Out of the Shadows: A Biographical History of African American Athletes

16. “The Quiet Militant”: Arthur Ashe and Black Athletic Activism

16 “The Quiet Militant” Arthur Ashe and Black Athletic Activism D A M I O N T H O M A S Arthur Ashe, the first African American male to win the U.S. Open, the Wimbledon Open, the Australian Open, and the NCAA’s men’s tennis singles championship enjoyed an outstanding tennis career. Nonetheless, his three grand-slam tournament victories do not warrant Ashe being mentioned alongside the all-time tennis greats, including such players as Jimmy Connors, Pete Sampras, and Bill Tilden. Ashe was certainly not the best tennis player of all-time; in fact, he was not even the best tennis player of his generation. His influence and social relevance, however, transcends and outdistances his accomplishments on the court. His work as a social activist and staunch defense of traditional tennis etiquette has garnered him a place in the American pantheon of heroes that is reserved for only the most important historical figures.1 Throughout his career, Ashe maintained that he did not want his tennis victories to be his “culminating moment.” This work illustrates how Ashe’s tennis success gave him a social platform that he and others attempted to define. The seemingly contradictory description of Ashe as a “quiet militant” encapsulates the difficult position that Ashe encountered as reactionaries and radicals demanded that he serve as an exemplar and advocate of their values. Ashe came to prominence as the civil rights movement was increasingly challenged by a more rhetorically aggressive black power movement. Ashe, who thought of himself as “intensely independent,” often struggled with the competing demands that were made of him by the elitist tennis establishment , the conservative civil rights movement, and the abrasive black power movement. Tennis and golf were the preferred sports at country clubs in the United States during the late nineteenth century. Invented in England in 3WIGGINS_pages_263-372.qxd 9/12/06 12:03 PM Page 279 Arthur Ashe holding up his trophy after capturing the 1975 title at Wimbledon. (Getty Images) 3WIGGINS_pages_263-372.qxd 9/12/06 12:03 PM Page 280 1873, lawn tennis reached the United States the following year. Tennis’s incubation in the elitist country-club setting illustrates the class divisions sports helped maintain in industrial America. The exclusive nature of tennis as a sport for the white, upper-class gentry helped reinforce Victorian notions of manhood based upon honor, respectability, civilization, sportsmanship , and emotional control. With tennis came the ability to maintain a balance between competition and social courtesy, and it became a symbol of the conduct and decorum that encapsulated Victorian values. Consequently, as the nineteenth century progressed, tennis increasingly became a means to provide moral and gentlemanly training.2 In Manliness & Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880–1917, Gail Bederman argues that Victorian codes of manliness in the middle and late nineteenth century were based upon elite men’s ability to control “powerful masculine passions through strong character and a powerful will.” By basing Anglo-American manliness on notions of self-restraint, strong character, and honorable highmindedness , white Americans argued that they were the “apex of civilization, the greatest achievement of human evolution, progress, and history.” The idea that white men were able to display self-restraint by controlling their impulses served as rationale for their supposed responsibility and duty to protect, guide, and control those social groups deemed weaker than white men by Social Darwinist philosophers: women, children, and other races. Therefore, Victorian notions of manhood were designed to justify institutions of privilege and structural inequality.3 Emotional control and deference were the two principle virtues that governed Victorian notions of manhood. As Linda Young has argued, “Discipline of the emotions through concealment of feelings was integral to gentility.” Men who were able to present themselves as calm and emotionally consistent were deemed to be the products of “good breeding ,” which suggested that one was trustworthy and reliable. As the Illustrated Manners Book, written to a male audience in 1855, suggested, “Command yourself, the man who is liable to fits passion; who cannot control his temper, but is subject to ungovernable excitements of any kind, is always a danger. The first element of a gentlemanly dignity is self-control.” Emotional restraint meant that both excessive negative and positive emotional displays of anger and joy were unacceptable.4 ARTHUR ASHE 281 3WIGGINS_pages_263-372.qxd 9/12/06 12:03 PM Page 281...