A new mural honoring black tennis champion and humanitarian Arthur Ashe has gone up in Richmond, his hometown.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports the mural painted in a pedestrian tunnel at a formerly segregated park was unveiled Wednesday evening, two days after what would have been Ashe’s 74th birthday. More than 200 people attended the unveiling and events that included free tennis lessons for children.
The fundraising and creation of the mural was more than a year in the making.
Ashe was not allowed to use Richmond’s whites-only tennis courts as a child. He left in disgust as a teenager and went on to become the first black man to win Wimbledon and the U.S. Open.
He died in 1993 from AIDS-related pneumonia attributed to a blood transfusion.
