Boston Celtics Hall of Fame center (and later player\/coach) Bill Russell was far more than a sports icon\u2014he was a civil rights legend who never hesitated to call out white supremacy and systemic racism in America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ditto for his Black teammates Sam Jones and K.C. Jones, as well as the Celtics brass that supported their Black players stances on civil rights\u2014instead of working to undermine those efforts during the final (and violent) years of Jim Crow segregation!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Earlier this morning, I read the following post on the \u201cBlack Men in Higher Education\u201d Facebook page and was so viscerally moved that I now share it with my Hobbservation Point<\/em> readers\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Enjoy!<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Oct. 17, 1961, the NBA champion Boston Celtics visited Lexington, Kentucky, to play an exhibition game against the St. Louis Hawks. The purpose of the matchup was to drum up interest in the NBA in a new market by showcasing former University of Kentucky stars Frank Ramsey of the Celtics and Cliff Hagan of the Hawks.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Soon after the Celtics arrived at the Phoenix Hotel in Lexington and checked into their rooms, Sam Jones and Tom \u201cSatch\u201d Sanders came downstairs for an early dinner. The two Black future Basketball Hall of Fame members asked for a table at the hotel\u2019s cafe, but Jones told the hostess turned them away at the door.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMa’am, we\u2019re staying at the hotel,\u201d Jones incredulously told the hostess.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m sorry but we don\u2019t serve Negroes,\u201d she responded.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Incensed and humiliated, Jones told Sanders that he was ready to pack his bags and fly home. They were on their way back upstairs when they ran into teammates Bill Russell and K.C. Jones getting off the elevator. Russell asked K.C. were on their way to eat. \u201cNot in this hotel,\u201d Sam Jones replied.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Boston Celtics were the first NBA team to draft a Black player and to do away with racial quotas,<\/strong> but playing for the league\u2019s most progressive franchise didn\u2019t make Jones and his teammates immune to racism. In fact, burglars once infamously broke into Russell\u2019s home in the Boston suburbs, smashed his trophies, defecated in his bed and spray-painted racial slurs on the walls.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n One night during that era, the Celtics arrived in St. Louis after 9 p.m. and found the dining room at their hotel had already closed for the night. Jones and Russell had to drive to a predominately Black part of town to eat because nearby restaurants wouldn\u2019t serve them.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n It was even worse when the Celtics showed up to their Charlotte hotel the night before a game in the late 1950s. The hotel manager told Celtics coach Red Auerbach that he would not provide rooms to the team\u2019s Black players, leaving them scrambling to find other accommodations.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cRed was flabbergasted,\u201d Sam Jones said. \u201cHe thought the league had taken care of it. That\u2019s when Russell turned to Red and told him, \u2018This is never going to happen again. If this ever happens again, we\u2019re not playing.\u2019 \u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Russell and his Black teammates followed through on that promise in 1961 when denied service in Lexington. They knocked on the door of Auerbach\u2019s hotel room and explained what happened downstairs at the cafe.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Auerbach called the hotel manager to demand an apology. The Celtics coach managed to secure permission for the players to eat in the cafe, but that was not enough to appease their anger.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCoach, I\u2019m not going to eat in this hotel,\u201d Jones told Auerbach. \u201cFirst of all, I\u2019ve been embarrassed. Second of all, even if we eat here, they\u2019re not going to let any other Blacks eat at this hotel. So I don\u2019t want to eat here. I want to go home.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Auerbach eventually acquiesced. Not only did he give Boston\u2019s Black players permission to fly home, he also personally drove them to the airport.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n A fifth Black player for the Celtics, rookie Al Butler, left with Russell, Sanders, K.C. Jones and Sam Jones. Two Black members of the Hawks, Woody Sauldsberry and Cleo Hill, also chose not to play in the exhibition game out of solidarity.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The white players on both teams remained in Lexington and played the game, something that Jones said he encouraged Auerbach to do out of respect for Ramsey and Hagan. The Hawks throttled the shorthanded Celtics, 128-103.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n By the time the Celtics\u2019 Black players arrived back in Boston, news of their protest had already spread. Jones recalls that a predominately white crowd had gathered on the tarmac to welcome them back.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere were people who wanted to take us out to dinner to make up for what happened,\u201d Jones said.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The next day, the Boston media picked up the story. Celtics owner Walter Brown promised that his team would never play another exhibition game in a Southern city where his Black players could be embarrassed. Russell told reporters, \u201cWe\u2019ve got to show our disapproval of this kind of treatment or else the status quo will prevail. We have the same rights and privileges as anyone else and deserve to be treated accordingly. I hope we never have to go through this abuse again.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Throughout his 13-year NBA career, Russell was a vocal advocate for social justice. He was part of the NBA\u2019s first all-Black starting five in 1964 and two years later became the league\u2019s first Black coach.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n In retirement, Russell remained an ally of activism. In 2017, he showed support for Colin Kaepernick by declaring on Twitter, \u201cProud to take a knee and stand tall against social injustice.\u201d The tweet featured an image of himself kneeling proudly, his presidential medal of freedom dangling from his neck.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n After a life well lived, the great Bill Russell died on July 31, 2022 at the age of 88; may he rest in peace alongside all of the sports icons of his era who used their platforms to fight for the rights of Black people in these United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lest we forget\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chuck Hobbs is a freelance journalist who won the 2010 Florida Bar Media Award and has been twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Boston Celtics Hall of Fame center (and later player\/coach) Bill Russell was far more than a sports icon\u2014he was a civil rights legend who never hesitated to call out white supremacy and systemic racism in America. Ditto for his Black teammates Sam Jones and K.C. Jones, as well as the Celtics brass that supported their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[743,742,274],"class_list":["post-1399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","tag-bill-russell","tag-boston-celtics","tag-civil-rights","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1399"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1400,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1399\/revisions\/1400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}