Series:

Purpose Served: An Oral History of the Exemplary Life of Arthur Ashe, 1943-1993

Topic:

African American History

Sports

Biographical Note:

Michael Warren was interviewed about his connection to tennis player Arthur Ashe. He attended the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) from 1964 - 1968 and graduated in 1971. Warren met Arthur Ashe on the UCLA campus sometime between 1966 and 1967, and the two kept in contact through the mid-1970s.

Interviewer:

Nwonye, Chinyere

Persons Present:

Nwonye and Warren.

Place Conducted:

The interview was conducted using the Zoom video conferencing platform.

Supporting Documents:

Records relating to the interview are located in the office of the UCLA Library's Center for Oral History Research.

Interviewer Background and Preparation:

The interview was conducted by Chinyere Nwonye, an interviewer for the Arthur Ashe Oral History project as part of the UCLA Arthur Ashe Legacy Center. Chinyere is a graduate of UCLA with a background in neuroscience and African American Studies.The interviewer prepared for the interview by reading Arthur Ashe’s Advantage Ashe; Arthur Ashe and Neil Amdur’s Off the Court; Arthur Ashe and Arnold Rampersad’s Days of Grace: A Memoir; Raymond Arsenault’s Arthur Ashe: A Life; various archival articles from the Los Angeles Times and Daily Bruin. Additionally, to build her background research on Warren, Nwonye also reviewed his filmography and watched an episode of Hill Street Blues.

Processing of Interview:

The interviewer prepared a timed log of the audio recording of the interview. The interviewee was given the opportunity to review the log in order to supply missing or misspelled names and to verify the accuracy of the content. The interviewee added additional content, which is noted throughout the timelog. The corrections and additions were entered into the text by Chinyere Nwonye, interviewer for the Arthur Ashe Oral History Project, an initiative of the Arthur Ashe Legacy Fund.

Length:

2.5 hrs

Language:

English

Copyright:

Regents of the University of California, UCLA Library.

Audio:

Series Statement:

Purpose Served: An Oral History of the Exemplary Life of Arthur Ashe, 1943-1993 is an initiative of the Arthur Ashe Legacy Fund (AALF) at UCLA and is funded by AALF and by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. By launching an oral history project to document and capture the firsthand recollections of Ashe’s colleagues, associates, family, and friends, UCLA was fulfilling its commitment to the Arthur Ashe Learning Center to document and disseminate the considerable impact of one of its most significant graduates.In his memoir Days of Grace Arthur Ashe stated, "I don't want to be remembered for my tennis accomplishments.” Although this series provides a comprehensive account of Ashe’s considerable accomplishments as a tennis player, it also offers a substantial number of first-person accounts of historical moments and stories beyond the scope of tennis. Ashe’s ascent in the tennis world coincided with many important developments in the sport: the onset of the Open Era, the shift from a mostly “country club” sport to the public arena, the commercialization of tennis, and the rise of the celebrity athlete. But his life also intersected with a number of significant milestone in the second half of the twentieth century, including the civil rights and women’s movements, the Vietnam War, the fall of apartheid in South Africa, and the AIDS/HIV crisis. In their reflections on Ashe’s work and activism, participants in this series share stories of his engagement with these crucial moments in U.S. history. Finally, the series also contains information about segregation; student life at UCLA in the 1960s; ROTC; West Point; Black life in Richmond, Virginia and St. Louis, Missouri; the work of TransAfrica and Artists and Athletes against Apartheid; and the relatively unknown histories of the American Tennis Association and Dr. Robert Walter Johnson’s Summer Tennis Camp.Interviewees were sought across the country and internationally, reflecting Ashe’s broad swath of associates and his status as a prominent athlete and a respected public intellectual. Although the series reflects his entire life, special attention was given to locating childhood friends, military associates, and fellow students in St. Louis and at UCLA. Participants who could speak of his devotion to support youth in the sport and his activism were also included in this series.The series commenced months before the COVID-19 pandemic, so many of the initial interviews align with traditional oral history methodology in being conducted in person. After stay-at-home orders were initiated across the country in March of 2020, interviews were conducted via the Zoom video conferencing platform. Many of these sessions were preserved on video recordings as well as audio recordings.

Michael Warren is born in South Bend, Indiana on March 5, 1946 — Moved to a predominantly White neighborhood and began attending Marquette Elementary — Recruited in third grade for the basketball team by Coach Paul Sloan, relatively shielding him from discrimination — The Black community on Elmer Street — Compared discrimination in the South to that in South Bend — Decided to attend UCLA in 1964 after a basketball recruiting trip with Coach John Wooden — Played on the UCLA freshman and varsity team between 1964-1968 — Helped recruit Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (formerly, Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor) — Met Arthur Ashe and hit around with him and Henry Hines — Learned about South Africa from Ashe — Left UCLA to begin his acting career in 1968 and returned in 1971 to finish his degree — Learned about HIV/AIDS after narrating a film for the American Red Cross — Reflections on Ashe’s death.