{"value"=>"<p>Series documents a range of projects with which Ashe was associated, although not as a formal board or committee member, after he retired from competitive tennis in 1980. Notes, correspondence, memoranda, and draft contracts trace the planning of several joint ventures with the publishers of <em>Black Enterprise</em>, such as the creation of a series of instructional tennis videos for the African-American community. Ashe also investigated the possibility of supporting a bookstore to sell the work of black authors. Included in the series are articles and correspondence suggesting projects that friends and the public wished Ashe to participate in or lend his name to, but which were not ultimately undertaken.</p> <p>Material in the African American Sports Hall of Fame and Ashe Statue folders documents Ashe's efforts to establish an African-American Sports Hall of Fame in his hometown of Richmond, Virginia, and the ultimate erection of a statue honoring him there. Planning for the facility began in 1992 as an outgrowth of Ashe's work on <em>A Hard Road to Glory</em>. At the same time, Richmond sculptor Paul DiPasquale offered to create a statue of Ashe to be placed in front of the proposed building. Fundraising for the Hall of Fame and statue continued after Ashe's death. Although the Hall of Fame project was eventually abandoned, planning for a statue to be placed on Monument Avenue continued. Correspondence, memoranda, sketches, and clippings, including Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe's January 1, 1996 op-ed article in the <em>Richmond Times-Dispatch</em>, trace the debates concerning the Hall of Fame idea and the location of the statue. Blueprints of the statue may be found in the Oversized box at the end of the collection.</p>"}