“There were times when I asked myself whether I was being principled or simply a coward.... I was wrapped in the cocoon of tennis early in life, mainly by blacks like my most powerful mentor, Dr. Robert Walter Johnson of Lynchburg, Virginia. They insisted that I be unfailingly polite on the court, unfalteringly calm and detached, so that whites could never accuse me of meanness. I learned well. I look at photographs of the skinny, frail, little black boy that I was in the early 1950s, and I see that I was my tennis racquet and my tennis racquet was me. It was my rod and my staff.” WellsLooksLittlesBlackPowerfulBoysCourtPhotographCalmTennisMost PowerfulCowardMentorStaffDrsPoliteSkinnyJohnsonVirginiaDetachedMeannessFrailCocoonsPrincipledBlack Boy Author:Arthur Ashe
“We cherish the conventional story of Dr. King and nonviolence, in fact, precisely because that narrative demands so little of us…This conventional narrative is soothing, moving, and politically acceptable, and has only the disadvantage of bearing no resemblance to what actually happened.” LittlesFactsStoriesMovingHappenedKingsDemandNarrativeCherishAcceptableNonviolenceConventionalDrsDisadvantagesSoothingResemblance Author:Timothy B. Tyson