Ashley, Maurice

LC control no.	no 97022234
Descriptive conventions	rda
Personal name heading	Ashley, Maurice *Browse this term in* LC Authorities or the LC Catalog
Biography/History note	Maurice Ashley was United States Chess Federation Grandmaster of the Year (2003).
Associated country	United States
Birth date	1966
Place of birth	Saint Andrew (Jamaica)
Affiliation	City University of New York. City College Manhattan Chess Club United States Chess Federation Black Bear School of Chess Harlem Chess Center
Profession or occupation	Chess players
Found in	Maurice Ashley teaches chess, c1995: disc label (Maurice Ashley) Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Second Edition, accessed November 26, 2014, via Oxford African American Studies Center database: (Ashley, Maurice; Jamaican-born chess player who became the first African American to achieve the rank of international grandmaster; born in 1966 in Saint Andrew, Jamaica; immigrated with his family to Brooklyn, New York, at the age of twelve; started playing chess at age fourteen; after graduating from high school, he joined the Black Bear School of Chess, a group of African American chess enthusiasts who met in Brooklyn's Prospect Park to engage in weekend-long "chess rumbles"; won the presidency of the chess club at the City College of New York, where he earned a degree in English; taught and coached chess, traveling from school to school in New York; left coaching to dedicate himself to reaching his goal to achieve international grandmaster status (1997); earned chess's highest rating of international grandmaster, one of only 600 worldwide at the Manhattan Chess Club March International (1999); opened the Harlem Chess Center in New York City to introduce a new generation of youngsters to the game (1999); the United States Chess Federation named Ashley its Grandmaster of the Year (2003))