Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 16, 1995 TAG: 9507170090
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARGARET EDDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long
Now, in a city where the past is often prelude, plans to pay tribute to a modern-day hero - legendary humanitarian and tennis champion Arthur Ashe - are edging toward quagmire as well.
A 3-week-old decision to honor Ashe with a statue on Monument Avenue, a shaded promenade and tourist mecca occupied by statues of Lee and four other Confederate leaders, has evolved into an emotional debate on matters of art, history and race.
A groundbreaking ceremony scheduled for last Monday, on what would have been Ashe's 52nd birthday, was canceled. A public hearing that some fear will turn raucous or nasty has been scheduled for this Monday.
A city laboring to modernize its identity as ``the old city of the New South'' is wrestling with a central question: Should the placement of a statue of Ashe, who was black, be dictated by aesthetics or politics?
Those arguing for politics are split into three camps. One group suggests, often in subtle ways, that the Confederate heroes were too good to share ground with Ashe. A second group, rallied by the capital's dominant African-American newspaper, The Richmond Free Press, says Ashe was too good to share ground with the Confederates. And a third group argues that, by sharing space with each other, the statues will show the world a new Richmond.
Those siding with aesthetics say none of the above matters. What is important, they say, is to avoid foot-dragging while finding a resting place that is secure for the ages.
The result, Councilman Timothy M. Kaine said, is a collective soul-searching that ``gets at the heart of a lot of things by which this community defines itself - race, history, notions of progress, our relations to one another.''
If there is a sign of progress in the debate, he and others suggest, it is that the lines for and against Monument Avenue are not divided by race.
Superimposed on the struggle is the memory of Ashe, a quiet, contemplative man whose historic victory at Wimbledon 20 years ago last week is seen by many admirers as less significant than the dignity and moral suasion with which he bridged racial divides.
Ashe, who died in February 1993 from AIDS contacted after heart bypass surgery, was ``a real moral leader ... one of the exceptional people of our time,'' said Thomas Chewning, a Richmond businessman and longtime friend. Chewning is heading a $400,000 fund-raising project for the statue.
``What he stood for is what is best in all of us,'' Chewning said. Many Richmonders do not realize that Ashe ``belongs in the same paragraph'' with Gandhi and Martin Luther King, he said.
Chewning, who met Ashe in 1959 at a West Virginia tennis tournament, learned first-hand of the indignities suffered by blacks in segregated Richmond through his new friend. When the teen-agers returned home, Ashe - the superior player - was unable to join Chewning in playing on the city's premier courts. So with his parents' approval, Chewning traveled across town to continue the competition.
Ashe went on to become the world's top-ranked tennis player in 1968 and 1975. Never militant, he nonetheless became an influential activist, pushing for human rights in South Africa and Haiti. Sidelined by heart disease, he turned to writing, producing a three-volume history of America's black athletes, and to a variety of projects aimed at encouraging children.
It was at one such gathering, a speech at a neighborhood park in Richmond soon after the April 1992 announcement of Ashe's infection with AIDS, that sculptor Paul DiPasquale happened to hear Ashe speak.
``I took a load of kids over, and I couldn't believe my ears,'' DiPasquale said as he sat in a studio dominated by a 12-foot plaster casting of Ashe's figure. In the sculpture, Ashe is dressed in tennis sweats and his shoelaces are untied. His face is accented by a slight smile, and his left hand holds a tennis racket, while his right - lifted higher - is filled with books.
Sketches on a nearby wall show a finished statue that will stand twice as high. Atop a tall granite base, four children are gazing up at a bronze figure of Ashe.
``I didn't go there expecting anything,'' said DiPasquale of his only face-to-face encounter with Ashe. But as Ashe spoke about children, about society and about the world as community, ``I couldn't believe this guy was walking on the Earth.''
In today's climate, some of the controversy has stretched to the statue itself - whether the city should have commissioned a competition, whether the racket should be in Ashe's dominant right hand, whether the likeness or the attire are proper.
But in 1992, satisfying a larger audience was of less concern to DiPasquale than taking what essentially was a leap of faith.
