Source: @therealBillRussell—Twitter. Russell at the 1963 March on Washington.
in NBA history transpired before a 1961 exhibition game between the Boston Celtics and St. Louis Hawks in Lexington, KY. Russell led a player protest refusing to play the exhibition game after several Black players on the Boston Celtics were denied service at the Phoenix Hotel coffee shop, where the team was staying, in downtown Lexington. The three Black players on the Celtics convened in Russell’s hotel room to discuss what occurred and what they should do. According to Russell, after hearing what happened, he told his teammates, “I don’t think we ought to play.” He immediately called Eastern Airlines and asked for four plane tickets on the next flight from Lexington to anywhere. The Black players on both the Celtics and Hawks teams boycotted the game. Russell recalled, “I told [Celtics Head Coach] Red [Auerbach] we were leaving. I said it was because it was important to me that everybody, everywhere, knows that the Black players are deciding they’ll stand up for themselves.” When he returned to Boston from Lexington, Russell sternly informed the media, “I will not play any place again under those circumstances.” After white supremacists murdered civil rights leader Medgar Evers in
1963, Russell contacted the slain leader’s brother and asked what he could do to support the community. Charles Evers instructed Russell to “Get down here, and we’ll open one of the playgrounds, and we’ll have the first integrated bas- ketball camp in Mississippi.” Russell’s presence in Jackson, MS in support of the Evers family and African American community was not without peril as fears of more shootings and violence was prevalent. Russell conducted the basketball camp while potentially risking his life in weeks following the Evers as- sassination. Evers in 2011, “But because people like Bill were willing to come here and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with us, we knew we could change all of those silly laws. Standing side-by-side, he helped make all of the changes that have hap- pened.” Also, in 1963, Russell was a visible presence at the historic March on Wash- ington. While he declined to speak at the event, he was among the numerous dignitaries and leaders a few feet away from the podium where Rev. Dr. Mar- tin L. King, Jr. spoke. In 1966, Russell spoke to students in support of a one-day Black student boycott of Boston’s public schools to protest segregation while sup- porting the local NAACP’s efforts to end
public school segregation. In 1967, Russell and his longtime friend and contemporary Pro Football Hall of Famer Jim Brown organized the Summit where other prominent Black athletes gathered in Cleveland, OH, to meet and publicly support Heavy- weight Boxing Champion Muhammad Ali. Ali encountered intense backlash and public scorn over his refusal to be drafted for the Vietnam War. In ad- dition to Russell, other Kappa men at the iconic Summit supporting Ali were future Pro Football Hall of Famer Willie Davis (Gamma Psi 1955) of the NFL Green Bay Packers, Curtis R. McClin- ton, Jr. (Mu 1958) of the AFL Kansas City Chiefs, and Cleveland Mayor Carl Stokes (Alpha Omega 1950). Pro Football Hall of Famer the late Bobby Mitchell, who was a participant at the Cleveland Summit, “During the years that Bill was playing, he was one of the few Black athletes that those of us in the sport really truly looked up to. It was he stood for the type of things that we needed to stand up for. “
Former Georgetown University head basketball and former Celtic teammate the late John Thompson, “Bill Russell didn’t wait until he was safe to stand up for what was right. He represented things that were right while he had something to lose.” “I see Bill as one of the giants of the 20 th century with regard to sports and one of the formost leaders in terms of activism. He did not get a lot of publicity for it.” —Kareem Abdul Jabbar
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