Eighty years after his birth, we remember the first African American (among men) to win a slam and to be called up by the US national team to Davis Cup. The battles for civil rights and HIV contracted with a transfusion
Under the umbrella of black curls she sheltered her skinny physique, almost threadlike in comparison with her disproportionate hair. His face with delicate features and cheeks as they say “hollowed out” would have kept it until the end, as well as the gaze open to the world through two dark pupils; far beyond what his world was to become. If when an athlete has accomplished his sporting parabola his sport has become better in the meantime than it was when the athlete himself made his debut, in that case we can truly define him as a champion. So it is legitimate to say that Arthur Ashe was the Muhammad Ali of tennis: a juxtaposition that would fill both of them with pride, with their audiences so different, with the different depths of their sounding boards but in the end with the same human and civil legacy etched much deeper than what their victories and records have left in the almanacs.