usually more than sufficient to describe exceptional contributors to African-American and world history but in the case of tennis great and philanthropist Arthur Ashe it barely seems to scratch the surface. The term fit his status as one of the great men of his time well enough that in 2005 the United States Postal Service issued a stamp in his honor.
The stamp bears the same image of Ashe that was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated Magazine in 1992 when he was named “Sportsman of the Year.” That singular tribute reveals something of the magnitude of his positive impact upon the world before his death––and even afterwards–– at the relatively young age of forty-nine. However, the man himself provided a deeper sense of who and what he was in the memoir Days of Grace.
For the full story with the review of Ashe’s Days of Grace please click the following link:
Notebook on Black History Month 2012 Part 2
by Aberjhani
The process of writing evolves one's consciousness and transforms the aspiring writer into an individual that he or she never fully imagined becoming. ”
—Gale Contemporary Authors
About *
A native of Savannah, Georgia (USA) Aberjhani is a winner of the Thomas Jefferson Award for his journalism, the Choice Academic Title and Best History Book Awards for his historical writings, the Creative Loafing Critic’s Pick Best Savannah Author Award for...
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I make contributions to a number of charities through my lenses on Squidoo but the following are a few that interest me the most:
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Arthur Ashe
Aberjhani,
Arthur Ashe is my hero. During my college years, I took a tennis class and used to watch him play on television. It was an exciting time. I was very disappointed when he became ill. He was graceful on court as well as on his activism effort. I just read his wikipedia site and learned that some people complained that he was cold. I'm smiling because at the time, I was new to the U.S., and I felt he was far more graceful than other athletes, and on and off I wondered about it. Where does it come from? I still don't have an answer to that, but now I know how some people perceive graceful people.
Thank you for your comments Keiko
I think some people saw Ashe as cold because he had to maintain a very rigid practice of self-discipline to accomplish the things he did. He also knew that as an African-American man, particularly during the very racially volatile period of his greatest accomplisments, he would be held to a higher set of standards regarding anything he did and for that reason rarely let his guard down. Combine all of that with the strictness of his upbringing and he was bound to come across as "cold" to some but my one favorite word for the man is: phenomenal.
Aberjhani