The Arthur Ashe Monument is a bronze sculpture by Paul DiPasquale installed along Richmond, Virginia's Monument Avenue. The statue depicts tennis player Arthur Ashe, who was born and raised in Richmond. Description The statue is situated on a 16-foot granite pedestal on a traffic island, at the intersection of Monument Avenue and Roseneath Road. The 12-foot tall bronze sculpture depicts Arthur Ashe holding a tennis racket in one hand and books in the other, surrounded by children. The books are raised higher than the tennis racket; this was requested by Ashe himself, as he tended to emphasize education over sports. Ashe's depiction faces west and the children face east. Background Arthur Ashe Ashe was born at Richmond's St. Philip Hospital for Negroes on March 10, 1943. During his childhood, Richmond was segregated, and he was denied entry to tennis tournaments and was not allowed to practice on the city's best courts. In 1960, Ashe moved to St. Louis to attend Sumner High School. In the following years, Ashe would become the first player selected to the United States Davis Cup team (1981), and was the only black man to win the singles title at the US Open (1968), the Australian Open (1975), and Wimbledon (1975) tennis tournaments. He retired in April 1980. Following his death of AIDS-related pneumonia on February 6, 1993, Ashe's body laid in state at Virginia's Executive Mansion, located in Richmond. Monument Avenue At the time of the statue's construction, Monument Avenue had statues of several Generals of the Confederate States Army, as well as Confederate States Navy Commander Matthew Fontaine Maury and Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Among tallest were the Robert E. Lee Monument, which stood 21 feet tall atop a 40-foot pedestal, and the Davis Memorial, which sat on a 65-foot column. The monuments, constructed from 1890 to 1929, were likely influenced by the then-popular belief that the Confederacy was just and heroic, an ideology also referred to as the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. History DiPasquale met Ashe in 1992, and received permission to design a statue of him. Nine crayon and pencil studies of Ashe were created before his death in 1993. Following his death, Ashe's widow Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe approved the studies, and recommended Virginia Heroes Incorporated for funding. The designs were first unveiled, in plaster form, in December 1994 at the Ashe Center. With the urging of City Manager Robert Bobb, Richmond