The Other Naomi Osaka—Serena Williams Story

By Steve Halpern

Recently, one of the hottest sports stories has been the dispute between Serena Williams and the United States Open umpire Carlos Ramos in the finals of that tournament. This blog is not about that dispute.

When we look at the two women athletes who competed in the finals of the 2018 U.S. Open, we also viewed the culmination of two related stories. Why are the stories of Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka related?

First, Naomi Osaka viewed Serena as an idol from an early age. Then, we know that Naomi’s father, Leonard Maxime François, consciously worked to use Richard Williams training methods. Richard Williams trained both his daughters Serena and Venus Williams. However, looking at the paths the families of these two athletes have taken, brings us on a journey from Shreveport, Louisiana, to Compton, California, to the nation of Haiti, to Osaka Japan, to the concentration camps in the United States where Japanese-Americans were detained, and then to the Haitian community in this country.

Shreveport, Louisiana to Compton, California

Richard Williams wrote an autobiography titled: Black and White—The way I see it. Williams dedicated this book to his mother Julia Metcalf Williams who he says is his “greatest hero.”

This book starts with the following quotation from Langston Hughes:

I am the darker brother.

They send me to the kitchen

When company comes,

But I laugh,

And eat well,

And grow strong.

The book begins with Serena Williams winning the 2012 Wimbledon finals against Agnieszka Radwańska. Then, in the second chapter we see the almost unbelievable series of events that surrounded the birth of Richard Williams.

On the day Richard Williams was born, Julia Williams was alone and she needed to go to the segregated hospital that would care for her. This was in Shreveport, Louisiana. She went to the hospital in a wagon pulled by a mule named Midnight. On the way to the hospital there was a horrendous storm and Midnight broke his leg. Dozens of white motorists saw Julia Williams struggling for her life at the side of the road, but passed her by. Then, a Black man named Mr. Leroy rescued Julia and took her to the hospital in his broken down pick-up truck. Richard Williams was then born in the hospital.

In his first years, Julia Williams brought Richard Williams into the cotton fields while his mother worked. Julia Williams could not control the hostile environment her family lived in, but she did her best to nurture her children and teach them how to deal with that environment.

Richard Williams learned how to run fast in order to escape from racist mobs. Three of his close friends were lynched as a result of the vicious Jim Crow discrimination in Shreveport.          

He eventually left Shreveport in what is known as the Great Migration out of the states where Jim Crow segregation was the law. He wound up in Los Angeles, California. This is where he met Venus and Serena’s mother Oracene Price.

This is also where he accidentally viewed a women’s tennis tournament where the winner was awarded $40,000. He then learned the game of tennis, and wrote a 78-page proposal arguing that he would raise two daughters to be tennis champions. This was before Venus and Serena were born.

He then moved the family from the middle-class neighborhood of Long Beach, to the mean streets of Compton, California. There Richard Williams needed to battle street gangs every day, just so his daughters would be able to play on the public courts.

When Venus and Serena were 11 and 10 years old the family moved again to Florida. During this entire process Richard Williams consciously worked to instill in his daughters the same values that he received from his mother. He raised them to deal with a hostile environment and nurtured them at the same time.

Haiti, to New York, to Japan, and Back

I wasn’t able to find much information about Naomi Osaka’s father Leonard François. What I did find, uncovered an amazing story most people are unaware of.

Leonard François was born in Haiti. Haiti happens to be the only nation in the world that carried out a successful revolution for both independence and to end the horrendous institution of slavery. Hundreds of thousands of Haitians lost their lives in the revolution of 1804 against the armies of Spain, Britain, and France. All three of these nations wanted to rule Haiti because sugar production, using slave labor, was the most lucrative way of making money in those days.

Because of the French defeat in Haiti, Napoleon sold the French Louisiana Territory to the United States government. This sale doubled the size of this country. The sale also ironically strengthened the position of slave owners. The slave owner Thomas Jefferson was President at that time and New Orleans became the new center for the slave trade.

So Haiti became the only nation where slaves had freed themselves and managed to maintain power. The United States responded to this by imposing a trade embargo against Haiti. Because Haiti was isolated politically, France used it’s position of power to demand that Haiti pay reparations for the fact that France had been defeated in the Haitian Revolution. The extreme poverty of Haiti was caused in part because of the embargo against the country and the payment of reparations to France.

Then, in the early years of the twentieth century the United States military forces occupied the Haiti for about twenty years. During that time the U.S. military went to war against the forces of independence on the island.

Then, the United States supported the repressive regimes of both François “Papa Doc” Duvalier and Jean Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier these two regimes terrorized Haiti with their paramilitary force known as the Tonton Macoute.   

This was the background to the environment that Leonard François was born into. Understanding this, we might also understand why François left Haiti for an education in New York City and then continued his education in Japan.

It was in Sapporo, Japan that Leonard François met his future wife Tamaki Osaka. Sapporo is the capital of Japan’s northern island, Hokkaido. Tamaki Osaka’s family is from Nemuro that is on the eastern edge of Hokkaido.