Resolved to attempt a statue of Ashe that could stand in his hometown, the artist honed his vision, calculated costs and wrote a letter outlining his plan. ``It was this tremendous desire to acknowledge him,'' DiPasquale said.
A few days later, Ashe telephoned. In their single conversation, Ashe outlined his preferences: that the statue involve children, that he be casually dressed, that books be emphasized over tennis. Five days before DiPasquale hoped to meet with him in New York, Ashe died.
For the artist, two moments stand out in the months that followed. One was the arrival on the day of Ashe's funeral of a set of photographs that Ashe had promised. The second was the moment when Ashe's widow, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, in one of three visits to DiPasquale's studio, placed her hands on his rendering of Ashe's face and began to assess through touch the changes that were needed.
``It was as if sparks came off the piece,'' he said. ``She said, `The ears are perfect. The eye is softer here. The nose is broader here.'''
Other members of Ashe's family, including his stepmother, his brother and his aunt, also have advised on the work.
Since then, Virginia Heroes Inc. - a mentoring organization started by Ashe - has lent its corporate name and influence to the project, and the City Council promised to supply $100,000. A biracial, 11-member site-selection committee formed by Virginia Heroes began assessing sites, and the plaster casting was unveiled last winter.
Each of the official site-selection groups, including Virginia Heroes, the Planning Commission, and the city's Urban Design Committee, has pointed to Monument Avenue as the best location. Former Gov. Douglas Wilder, the nation's first elected black governor, was among the early ones to ballyhoo the idea.
For some, the attraction is practical. With its broad, grassy median, the street obviously is designed for statues. There are no barriers to immediate construction. The street probably will be well-maintained for centuries.
Others are interested in symbolism. By suggesting that Richmond has moved on from a racist past, ``it makes the right statement,'' said state Sen. Benjamin Lambert, D-Richmond, who sat on the Virginia Heroes site committee.
Not everyone agrees.
Some who disagree are interested in protecting the Confederate heroes.
The president of the Heritage Preservation Association, a national group that promotes display of flags and other Confederate memorabilia, issued a statement urging a site other than Monument Avenue's ``hallowed ground.'' The city should ``pay the proper tribute to a great athlete without violating the historic sensibilities of Richmond's Confederate-American population,'' said R. Lee Collins.
Others are interested in protecting Ashe. Both Mayor Leonidas Young and Ray Boone, editor of The Richmond Free Press, argue that Ashe deserves a site in which he will be the singular focus.
Boone proposes tearing down the abandoned downtown Miller & Rhoads and Thalhimers department store buildings to create a park honoring Ashe. Young says that such a park, or a more immediately available site such as a historic downtown armory, would work.
``He deserves better'' than Monument Avenue, Boone said. By placing Ashe there, ``you would be giving credence to the false proposition that these were heroes.''
Young's rhetoric is more conciliatory, but he also notes that ``Monument Avenue holds very harsh feelings for African-Americans.'' What should come out of the controversy, he said, is a resolve to place a monument dedicated to black soldiers on the street, but Ashe should be elsewhere.
A third group, bolstered by the conservative editorial pages of The Richmond Times-Dispatch, is advocating a site linked to Byrd Park, home of tennis courts to which Ashe was denied access. One idea is to place the statue at the end of a street stretching from the park to an athletic center named for Ashe.
But that idea also has a problem: a statue of Christoper Columbus might have to be moved to make room for Ashe.
Meanwhile, a bewildering array of charges and countercharges is clouding the debate. Did the Virginia Heroes site committee deliberately try to bypass the public? Are some of those who oppose Monument Avenue trying to use Ashe's luster to spiff up their own economic ventures? And so on.
Amidst the ruckus, many are trying to imagine what Ashe would have wanted. And some are feeling kinship with his struggles.
Among those is Marty G. Dummett, executive director of the Virginia Heroes' monument project. ``Maybe we have just a small glimpse of why he titled his book [about black athletes] `Hard Road To Glory,''' she said.
by CNB