by Arthur Ashe
Coincidentally, Camera, I am writing this letter to you on the same day as the inauguration in Washington, D.C.— January 20, 1993—just a few hours after William Jefferson Clinton became the new president of the United States of America. I have been watching much of the pomp and pageantry on the television in my study. I especially loved listening to Maya Angelou, tall and dignified and with a rich, melodious voice, read the poem that our new president asked her to write especially for this occasion.
Tears came to my eyes as I watched her conjure up symbols and allusions generations old in the African American world as she sought to describe the nature of life and to challenge humanity to do better. She spoke of “a rock, a river, a tree” as sites in and of the earth that over time have witnessed the sweep of recorded and unrecorded history. For me, the river and the tree hold special significance as symbols because they are so much a part of African American folklore and history, our religion and culture in the South, where I was born and grew up, and where so many other black folk have lived in slavery and freedom.
When I was a boy not much older than you, one of the most haunting spirituals I heard on many a Sunday morning in church spoke movingly of a “rest beyond the river.” These words and music meant that no matter how harsh and unrelenting life on earth may have been for us as slaves or in what passed for our freedom, once we have crossed the river—that is, death—we will find on the other side God’s promise of eternal peace. The river is death and yet it is also life. Rivers flow forever and are ever-changing. At no two moments in time is a river the same. The water in the river is always changing. Life is like that, Maya Angelou wisely reminded us today at the inauguration.
What is sure to be different for you will be the quickening pace of change as you grow older. Believe me, most people resist change, even when it promises to be for the better. But change will come, and if you acknowledge this simple but indisputable fact of life, and understand that you must adjust to all change, then you will have a head start. I want you to use that advantage, to become a leader among people, and never to lag behind and follow the selfish wishes and snares of others.
On the other hand, Camera, certain things do not change. They are immutable. Maya Angelou’s tree stands for family, both immediate and extended. She had in mind, I imagine, some towering, leafy oak, with massive and deep roots that allow the tree to bend in the fiercest wind and yet survive. The keys to the survival of this big tree are the strength and die depth of these roots, and especially of the taproot far down in the earth, sprung from the original seedling that long ago gave life to the tree. When you see a magnificent tree anywhere, you know it has had to fight and sway and bend in order to survive. Families that survive are like that tree. Even larger groups of people, such as those of an ethnic group, are also like that.
You must be like that, too, Camera, although your fighting must always be for morally justifiable ends. You are part of a tree. On Grandpa’s—my father’s—side of our family, we proudly display our family tree carefully painted by Grandpa’s cousin Thelma, who lives in Maryland. On that side, we are descendants of the Blackwell clan. Your name, Camera Elizabeth Ashe, is one of the freshest leaves on this old tree. You are the daughter of a tenth-generation African American. You must never forget your place on that tree.
Mommy is a third-generation American. Like nearly all African Americans, Mommy is of mixed background. Her father’s father was born in Saint François, Guadeloupe, of East Indian heritage. He came to America through Louisiana, where he married a black American woman who was herself born in St. James Parish. She was the daughter of a man born a slave in 1840. Then Mommy’s grandparents moved to Chicago at the same time many other blacks in the South did, as part of what we now call “the Great Migration” that changed the North forever. They had children. One was Mommy’s father, John Warren Moutoussamy (“Boompa” to you, as you are “Miss Camera” to him). He is an architect, so you can see where Mommy gets her talents as an artist. Everyone asks her about her last name, Moutoussamy, which puzzles them. It is only an English version of the Indian name “Moutou-swami.”
Mommy’s mother, your grandmother, Elizabeth Hunt Moutoussamy (some people call her “Squeakie”), was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas. We gave you your middle name, Elizabeth, in her honor. Each of her parents was an only child. Her maternal grandfather was a Cherokee Indian whose ancestors were driven out of Virginia and North Carolina by white men pursuing an idea they called “Manifest Destiny,” which meant in effect their right to take whatever land they wanted from anyone who had it. Mommy’s grandmother is still with us. On March 17, 1993, she will be one hundred years old. Can you imagine living for one hundred years, and having your mind and memory still work very well? She has outlived three husbands and all but two of her eleven children. She is a living symbol to all of us of the strength of families in the face of unrelenting racial discrimination, as well as the other hardships of life.
As of now, you surely do not know exactly what I mean when I tell you about racial discrimination. If I could present you with one gift, it would be a life free of that burden. I can’t, and you must learn to deal with it and remain happy and good. In the past, racial discrimination was especially hard for any black man who aspired to the same heights as any other man in his place. Grandpa, my father, suffered in this way. Like so many Negro men in the South just after World War I, he grew up in a large family but one troubled by poverty and division. He grew up in a place called South Hill, Virginia, on U.S. Route 1. His father, Edward “Pink” Ashe (nicknamed because of his complexion), was born in Lincolnton, North Carolina, in 1873. His mother, Amelia “Ma” Johnson Ashe Taylor, grew up on a farm in Kenbridge, Virginia, not far from South Hill.
