(FinalCall.com) -- One might not think to connect the extraordinary triumphs of the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena, at the legendary Wimbledon Tennis Championships recently with the announcement earlier that same week from Republican Congressman J.C. Watts, of Oklahoma, that he was leaving the Congress at the end of this, his fourth term in office.

But, in fact, both events, separately and together, speak volumes about, first, the achievement aspirations of Black Americans, and, secondly, the barriers that remain to keep them in what some Whites believe should be their place.

At one time, just a few decades ago, the "place" of Blacks did not include the world of top-flight national or international tennis�despite the voluminous evidence: Althea Gibson, of course, the great champion of the 1950s; and the crack tennis teams several Historically Black Colleges and Universities continually produced; and, further, the talent that was evident when younger Black youth had access to tennis courts.

For example, baseball legend Jackie Robinson in high school in California in the 1930s starred in football, basketball and track as well as baseball. He played tennis only sporadically. But in his junior year, with little practice, he captured the junior boys� singles championship of the highly competitive Pacific Coast Negro Tennis Tournament.

After Althea Gibson, Arthur Ashe and, now the Williams Sisters, have proven what exciting play can come from opening up what was once a racially-restrictive sport�just as Jackie Robinson and those Black Americans who followed him did for major league baseball in the late 1940s and 1950s.

Of course, sports is only one arena where Blacks have shown they possess, as writer Albert Murray has put it, the indelible ancestral imperative "to do something and become something and be somebody."

Nowhere is that more evident than in politics, where Blacks� desire to participate in the civic life of their communities and the nation has produced, during the last three decades, a remarkable growth in the number of Black elected officials.

The best evidence of that is gathered in the just-released annual report on Black elected officials by the Washington-based think tank, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. The study notes that from just 1,469 officeholders in 1970, by 2000 the lists of Black officials numbered 9,040.

That�s still only between two and three percent of all American elected officials; but there is a growing variety within that group: members of Congress as well as state legislators; local school board members and holders of high statewide offices; mayors of large, medium and small cities, and mayors of cities where Blacks are not the majority of the electorate. Perhaps most encouraging is the fact that currently six Black politicians are waging credible campaigns to be their states� governors.

But, the growth in Black political office holding and, more