The first Black international chess grandmaster, Maurice Ashley, visited St. Richard’s Episcopal School Students last week.
Ashley is one of a few special guests to spend time with St. Richard’s students in honor of Black History Month. English teacher and chair of the Faculty DEIB Committee, Alyssa Stewart, said St. Richard’s specializes in hands-on and engaging curriculum, especially during cultural awareness months.
“I think we have the opportunity because we have a rich community to pull from that wants to support their kids and the kids around them,” Stewart said. “When they get to see that it’s not just within these four walls … It makes it real for them, and not this theoretical equality, DEI, diversity kind of thing … it just acknowledges who they are as people.”
Born and raised by his grandmother in Jamaica, Ashley moved to New York to be with his mother at age 12. Though he started chess later than most kids and didn’t make his high school team, Ashley told students at the assembly he studied chess three to four hours each day.
He competed in local tournaments and eventually began coaching the Raging Rooks chess team at Harlem’s Junior High School #43. Ashley also married and had children before finally earning the title of international grandmaster in 1999 — at age 33.
“I just wanted to become a grandmaster, and being Black is easy because I was born with it, right? So, I didn’t really focus on it, but the people around me did,” Ashley said. “I had a sense of what it meant for me to accomplish something that no other African American had done. So, looking back even more so, 26 years distance from when I did it, I understand that it resonates, and that’s really important.”
Chess is a pretty big deal at St. Richard’s Episcopal School, with 32 K-8th graders participating in their chess club, said Andrea Neal, a history teacher and chess facilitator at St. Richard’s.
“I think chess helps with everything,” Neal told the Recorder. “I think it helps with reading, it helps with critical thinking, it helps with conflict resolution. There’s almost nothing that I think chess can’t facilitate and make better.”
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Neal, who is preparing to retire, said she wanted to do “something cool” for her students before her departure. In 2003, Ashley visited Indianapolis to collaborate with the Indiana Black Expo and play at a chess academy run by the late Bernard Parham I, who earned the title of National Master in 1975 and created the Matrix Chess System.
The experience was so memorable for Neal and her sons at the time that she knew inviting Ashley — the first Black international grandmaster of chess — to speak to her students would not only engage their interests but inspire them to chase their dreams.
A few short emails later, Ashley flew to Indianapolis to spend a freezing cold weekend with St. Richard’s students. Over a period of two days, the history-making chess grandmaster engaged students through a morning assembly presentation, a coloring book signing and reading from his book “The Life Changing Magic of Chess” and even challenged a few students to a game of chess.
“Whenever you can sit in front of young people and inspire maybe just one — you don’t know who it is,” Ashley said. “You never know the butterfly effect of what you’re doing, and so you just do it and hope the universe takes care for us.”
Contact Arts & Culture Reporter Chloe McGowan at 317-762-7848. Follow her on X @chloe_mcgowanxx.
Chloe McGowan is the Arts & Culture Reporter for the Indianapolis Recorder Newspaper. Originally from Columbus, OH, Chloe graduated with a degree in journalism from The Ohio State University. She is a former IndyStar Pulliam Fellow, and her previous work includes freelancing for Indy Maven, Assistant Arts & Life Editor for The Lantern, and editorial assistant at CityScene Media Group. Chloe enjoys covering all things arts and culture — from local music, visual art, dance, theater and film, as well as minority-owned businesses. In her free time, Chloe enjoys reading, cooking and keeping her plants alive.
