The pioneering tennis champion who told the world he had Aids

World AIDS Day began in 1988 to raise awareness and understanding of the disease that terrorizes communities around the world. That same year, American tennis legend Arthur Ashe learned of his diagnosis. History examines the dilemma faced by Asch, who, after years of secrecy, once again became a groundbreaking campaigner.

In April 1992, Arthur Ashe appeared in a packed conference room with media rolling cameras. This time, he was not asked about his role as the first black tennis player to be selected to the U.S. Davis Cup team or about his pioneering Davis Cup victory. wimbledonUS Open or Australian Open. He cemented his name in history as the first black man to win a major men’s singles championship, but retired from the sport 12 years ago at the age of 36 after suffering a heart attack and undergoing multiple surgeries.

His intelligence, calmness, and sportsmanship made him a popular figure on and off the court. But at a time when the world was still filled with fear of an incurable epidemic, the press heard rumors about his health. Doug Smith, a sports journalist for USA Today and a childhood friend, confronted Ashe about the tip he had received. The next day, Ash, wanting to control his own story and defeat the press, reluctantly reveals to the world the secret he and his inner circle have been keeping since 1988. It was that he had AIDS.

He believed he contracted the disease through a contaminated blood transfusion during a surgery in 1983, two years before blood donations were tested for the HIV virus in the United States. This tragic news shocked the nation and quickly sparked a debate over personal privacy and the ethics of invasive reporting. At the press conference, Ash read out a statement. “I’m angry that I’ve been put in the unenviable position of having to lie if I want to protect my privacy.” He added: “There was certainly no compelling medical or physical need to disclose my medical condition.” “Of the more than 700 letters USA Today received regarding privacy rights issues, about 95 percent vehemently disagreed with the paper’s position,” Asch wrote in his memoir Days of Grace. .

Some AIDS activists criticized Mr. Ashe’s desire for secrecy about his health, as they wanted public figures to expand the discussion beyond the focus on the LGBT+ community. Some thought he might have been the perfect voice to raise awareness, especially among straight men and minority groups. One letter even went so far as to say that NBA player Magic Johnson, who revealed his HIV diagnosis just five months ago, may have been saved. If only Ash had spoken up sooner.

When asked at a press conference why he didn’t go public in 1988, Ashe said: “The answer is simple: admitting my HIV status at the time would seriously, permanently, and, my wife and I believed, unnecessarily infringe on my HIV status.” Our family’s right to privacy. . ” When the topic turned to telling his 5-year-old daughter, Camera, about the disease, Ash held back his emotions and let his wife, Jeanne, read for him.

USA Today sports editor Gene Polisinski had no doubts in his decision to proceed with this story. He told the BBC’s Tom Brook: “He is one of the great athletes of the 20th century. His name will soon be known all over the world. He has a disease that will be fatal. By any definition, I’ve encountered it in my 25 years.” In the newspaper industry, that’s news. ”When asked if he felt guilty, he replied: “No, I didn’t feel it. That would somehow imply that I feel like I made the wrong decision. And I don’t feel it.”

Three months after revealing to the world that he had AIDS, Ash was in London to commentate on Wimbledon for HBO. During the trip, he was interviewed by actor Lynn Redgrave on the BBC program Fighting Back. “I always wanted to go public someday, when I was reasonably healthy, to give myself time to support global causes. But my health was so good that I didn’t bother. I wanted to keep doing what I was doing,” he said. With this… I know that just the prospect of going public is going to have to go through some fear and some inconvenience. ”

Eventually, the privacy issue became so big that Asch questioned the status quo, as he had done many times before. in national press clubhe challenged journalists to examine their sensibilities. ask“What are the parameters of personal privacy? What are they? Who sets them? And by whose authority are they issued? What is sacred and inalienable to me, or to any other American? what?”

This was far from the first public position Ash had taken on a broader social issue. Although his athletic talents helped break down barriers for black athletes on the court, he spent much of his time off the court campaigning for change. Born in Richmond, Virginia in 1943, he retreated into the world of sports and books after losing his mother when he was just six years old. “Control is very important to me,” he told Redgrave. “Growing up black in the American South in the late 1940s and 1950s, you have no control. White racist laws dictated which schools you could go to, which buses you could ride,” he said. It dictates which buses you can take, which taxis you can take.” What you can say is forbidden to your life. ”

However, despite calls to use his public position to further the civil rights movement, Ashe was initially a passive activist, preferring to focus on tennis. This led some to accuse him of being an “Uncle Tom,” someone who was complicit in racial oppression. But after years of being controlled by a racist system, Ashe didn’t feel liberated by civil rights in the 1960s. He told the BBC that there were “black ideologues trying to tell me what to do”, adding: “I always say to myself, ‘Hey, when are you going to do what you want? “Can you decide?” he added. So I’ve always been, in a sense, fiercely protective of everyone, that I want to control what I want to do and my life as I see fit. ”

When asked about fellow tennis star John McEnroe’s public abuse, Ashe commented: “McEnroe had the emotional freedom to be a bad boy. I never had that emotional freedom. If I were like that, I’m sure, tennis world The world would have kicked me out of it because of my race.”

Ultimately, Ash needed to do things his way, and he ended up using his position as a world-class athlete to continue campaigning for several causes. At the height of his career, he faced off against South Africa’s long-standing apartheid regime and traveled to the South African Championships in 1973 under an agreement to unify the competitions. Avoiding world media attention, he continued to fund a tennis center for black South Africans in Soweto.

Ashe similarly felt a passion for inclusive tennis participation close to home. As co-founder of the National Junior Tennis League in 1969, his goal was to make tennis accessible to children of all backgrounds, not just those with country club memberships. And though he was initially hesitant to participate, Ashe eventually became one of the most powerful voices in America’s struggle for justice and equality. in the documentary citizen asha leader and key figure in the civil rights movement. 1968 Mexico Olympics Black Power ProtestsDr. Harry Edwards said of the tennis star, “If you take away the gentleness, the gentleness, the intelligence, the calmness, what he says will be more combative than what I say.”

Ash joined the board of directors of the American Heart Association after suffering multiple heart attacks. And after he revealed his AIDS diagnosis, it was no surprise that a new campaign was launched. In addition to appearing in the media to debunk myths about the disease, he founded the Arthur Ashe Foundation to End AIDS. above world aids day In December 1992, he addressed the World Health Organization.

Ash died of AIDS-related pneumonia in February 1993, two years before a new class of antiretroviral drugs became available that could help people infected with the virus live longer, healthier lives. He told Redgrave in 1992: “I’m not afraid of dying. There’s always hope. And I have to live my life as if there is, or will be, hope. Hope is a selfish hope. No. For me, the hope is that there probably won’t be a cure for AIDS in time for me, but it definitely will for others.”

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