Since this is the week of the US Open tennis tournament, our throwback Thursday features a great man and tennis player. Arthur Ashe’s dramatic victory at the first U.S. Open, fifty years ago, ushered in a new era for diversity in the game and for the bankability of its stars.
In the early 1980s, Ashe is believed to have contracted HIV from a blood transfusion he received during heart bypass surgery. Ashe publicly announced his illness in April 1992 and began working to educate others about HIV and AIDS. He founded the Arthur Ashe Foundation for the Defeat of AIDS and the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health before his death from AIDS-related pneumonia at age 49 on February 6, 1993.
On June 20, 1993, Ashe was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by the United States President Bill Clinton.
"From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life." - Arthur Ashe
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