Tag: John Lewis

As he began his media availability …

As he began his media availability Thursday, Grizzlies coach Taylor Jenkins opened by calling the late Rep. John Lewis an icon and a hero. With the NBA resuming its season Thursday night in Florida, Jenkins didn’t want it to overshadow the legacy of Lewis, who died this month from pancreatic cancer. So for two minutes, he read a statement from Lewis on the importance of protecting the right to vote.

“I think we’ve all bought in,” Malone …

“I think we’ve all bought in,” Malone said. “Obviously we’re basketball coaches, we’re basketball players. We get paid to do that. That’s our livelihood. But we also have off-court interests. We all want to be active participants in what’s going on. As I’ve said many times, I do not want to be sitting on the sideline during this movement. I want to help. I want to educate myself, help our players educate themselves, so we can approach this the best way possible. … Us starting off practice today talking about the life and legacy of a guy like John Lewis, to make sure it’s not just about, ‘Hey, our pick-and-roll defense; our offensive execution.’ That is important as we get closer to playing games. But I know we are dedicated as an organization to make sure we’re doing as much as we can to continue to keep that education and that light where it needs to be. … To me, I think it’s an easy balance.”

Jaylen Brown delivers powerful message on racial justice, John Lewis

Boston Celtics starting shooting guard Jaylen Brown delivered a powerful message in favor of racial justice, Brianna Taylor, and the memory of John Lewis.

Boston Celtics star shooting guard Jaylen Brown has made a name for himself as one of the most stalwart advocates for human rights in the NBA in his four-year career to date.

And, as a native of Georgia, it made sense to ask the Cal-Berkeley product if he’d ever met the recently-passed civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis.

Brown, after all, has been one of the most vocal and involved faces behind the push for a racial justice platform in the restarted 2019-20 season at the Disney NBA campus, and his native Marietta is just outside of Lewis’ home district in the state of Georgia.

“We never crossed paths directly, but indirectly we’ve crossed paths many times,” explained the outspoken young leader at Sunday’s media availability session, Brown quickly growing into a contemporary champion of civil rights himself.

“Just as a civil rights leader and a humanity leader his contributions not to just people of color but our society in general are appreciated and welcomed,” he said.

“[It] definitely was a tremendous loss hearing that he passed away yesterday. But, one of my favorite quotes is … “Don’t get lost in a sea of despair; be optimistic, be hopeful. The journey — or the struggle is not the struggle of a week or a month or a year, it’s a struggle of a lifetime. So don’t be afraid to be loud, to make noise, and to get in good trouble or unnecessary trouble.'”

“That that phrase speaks to me more than I can even explain with words,” Brown added.

“But to speak to John Lewis, to the legacies he left behind, is amazing. I don’t think words can be able to do justice, but Rest in Peace to John Lewis,”

The conversation soon drifted to the Georgian’s displeasure over the limits placed on pro-racial justice messages Brown had previously voiced being irked by.

“Pretty much was was the list is the list,” he explained. “I’m still contemplating on how I necessarily feel about what I should put on the back of my jersey.

“It’s kind of tough to epitomize like all the feelings and emotions and everything that you’re passionate about,” Brown offered.

“I’m still in the works, trying to figure things out,” he said.

“One thing that I thought I was clever, that I kind of gravitated towards was I saw … Jimmy Butler said he didn’t want to put anything on his jersey.”

“What I thought was clever with that is it potential, not having anything, [is] to play for the people that we don’t get to see every single day, or we don’t hear [their] names. We hear Brianna Taylor, we hear Philando Castile, we hear Ahmad Arbaury, Trayvon Martin. We hear all those names that we hear in the media because somebody was lucky enough to have a cell phone.

“But what about the people who didn’t have cell phone available at the time and experienced police brutality, they experience social stratification in education or not getting help in healthcare, there’s so many different things that go unnoticed, and it’s just bigger than what we see now. I think just police brutality is the tip of the iceberg.

“So being able to have an empty space and plan for some of those people that we don’t know their names, and we may not ever know their names, just because of … et cetera — I think that’s powerful too,” he explained.

Soon after, the presser seemed to end, and Brown appeared ready to get up and walk away.

He stopped himself, sat back down, and started again.

“I want to speak on Breanna Taylor,” began Brown. “I know it’s a it’s a hot topic in conversation I know a lot of people have chimed in and had their thoughts about it.”

“I guess where the line is drawn, or where the outrage of comes from it’s just, — you look at the case, you look at, since things have been settled down, Louisville has abolished the “no-knock” warrant, where now you have to knock if you have a warrant instead of just breaking into somebody’s home — and it happened to be the wrong home with Brianna Taylor.”

“I understand the protocol in officers that they have to follow, but I think a lot of people’s problems is not just with the officers; it’s with the establishment, the higher-ups … the problem is not just with the officers, it’s with what they’re being told to do.”

“For someone to have their home broken into and it not necessarily be the right home … we understand what the protocol is, but I feel like the protocols need to change, things need to improve. We see improvements being made, but I feel like continuing to have people speak on these things and continue to talk about them is going to be important.

“So equality is demanded and Black Lives Matter — and Brianna Taylor is an example of a Black life who was taken because of how the system has been laid out. We’re going to continue to protest, and going to continue to feel some kind of way about it. It’s unfortunate but now I think these conversations need to continue to be had, for sure.”

“Thank you guys,” he finished.

A powerful message for a moment in history in need of them.

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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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Ex-Celtics head coach Doc Rivers shares moving John Lewis story

Former head coach of the Boston Celtics Doc Rivers shared a moving story of recently-passed Rep. John Lewis from his player days Saturday.

Former Boston Celtics head coach and current Los Angeles Clippers head coach Doc Rivers shared a story about recently-passed civil rights icon and Georgia Democratic Representative John Lewis while speaking with reporters during his post-practice media availability Saturday.

Back when he was still a player on the Atlanta Hawks roster, a younger Rivers went on a trip with former Mayor of Atlanta Andrew Young and Lewis for a speech Young planned to give at an all-white church in Georgia in support of his gubernatorial campaign.

“We flew to Albany, Georgia, of all places, and Andrew Young gave a speech … and he was fantastic. It was an absolutely amazing speech,” Rivers explained via USA Today’s Chris Bumbaca. “The crowd was going crazy. We get on the plane, and we’re talking, and Andrew Young turns to me and said — he used to call me ‘Young Doc’ — he says, ‘Young Doc, what did you think about the speech?'”

“And I jokingly said, ‘Well, Mr. Young, I thought the speech was great, but I don’t think you’re getting one vote from that church, and everybody started laughing,” the former Celtics coach related.

“John Lewis piped in and says, ‘Well, we’re not trying to get all of them, we’re just trying to get one at a time, and eventually it will be all of them.’ I thought that was just one powerful statement,” added Rivers.

Calling Lewis’ death a “really sad day in our country,” he noted that much of the fight of Lewis’ career was in many ways still ongoing, even if much progress had been during his life and because of his struggle.

“What’s amazing is when you think about right now, some of the stuff that John Lewis was fighting for, we’re still fighting for,” Rivers said.

“Voter suppression right now is at an all-time high. It’s amazing how hard — we have a group of people who are trying to get people not to vote. Latinos, Blacks and young people are the targets. That’s who they’re trying to get not to vote.”

“It’s amazing when you think about how long ago that was, and yet we’re still fighting that fight.”

Then again, as noted in the Lewis quote posted by current Celtics center Enes Kanter, “Freedom is the continuous action we all must take, and each generation must do its part to create an even more fair, more just society.”

Rest In Power, John Lewis.

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