Richard A. Hudlin and Arthur R. Ashe, Jr. and the Bennett Avenue Historic District

Richard A. Hudlin and Arthur R. Ashe, Jr. and the Bennett Avenue Historic District. . , Arthur Ashe lived at 1221 Laclede Station Road in 1961-62 as the guest of owner Richard A. Hudlin. This side yard tennis court is where Mr. Hudlin helped Arthur improve his game., This memorial recognizes two African-American men linked by a love of and talent for tennis. Men who spent their lives breaking down racial barriers and creating opportunities for young African-Americans. The memorial also recognizes Dr. Thomas and Georgia Rusan, who, with their neighbors, challenged segregation to create a community for African-Americans. , Mr. Hudlin was a talented tennis player in his own right. Throughout the 36 years he taught and coached at Sumner High School and through his creation of the Tandy Park Muny Tennis Association, including his work for the Muny Tennis Association and St. Louis District Tennis Association, he impacted hundreds of young people. Mr. Hudlin was a descendant of "conductors" on the Underground Railroad. His accomplishments as a civil rights activist include breaking barriers as the first black captain of the University of Chicago tennis team in 1928 and filing a lawsuit in 1945 in St. Louis so that African-Americans could access the city's public tennis courts. He coached Althea Gibson (first African-American to win a grand slam at the French Open 1956, won at Wimbledon 1957 and 1958), and many others who did not achieve international tennis fame but were just as positively impacted by Mr. Hudlin's influence. , The lives of Hudlin and Ashe intersected in 1960, when Ashe during his senior year at Sumner High School lived with the Hudlins at 1221 Laclede Station Road. From Richmond, Virginia, Ashe left his family and his tennis coach and mentor Dr. Walter Johnson, who arranged with Richard Hudlin the move to St. Louis so Ashe could play tennis year-round. In Richmond, he was restricted, because of his color, to outdoor tennis courts. Hudlin was both a coach and a mentor to Ashe during his year in St. Louis. He solicited strong competitors for his student to play against and changed his game by playing him on the slick hardwood floors of the St. Louis Armory where he became a serve-volley master. The neighbors on Bennett Avenue and Laclede Station Road remember watching the young Arthur Ashe practice daily on the Hudlins' clay court located next to their home. , Arthur Ashe graduated first in his class at Sumner High School (1961) and first in his class at UCLA (1965). In 1963 he played on the winning U.S. team in Davis Cup. Arthur went on to become Captain of the U.S. Davis Cup team. He won the U.S. Open (1968), and was national tennis champion in South Africa (1973) after fighting apartheid, which had kept him out of the country for four years. Moreover, Ashe was the first African-American to win the men's singles at Wimbledon (1975), and ranked as the #1 men's player in the world (1975). , Mr. Hudlin died in 1976, one year after he attended Wimbledon as Arthur Ashe's guest--cheering his former student on as he won the men's singles competition against another local player, Jimmy Connors. Honors received posthumously include: having the Richard A. Hudlin tennis courts just south of BJC complex named for him (1976), induction into the St. Louis Tennis Hall of Fame (1992) and induction into the USTA Missouri Valley Tennis Association Hall of Fame (2015)., Mr. Ashe died in 1993 at the age of 49. A heart condition forced him to retire from playing tennis in 1979 but he remained active in sports. He became a sportsperson for the American Heart Association and founded the Arthur Ashe Foundation for the Defeat of AIDS. Ashe wrote two books: A Hard Road to Glory and Days of Grace, both published in 1993. Shortly before his death, he created and funded the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health to address inadequate health care delivery to urban minority populations. , (Aside:) , The Bennett Avenue Historic District, In 2008, the Bennett Avenue Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The neighborhood is significant under National Register Criterion A-Ethnic Heritage/Black for its "social and ethnic contributions to St. Louis County's African American history." It is furthermore important "as a Civil Rights era neighborhood developed exclusively by and for African-American residents." The neighborhood's development beginning in 1951 is directly related to the efforts of its developers Dr. Thomas and Georgia Rusan. The Rusans were an African-American couple who wished to create a suburban neighborhood near Hadley Township, where Dr. Rusan grew up and his parents still lived. , (Side Quotes:) , "Success is not a destination, the doing is usually more important than the outcome." -Arthur Ashe, "Richard Hudlin was a man of quiet but significant accomplishment." - Martin Rogers' nomination of Richard Hudlin to the USTA Missouri Valley Tennis Association Hall of Fame 2015