Unfortunately, Pink Ashe left his wife and children in the 1920s, when my daddy was not much older than you are now. Sometimes marriages end that way, when one person or another decides that he or she has to leave. But Ma never forgot Pink, who died in 1949, when I was six years old. In fact, when your mother and I visited her a few months before she died in 1977, she still insisted that Pink had been “the great love of my life.” Her favorite song was “This Little Light of Mine,” which she played for us on her record player as we visited with her. She gently swayed to the music, moved no doubt by her memories of the generations gone by.
I myself loved her very much. As a boy, I spent many summer days visiting her in her big house on the farm in Kenbridge. That’s where I first saw a mule; it frightened me. I remember that if I was a good boy, she would give me tall glasses of cool lemonade in the afternoons. She looked forward to our visits. When it was time for Daddy and my brother, Johnnie, and me to go back to Richmond, she would often burst into tears. We would hear her sobbing as we drove off in Daddy’s car. Love is strange and powerful, the most wonderful force in the world; and family love may be the most wonderful of all.
My mother’s side of the family was a little more fortunate than my father’s. Her parents, Johnnie and Jimmie Cunningham (we called her “Big Mama,” but her real name was Jimmie), came to Richmond from Oglethorpe, Georgia, and settled in Westwood, a small enclave of blacks on the western fringe of the city. Johnnie died in 1932, leaving Big Mama ten children to bring up by herself. With dignity, faith, and discipline, she did the best she could. In 1938, their daughter Mattie (nicknamed “Baby”) and my father, Arthur Ashe, were married in Big Mama’s living room, and they even lived for a time with her.
I will never forget Big Mama. A deaconess at Westwood Baptist Church, she proudly wore her starched and immaculately white uniform with white shoes and a lacy handkerchief in her left breast pocket. I also remember the daily dollops she took of her beloved snuff, a kind of powdered tobacco, which she slipped under her bottom lip, and the empty Maxwell House Coffee can she kept close by to use as a spittoon. We all loved her. At her funeral in 1972, Uncle Rudi called out, “Goodbye, Mama,” as her casket went by up the aisle. Then something in me simply burst open and I cried uncontr
ollably, as I had never cried before or have cried since. Her grave is only about a hundred yards from my mother’s grave at Woodlawn Cemetery in Richmond. You must visit it some day.
I saw my father lose his own father and his wife—my mother—in less than one year. Those were terrible blows, and ever since then, family has meant more to me than you can imagine. When I think of the many horrors of slavery, the destruction of the family strikes me as probably the worst. We are still facing the consequences of that destruction. What excitement there must have been in 1863 when word arrived that President Lincoln had freed the slaves. Historians tell us that thousands of black men then took off on journeys to find members of their family who had been traded away or sold like cattle. Can you imagine the depths of joy or of sorrow when these searches proved fruitful or fruitless? Suppose you and Mommy had been taken from me, and I had tried to find you for ten years, only to discover in the end that you had died of typhoid fever and Mommy had simply disappeared.
Stories like this were true of many people. Maybe now you better understand why Grandmother Elizabeth and Granny Lorene send so many cards and presents to you. Or why Uncle Johnnie volunteered for a second tour of duty in the war in Vietnam, where many people died or were seriously wounded. He went again to Vietnam not simply because he was a brave and dedicated Marine but also so that I, his brother, would not have to go there as a soldier.
In all likelihood, you too will one day have your own family, which will enrich your life and bring you so much pleasure in knowing that the tree is still alive, still growing. Marriage will probably be the second most important decision of your life. The most important, I think, will be your decision about having a child. Today, about half of all marriages end in divorce, which is a sad and frightening thought. This means that you must choose a husband carefully, Camera. Two parents are usually better for a child. If you had children out of wedlock, as an increasing number of women have chosen to do, I would not be pleased, although I would still love you.
I only wish that you could be as fortunate in your choice of a spouse as your mother and I were when we chose each other. No marriage is without problems, as two individuals learn to adapt their ways for the sake of harmony. But your mother and I loved one another passionately; and we were never more in love than when you came into our lives to enrich and complete our sense of family.
Nowadays, people break up marriages over the slightest of differences, which is a pity. On the night before your mother and I were married; Jean Young, the wife of Andrew Young, the minister at our wedding, gave us some good advice. The most important ingredient in a marriage, she said, was forgiveness: the willingness of each partner to forgive the other. Forgiving takes courage, but it is the key. Now, every time I see Jean, I say, as we part, “Let’s hear it for forgiveness!” No marriage or truly important human relationship can survive, let alone flourish, without both partners willing to forgive.
A marriage needs some basic principles upon which it can grow and blossom. When I was a boy, my father was the head of the household, without question. The man of the house made the major decisions; his wife was, as the Bible tells us, his “helpmate.” Some wise, brave women in the 1960s and 1970s challenged this attitude, and now many people are confused, and others are experimenting with new roles. Mommy and I agree that my primary role is to protect and provide for the three of us. Her primary role is to see to our welfare, including her own. When you are a little older, and she has more free time, she will become even more involved in her profession of photography. You and your husband, if you choose to marry, must agree on the right formula for both of you.
