Ceremony Draws Protest

A dozen protesters carried Confederate battle flags as ground was broken for a statue of Arthur Ashe on a boulevard dedicated to icons of the Old South.

The protesters, some in gray, wool Confederate uniforms, were a small part of a crowd of 600 that gathered on Monument Avenue.

Ashe was a Richmond native and, as a child, was not allowed to use the city’s whites-only tennis courts. He went on to become the first black man to win Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. He died in 1993 of AIDS.

“Some say that he doesn’t deserve to be here,” said former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, the nation’s first elected black governor. “Some say he deserves better. But that Rubicon has been crossed. Arthur Ashe will be forever enshrined in the pantheon.”