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Arthur Ashe
Tennis champion & civil rights advocate
He broke tennis's color barrier with grace under pressure — then used his fame to fight apartheid and AIDS stigma.
The rise
Barred from public courts in segregated Richmond, Virginia, Ashe learned tennis on a playground under the mentorship of Dr. Robert Walter Johnson. He became the first Black man to win the US Open (1968), the Australian Open (1970), and Wimbledon (1975).