After a rousing tribute from former first girl Michelle Obama, Billie Jean King on August 28 celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the U.S. Open changing into the primary sporting occasion to supply equal prize cash to feminine and male opponents, promising by no means to cease combating to keep up that hard-won progress.
“While we celebrate today, our work is far from done,” King mentioned in a speech to a packed Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd between evening matches. Echoing a quote from Coretta Scott King, she mentioned: “Struggle is a never-ending process. Freedom is never really won. You earn it and you win it in every generation.”
Ms. Obama launched the 79-year-old tennis legend by recalling how King, because the defending U.S. Open champion in 1973, rallied her fellow ladies gamers to threaten a boycott of that yr’s event until ladies acquired the identical pay as males. It was introduced that summer season that the lads’s and girls’s U.S. Open champions would every obtain $25,000.
It would take 34 years earlier than all the opposite Grand Slam occasions adopted go well with. This yr, the U.S. Open winners will every obtain $3 million, with complete participant compensation rising to $65 million.
“Let us remember, all of this is far bigger than a champions paycheck,” Ms. Obama said. “This is about how women are seen and valued in this world. We have seen how quickly progress like this can be taken away if we are not mindful and vigilant, if we do not keep remembering and advocating and organizing and speaking out and, yes, voting.”
Ms. Obama, who earlier sat within the stadium along with her husband, former President Barack Obama, famous that King’s achievement got here the identical yr she went on beat Bobby Riggs within the “Battle of the Sexes,” when he infamously mentioned ladies “belong in the bedroom and the kitchen, in that order.”
“Billie Jean teaches us that when things lie in the balance, we all have a choice to make,” Ms. Obama said. “We can either wait around and accept what we’re given. … or we can make our own stand. We can use whatever platforms we have to speak out and fight to protect the progress we’ve made, and level the playing field for all of our daughters and their daughters.”
The ceremony concluded with vocalist Sara Bareilles’ hovering rendition of her hit track, “Brave,” and video tributes from the world’s biggest tennis gamers, together with Coco Gauff, Roger Federer, Iga Swiatek, Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic, all saying, “Thank you, Billie Jean.”