[For this
year’s installment of my annual VirginiaStudying
series, I wanted to highlight a handful of the many famous Americans who
have been born in the state. Add your Virginia highlights—people, places, or
otherwise—for a crowd-sourced weekend post for (Virginia) lovers!]
On three ways
Virginia’s and the nation’s African American community contributed to the
development of one of our greatest athletes.
1)
Brookfield: After Ashe’s mother Mattie died of
pre-eclampsia when he was just seven, he and his younger
brother Johnnie were raised by their father Arthur Ashe Sr., a handyman and
caretaker for Richmond’s
Brookfield Park. Brookfield was the city’s largest African American park
and playground, and featured four tennis courts where young Arthur started to
demonstrate his natural talents. There Ron Charity, a
student at the city’s historically black Virginia Union University and a
Brookfield tennis instructor (and a future national
champion himself), began to work with Arthur and helped him take his first
steps into local tournaments. Racial segregation was a regional and national
curse with legacies that echo into our own moment; but as so often, African
Americans like Ashe and his family refused to allow such bigoted policies to
stop them from following the arcs of their lives and identities.
2)
Whirlwind Johnson: Charity didn’t just begin
coaching the young Arthur; he also brought him to the attention of Robert
Walter “Whirlwind” Johnson, the pioneering African American physician who
was also Althea
Gibson’s coach and the founder of the American Tennis Association’s Junior Development Program. Johnson
ran a tennis summer camp at his home in Lynchburg, Virginia, where he invited rising
junior stars (of all races, but with a particular emphasis on young African
American players) to hone their skills. While Arthur had to attend the
all-black Maggie Walker High School in Richmond, Johnson helped connect to a
larger tennis community, as in 1958 when a 15 year old Arthur
became the first African American to play in the Maryland boys’ championships. It
was Arthur’s first integrated tournament, and an indication of the personal and
professional steps (as well as pioneering national progress) he was able to
achieve with the help of Johnson.
3)
Richard Hudlin: Yet even for a player of Arthur’s
unquestionable talent, many Virginia doors remained closed to a young African American
in the late 1950s; he couldn’t use the city’s indoor courts, and wasn’t allowed
to compete against white players in the city. So in 1960, Johnson connected
Arthur to another tennis
pioneer, Richard Hudlin. Hudlin had captained the University of Chicago’s
tennis team in 1928 (despite being the only African American on the team
throughout his time there), and had subsequently achieved one of the nation’s
first athletic civil rights victories, winning a 1945
lawsuit against the St. Louis Muny Tennis Association that opened up that
city’s public facilities and tournaments to all players. Arthur moved to St.
Louis, attended Sumner High School for his senior year, and with Hudlin and
Johnson’s help became the first African American player to compete in the
national Interscholastic Tournament, helping Sumner win the title. The rest is
history, but a history that, like these Virginia and African American
origin points, should be far better known than it is.
Next Virginian
tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other Virginians or Virginia connections you’d highlight?
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