Fisrt Black Chess Grandmaster

Ebony, July, 1999 by Melissa Ewey

"It was a pretty good tournament," Ashley says confidently. "I played very well." Now a grandmaster-elect, his status becomes official in October. Making it to the grandmaster level, says Ashley, "is like trying to make the All-Star basketball team. Nobody's going to hand it to you. Your opponent is fighting you to the bitter end."

Perhaps the only thing more gratifying than making it to the grandmaster level is watching his former chess proteges soar to new heights. "I look at the kids who are so successful now, who are graduating from Vassar and Yale, and I think, `You guys are the knuckleheads that I taught in junior high?!'" jokes Ashley. "Children learn so much from chess; it's beautiful to watch. Problem-solving, goal-setting, concentration, focus, patience ... these are all the wonderful things you want kids to learn. Just getting a kid to sit and think for a little while is a miracle in some cases ... to have them working out their ideas and focusing over long periods of time is great."

And that, Ashley believes, is what chess is all about. "You don't get good if you don't use your mind. You have to sharpen your mental skills, and that's exactly what it does for kids. It gives them that mental acuity so they can become confident about their mental abilities."

Ashley's latest project is designed to attract even more young people to the game of chess. He is the director of the chess program for the Harlem Educational Activities Fund, which is opening a state-of-the-art chess center in Harlem in September. "I want to promote chess in our community," he says. "We're hoping the Harlem Chess Center will be the prototype for other centers around the country."

This time around, he vows not to let his own game suffer. "I still have some playing years left in me," says Ashley, who dreams of being the first African-American to compete in the U.S. Championships. "Right now I don't qualify, but maybe within the next couple of years ..."

In the meantime, Ashley has his hands full teaching his 5-year-old daughter how to play chess. "Every time Nia saw me at the chessboard, she wanted to learn," he says. "She hounded me for months, and I tried to tell her to wait until she was older. Finally she got me, and I sat her down and showed her how to play. She already knows all of the rules. She's very serious."

Could Nia be the second-generation grandmaster in the family? No pressure, insists Ashley. "I'm not going to push her; she'll do whatever she likes. But I'll make sure that she won't go through what I went through," he vows, recalling his first defeat. "When she goes to school, there won't be anyone who will crush her in a game of chess."