My advice is not new. Our family elders have tried to pass on to my generation their collective wisdom and values. I am always aware of them. To my embarrassment, Cousin Thelma painted my name on the family tree in gold, the only leaf so colored. That gold paint reminds me always that I must not bring dishonor to the family, as if one diseased leaf might kill the whole tree. We are being watched by our ancestors, as I am watching you. We possess more than they ever dreamed of having, so we must never let them down.
Camera, because of the color of your skin and the fact that you are a girl, not a boy, your credibility and competence will constantly be questioned no matter how educated or wealthy you are. At the same time, your brown skin may bring you a few advantages. You should be wary of them. When the Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall was asked if he should be replaced on retirement from the Court by another African American, he replied emphatically: “No, it should go to the best qualified person the president can find!” That is as it should be.
But many people in the world are not color-blind. I sometimes feel angry and disappointed when, because of stereotypes about the competence of people of color, some worthy man or woman is passed over for a position, just as I am frustrated when an unworthy person cries out about racism the moment he or she is denied a position or a prize. Unlike you, I grew up under the laws of segregation. My classmates and I were reminded every day that we had to resist the worst temptation facing us: despair. If racism was so pervasive, why should we try to do our best at anything? Why study hard? I tell you, Camera, racism and sexism must never be an excuse for not doing your best. Racism and sexism will probably always exist, but you must always try to rise above them.
You must also learn to feel comfortable in any company, as long as those people are good people. Traveling the world as a tennis player, I discovered that deep friendships with an infinite variety of people are not only possible but can definitely enrich one’s life beyond measure. Do not hem yourself in, or allow others to do so. I am still dismayed when I go to some college campuses and find out that in the cafeteria, for example, black students, by choice, sit separately at a table with only other black students. Whether from force of habit, thoughtlessness, or timidity, this practice is usually a waste of time—time that should be used by these students to get to know people of other cultures and backgrounds. This mixing is an essential part of education, not something extraneous to it. I hope you will summon the courage to forge friendships with as many different people as you can. Some African Americans may tease or even scorn you, and some other people may rebuff you, but I want you to persevere anyway.
You must do more. Mommy and I will insist that you try to learn at least two other languages besides English. Spanish must be one, and another may be of your own choosing. Although my French is passable, I never mastered a second language, and I have always regretted that failure. Fluency in a language makes possible a depth of communication for which there is no substitute. Do not succumb to our American fear and ignorance of languages other than English; in Europe, the children learn foreign languages easily. And you may yet see, sometime soon, an American president who will speak English with an accent, even though she, or he, was born here.
The United States of America is your country, Camera. Some people will tell you it is theirs alone, not yours to share. Don’t believe them. I remember the presidential election of 1960 when the Protestant denominations feared that if John F. Kennedy, a Catholic, won, he would force his religion on everyone else (which, by the way, is precisely what the Protestants have tried to do since the founding of the republic!). Certain Americans believe that they have an almost divine or historical right to determine our nation’s future. As the free-thinking adult I hope you will become, you must not back off from this debate. When the right-wing demagogue Patrick Buchanan stood up at the 1992 Republican National Convention and implored those assembled to “take back our country” from people who look like you and me, I became more determined than ever that he should not succeed. And he will not. America is not his country. His vote is not more worthy than mine, or yours when you come to vote. You must resist any group that believes it has a proprietary right to guide the ship of state.
In addition, black demagogues, spawned by the poor conditions under which many African Americans are still forced to live, will try to advance their own narrow p
olitical careers by fomenting artificially deeper and deeper schisms among ethnic minorities of goodwill. You will hear of conspiracies against black people and the term “genocide” loosely used. As much as you can, Camera, see people as humans and as individuals first who have been socialized into their cultural claims. As a young boy, I was well aware that whites judged me not as an individual but according to what they believed about blacks in general. You must not do the same to others.
Despite racism, Camera, because of the money I have made through tennis you will have many more material advantages than almost all of the other children in the entire world. Growing up, I never had much money, although we were not poor. My father taught me to be prudent and temperate with money. Use money; do not let money use you. Spend wisely. Your income and wealth should provide for these basics: a comfortable home, the best education that you can afford, health insurance for your family, charitable donations to those in need, and a sum of money saved and never touched except for emergencies. However much you have or make, beware of living beyond your means.
Pay attention to your health, Camera, and do not take it for granted. Mommy exercises every day for an hour after you go to school and I encourage her to do so. Whatever else you learn in school, I would like you to master at least two “life sports,” those you can play long after you are out of school. Sports are wonderful; they can bring you comfort and pleasure for the rest of your life. Sports can teach you so much about yourself, your emotions and character, how to be resolute in moments of crisis and how to fight back from the brink of defeat. In this respect, the lessons of sports cannot be duplicated easily; you quickly discover your limits but you can also build self-confidence and a positive sense of yourself. Never think of yourself as being above sports.
