Arthur Ashe is remarkably candid about growing up in the segregated South. Denied entry to the same public schools, forced to play on poor quality courts, and blocked from playing in tournaments with white athletes, Ashe felt guilty that during the era of Civil Rights, “while blood was running freely in the streets of Birmingham, Memphis, and Biloxi, I had been playing tennis. Dressed in immaculate white, I was elegantly stroking tennis balls on perfectly paved courts in California and Europe” (Ashe 113). The author’s use of imagery here, personifying human blood, allows the reader to visualize the human cost raging around him while he was removed from the ongoing violence. Furthermore, Ashe describes himself as “dressed in immaculate white”, with “immaculate” having the connotation of “free from flaws or defects” and “white” referring both to his tennis clothes and the skin color of those in power (Merriam-Webster). The reader may conclude that for Mr. Ashe, due to his participation in a white-dominated sport, escaped from the violence plaguing many African-Americans as they battled for equality and justice. In addition, the color white can signify many ideas, from racial purity to cleanliness to surrender in a battle. Ashe plays on this connotation since both the color of his tennis clothing corresponds to the whiteness of the sport itself. In fact, until the era of Serena and Venus Williams, few athletes of color successfully penetrated this racial barrier. …show more content…
Reminding himself of his need to control his emotions when playing a tense tennis match, he quickly realized the need to resist self-pity: players “go into momentary lapses of confidence that often prove disastrous within a game or match...once [the lapse in confidence] is set in motion, it seems to gather enough momentum [like] a few falling