Tag: civil rights

WATCH: Boston Celtics legend Bill Russell talks Lexington player strike for civil rights

The Celtics legend tells the story of how the Black players of the Celtics sat out a game after being refused service at the hotel cafe.

Amid the celebration of the NBA’s storied history over the decades, the harsh reality of players of color is sometimes forgotten. But for players like Boston Celtics legends Bill Russell, Sam Jones, and Thomas “Satch” Sanders, such memories are an indelible relic of an era where casual racism was far more institutionalized and even accepted.

In fact, when the latter two were denied service at the cafe of the team hotel in the 1960s, Russell, Jones, and Sanders all elected to sit out the game in protest. The fellow Black players on the Celtics and then those on the opposing team — the (then) St. Louis (now, Atlanta) Hawks — joined them as well.

Hear the story told by one of its protagonists, Bill Russell himself, in the video embedded below, courtesy of CLNS Media via their “NBA History & Legends on CLNS” YouTube channel.

It’s a story that should not be forgotten among the many happy ones more commonly recounted from that era, and one that still bears telling today.

This post originally appeared on Celtics Wire. Follow us on Facebook!

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Bill Russell tweets tribute to fallen civil rights icon John Lewis

Boston Celtics legendary center Bill Russell tweeted a tribute to fallen friend and fellow civil rights icon John Lewis Saturday.

Legendary Boston Celtics big man and a civil rights icon in his own right Bill Russell tweeted a few words about his brother in arms John Lewis, after the civil rights champion and Representative for Georgia’s fifth district since 1986 passed on Saturday.

Russell, who participated in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, had been invited to speak at it, but revealed 50 years later that he had demurred, “because the organizers had worked for years” to put it together, and he hadn’t felt he’d done anything worthy of such an honor in comparison.

John Lewis was one of those people he was referring to.

Saturday night, Russell tweeted:

“Rep. John Lewis was the youngest speaker [at] the March on Washington & continued to fight for justice throughout his eighty years. The world has lost a great man, but the fight goes on. Honor him by restoring the #VotingRightsAct & getting in good trouble. Rest in power, my friend.”

Russell, along with Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte and June Shagaloff Alexander is one of just a handful of prominent participants still alive from that most important moments in U.S. history.

He joined Lewis in seeing yet another wave of civil rights protests still ongoing in the U.S. now that gave the former Celtic hope for the future, taken up by many across the NBA including several current Boston players.

The future of their work now lies with that generation — and they seem ready for the struggle.

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LeBron James mourns loss of Congressman, Civil Rights icon John Lewis

Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James was one of many who mourned the loss of Congressman John Lewis late on Friday night.

Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James was one of the thousands of people to take to social media late Friday night and on Saturday morning to mourn the loss of a Civil Rights icon, Congressman John Lewis, who passed away late last night at the age of 80.

Lewis served in the United States Congress since 1986 and he is most well known as one of the organizers of the march that led to ‘Bloody Sunday’ on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on March 7, 1965, in which local and state police in Alabama brutally beat the protesters on the bridge. James honored Lewis on Twitter and has also been reposting tributes of others for John Lewis on his Instagram Story.

Among one of LeBron’s many passions is history and his SpringHill Company has produced several pieces of content about the Civil Rights movement and the impact athletes at the time, such as Muhammad Ali, Bill Russell and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, had on those movements by using their increased stature.

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On this date: Muhammad Ali refuses induction into U.S. Armed Forces

On April 28, 1967, Ali, a Muslim, refused induction into the United States Armed Forces on religious grounds as war raged in Vietnam.

Muhammad Ali was known as much for the stances he took outside the ring as his success in it. And none of his statements was louder than the one he made on this date 53 years ago.

On April 28, 1967, Ali, a Muslim, refused induction into the United States Armed Forces on religious grounds as war raged in Vietnam, a decision that would have far reaching impact on his life and boxing career. He said famously, “I ain’t got no quarrel with those Vietcong.”

As a result, he lost the heavyweight championship he won when he stopped Sonny Liston in 1964 and was banned from boxing in all 50 states. And, in June, he was convicted of draft evasion, sentenced to five years in prison and stripped of his passport.

Ali wouldn’t box between March 1967 and December 1970, when he was 25 to 29. He spent those years speaking for Civil Rights and against the Vietnam War on college campuses while he waited for his case to play out in appellate courts.

He was granted a boxing license in Atlanta while his case was still pending, which allowed him to fight Jerry Quarry on Oct. 26, 1970. Ali won by third-round TKO.

And soon Ali was vindicated. The U.S. Supreme Court in 1971 overturned his conviction because the justice department had failed to explain adequately why his conscientious objector application was rejected.

He stood up for what he believed and won, a victory many believe was far more significant than anything he accomplished in the ring.

Ali would fight until 1981, when he finally walked away from the sport. And he would accomplish great things after his comeback against Quarry. That included two victories in three fights with arch rival Joe Frazier and a stunning knockout of George Foreman to regain the title in 1974.

Still, the fact he was unable to fight for more than 3½ of his prime years is a stain on boxing history. Angelo Dundee, his longtime trainer, once lamented to me with great pain in his voice that “we never saw Muhammad Ali at his best.”