Tamaki Osaka’s father initially disapproved of his daughter marrying a Black man from another country. This animosity caused Tamaki and Leonard not to have contact with the rest of the Osaka family for ten years. As a result Leonard and Tamaki started their family in Osaka. The family used the Osaka name to make it easier for their daughters in school. Osaka is located in Japan’s southern island about half way between Tokyo and Hiroshima.

Today Tamaki Osaka’s family has changed their attitudes to their children and grandchildren. They, as well as most of Japan are proud that Naomi Osaka is the champion of the United States Open.

Flames Over Tokyo

At this point I believe it is useful to look at a chapter of Japanese history most people are not aware of. In school the so-called educational system of the United States gives their version of the events that led to the Second World War. That version of history argues that Japan bombed the United States military base in Hawaii without warning and this cause the government in this country to go to war.

The facts are that U.S. ships entered Japanese waters in 1853 under the command of Commodore Perry. Perry demanded that Japan open up trade with the rest of the world. For many years Japan was isolated and blocked international trade in an attempt to prevent becoming a colony.

By the year 1892 the United States took control of Hawaii. The U.S. then went to war against Spain and Philippine independence fighters. The U.S. victories in those wars led to the transfer of power from Spain to the United States in Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines. With the building of the Panama Canal the U.S. government had the clear goal of becoming the dominant capitalist power in the Pacific region.

The one persistent problem in advancing this goal was the Japanese government’s moves to also control the Pacific region. The United States initially declared an oil and scrap metal embargo against Japan. This trade war is what led to the shooting war with the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. After the war the United States government continued their goal of controlling the Pacific with wars against Korea and Vietnam.

What does all this have to do with the Osaka family? My answer to this question comes from the reality of what happened to the city of Osaka in the last year of the Second World War.

Most people are aware of the fact that the United States Air Force dropped the atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Most people are not aware of the fire-bombing campaign the U.S. Air Force conducted against Japan for six months before the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

E. Bartlett Kerr wrote a history of this bombing campaign in his book Flames over Tokyo – The U.S. Army Air Forces’ Incendiary Campaign Against Japan 1944-1945. Kerr wrote about how phosphorous or incendiary bombs were used against Japan because the civilian housing of that nation was usually made of flammable wood. These incendiary bombs were used to destroy civilian areas of about 67 of Japan’s largest cities.

Kerr reported that 35.1% of the city of Osaka was destroyed by these phosphorous bombs. Osaka had a population equivalent to the population of Chicago, Illinois. It is unimaginable to think of what it meant to live in a city where the people are surrounded by burning hot fames, and searching desperately for a place we they could breathe. 

This is the same city where the Osaka family lived for the first years of Naomi Osaka’s life.

Naomi Osaka wins at Indian Wells in California

From Osaka Japan, Naomi Osaka and her family moved to Long Island, New York and then Florida where they lived with relatives and others in the Haitian community. It was here that Leonard François attempted to teach his daughters tennis using the same methods as Richard Williams.  

The first major professional tournament Naomi Osaka won was at Indian Wells in California. This is the most prestigious tennis tournament in the state.

We might also mention that California is the state that sent large numbers of Japanese to concentration camps during the Second World War. Many of the Japanese in the state were farmers who worked the land few people wanted. They built up these farms to eventually control a large share of the produce market in the state.  When the Japanese were sent to concentration camps, the government allowed for the confiscation of their farms and businesses.

In the year 1944, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in the case of Fred Toyosaburo Korematsu v. the United States. The Supreme Court’s decision supported sending Japanese-Americans into concentration camps. By the year 1988 President Ronald Reagan signed the Japanese Liberties Act that awarded all U.S. survivors of the internment camps $20,000 as compensation for the time they served.

The United States government has yet to award compensation to African Americans living in this country who have relatives who lived in slave labor camps.

The 2018 U.S. Open Tennis Tournament

When we look at the entirety of this history, I think we gain a new appreciation for the finals of the U.S. Open between Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka. In Serena Williams case her ancestors, no doubt, experienced slave labor, and Jim Crow segregation. Her ancestors also experienced the Civil War as well as the Civil Rights movement that forced the government to give Black people citizenship rights in this country.

Naomi Osaka’s ancestors, no doubt, experienced the Haitian Revolution as well the horrendous policies the United States government inflicted on the people of that country. Her ancestors also experienced the criminal firebombing as well as the atomic bombing of the country of her birth.

Although Naomi Osaka lived most of her life in the United States, she says she doesn’t know what it means to identify as an American. Given that she is one of the twelve million immigrants in this country, why would we think she would feel differently. Clearly the past few Presidents of this country have deported millions of immigrants who came to this country merely looking for a place to live and work.

So, this year at the most prestigious tennis tournament in the United States we saw two women who share a similar but different background. Their ancestors experienced the horrors of policies inflicted by the United States government. Yet through all these horrors, these two women managed to show the world a glimmer of perfection.

Whatever disagreement unfolded with respect to this match, let us remember the long and winding road the families of these two wonderful athletes managed to overcome in order to reach this point in history.