| Publication |
2012.
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| Summary/Abstract |
At a time when both the internal and global movements against apartheid in South Africa were at low ebb, African-American tennis star Arthur Ashe was successful in focusing the attention of the American public, the Nixon White House, and the international sporting community on South Africa. Ashe was also able to focus the attention of the South African government on the concerns of the anti-apartheid movement. Through his confrontation of apartheid, Ashe also underlined the anti-apartheid movement's struggle over how best to confront South Africa, through engagement or isolation. While Ashe strove to visit South Africa, other forces within the anti-apartheid movement championed boycotts and protests. These two competing visions led to much strife within the movement, and were an important component of the international debate over how to deal with apartheid and racial injustice in South Africa. Ashe traveled across several borders-both real and imagined-to emerge as a crucial transnational actor within the anti-apartheid movement in the early 1970s.
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