Monday marked the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Open being the first athletic event to award equal prize money to participants of both sexes. Former first lady Michelle Obama paid a stirring tribute, and Billie Jean King vowed to never give up the fight to preserve that hard-won progress.
King addressed a crowded Arthur Ashe Stadium audience between night matches and stated, “While we celebrate today, our work is far from done. She said, paraphrasing Coretta Scott King, “Struggle is a never-ending process. Freedom is never truly obtained. In every generation, you have to earn and obtain it.
Obama recalled how King, a 79-year-old tennis great, encouraged her fellow female competitors to threaten a boycott of the following year’s competition in the event that women weren’t paid equally to men. King had won the 1972 U.S. Open. That summer, it was revealed that the women’s champion would earn an additional $15,000, bringing the total payout for both the men’s and women’s champions to $25,000 apiece.
It would take 34 years for all the Grand Slam competitions to adopt this strategy. Each U.S. Open champion will receive $3 million this year, bringing the overall player purse to $65 million.
Remember, all of this is much more significant than a champion’s salary, Obama said. “This has to do with how women are regarded and treated nowadays. We have seen how fast such progress can be reversed if we are not watchful and alert, if we do not continue to remember, advocate for, organize, speak out, and, yes, vote.
Obama, who had previously sat in the stadium alongside her husband, former President Barack Obama, pointed out that King’s accomplishment occurred in the same year that she defeated Bobby Riggs in the “Battle of the Sexes,” during which Riggs famously remarked that women “belong in the bedroom and the kitchen, in that order.”
Billie Jean shows us that we all have a decision to make when things are on the line, the president remarked. We have two options: wait and take what is offered, or take a stand for ourselves. We can speak out and fight to defend the advancements we have made while also leveling the playing field for all of our girls and their daughters using whatever platforms we have.
The celebration ended with soprano Sara Bareilles belting out her popular song “Brave,” as well as video tributes from the finest tennis players in the world, including Coco Gauff, Iga Swiatek, Roger Federer, Carlos Alcaraz, and Novak Djokovic, who all said, “Thank you, Billie Jean.”