*A number of items belonging to late tennis great Arthur Ashe are going to the highest bidder beginning Dec. 8.
A private collector is selling 16 manuscripts and personal objects as one lot through Christie’s in New York. They include Ashe’s notes for a Nov. 19, 1992, speech before the National Leadership Coalition on AIDS. It says in part: “We must be creative, even dogmatic, in the face of serious but unexaggerated medical evidence of a potential disaster. Let me tell you what my objectives are — to save lives.”
Other highlights include a five-page speech outline on African-American athletes and his views on school athletic programs. His 1984 Davis Cup uniform also is included, as well as the jacket he wore at an anti-apartheid protest — among the causes the tennis great and humanitarian championed during his lifetime.
The items are expected to fetch $80,000 to $120,000.
Ashe was the first African-American to win Wimbledon and the U.S. and Australian Opens. The Richmond, Virginia, native died in 1993 from AIDS-related pneumonia attributed to a blood transfusion following a heart operation.
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