• NBA.Why do you stand against racism?

In 2012 the Miami Heat posed for a photo with black hoods in tribute to Trayvon Martin , a teenager who was murdered because a vigilante found it suspicious to see a black man dressed like this at night. The scene marked the awakening of the NBA's social conscience, which had been asleep for 40 years.

In recent times, basketball has raised its voice against racism and police brutality. In the NBA, the players took from the league a commitment to donate 300 million in 10 years to initiatives in favor of the advancement of the black community. In the WNBA, Maya Moore, one of the greatest players in history, parked her career at the top to fight for the freedom of an innocent man. Many colleagues have given up going back this season to get involved in social causes.

This Wednesday, the two leagues went on strike for the first time in history in protest against the latest episodes of police violence and racism in the United States. It was not the first time they tried to pull something like this forward.

Separate hotels

During a tour of North Carolina in 1960, the Boston Celtics squad stayed separately in two hotels: one for black players and one for whites. It's not the worst thing that could happen: in deep America some team was received at the point of a shotgun in a hotel for wanting to host black players. The following year the Celtics visited Kentucky to honor teammate Frank Ramsey. When Sam Jones came downstairs for breakfast, he bumped into fellow African American KC Jones. "Don't even try. They don't serve black people."

As soon as Bill Russell found out, he picked up the phone and bought tickets back to Boston. Neither he nor any of his black companions were going to play the game. The protest was joined by a rival player, Cleo Hill. The game went ahead only with white players. Hill, selected that same summer in the first round of the draft by the St. Louis Hawks, suffered the emptiness of his teammates until he was out of the league.

The assassination of Martin Luther King

On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. left room 306 of the Lorraine Motel to have dinner with some friends. In the United States of segregation, the motel was a way station for blacks visiting Memphis. He had traveled there to support a garbage strike. "God has allowed me to climb to the top of the mountain and from there I have seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get there," he said the day before. On the second floor of the motel, a bullet went through his neck.

The following day the Boston Celtics and the Philadelphia 76ers were due to start the Eastern Finals. On the morning of the game, Red Auerbach called an emergency meeting to decide whether the team should play or not. Bill Russell, leader of a team that would win 11 rings in 13 seasons, was out of work.

Russell is one of the greatest activists in the history of sports. He was in the front row when King culminated the March on Washington with the celebrated 'I Have a Dream'. And he was black in a city that for that very reason, because he was black and because he did not shut up, was slow to embrace him. Even sportswriters disparagingly called him Felton X, playing with his middle name, Felton, and Malcolm X, then a radical leader. Shortly after moving to Reading, an overwhelmingly white affluent area, they vandalized his home, stuffed the walls with racist graffiti and defecated on his bed.

Russell had no desire to play, like none of his black teammates, but he agreed, fearing that the more than 10,000 fans would join the riots that had broken out across the country. When he called Wilt Chamberlain , the two agreed that it was the best decision, but the Sixers hadn't even had the option to vote, so after 20 minutes into the game, Chamberlain kicked everyone who wasn't a player out of the locker room and raised the question. The same vote that this Wednesday was lived in the NBA locker room. "Should we play?"

"It should not have been played, but that was the NBA. There was no consideration for Dr. King. For the United States he was almost like an enemy. But for us he was a savior", recalled in 'The Undefeated' Oscar Robertson , another of the most visible faces of a league where the stars, broken the glass ceiling, were already mostly black. Only when President Lyndon Johnson declared national mourning did the NBA postpone Game 2. Russell and Chamberlain were among those attending the funeral.

The End of 1991

On March 3, 1991 Rodney King was driving on the Los Angeles freeway speeding and exceeding the alcohol limit. King, who was on probation for robbery, tried to flee the police. When he got out of the car, four officers surrounded him and began to beat him up. For 15 minutes, King was kicked, punched, and beaten on the ground, while a dozen other officers watched, doing nothing. King suffered skull fractures, broken bones and teeth, and permanent brain damage.

Three months later Craig Hodges , a supporting player for the Chicago Bulls, proposed to Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson to boycott the first game of the NBA Finals between the Bulls and Lakers. Hodges wanted it to be a protest against police brutality, which had experienced a new episode with the attack on King in Los Angeles, and enormous economic inequality: in Illinois, 32% of the black population lived below the poverty line .

"You're crazy," Jordan cut in. "Fuck that's too extreme," Magic replied. "The situation of our people in this country is extreme," Hodges said, according to his autobiography now published in Spanish by Captain Swing, "Long Distance Shot." On that occasion, the boycott was no more than a strange idea. Hodges also maintains that the NBA vetoed him for his political positions, but it is fair to also remember that in his last year he was already a player on the bench.

The dry refusal to any protest was the daughter of a scene very different from the current one, when the athletes avoided 'getting wet' on certain issues so that it would not affect the pocket. It's a trend that started with OJ Simpson ("I'm not black. I'm OJ") and that reached the top in the NBA with Michael Jordan. That "Republicans buy sneakers too" thing was a joke, but it had a real undertone.

That is unimaginable in today's sport. Even Jordan himself has paved the way: in June, days after George Floyd's murder at the hands of the police, he pledged to donate $ 100 million over 10 years to different organizations to promote racial equality, social justice and the access to education.

That photo in tribute to Trayvon Martin rekindled the social conscience of the NBA, but a strike of this magnitude would never have been possible if in 2016 Colin Kaepernick had not knelt during the anthem. Without that gesture, which ended up costing him his sports career, the response of the NBA players is not conceivable, who with this strike put hundreds of millions at stake.

Nor without the irruption of Donald Trump , who has polarized and divided the United States as it had not been for half a century. Yes, Trump is an avowed enemy, but the problem transcends him (this is where you have to remember that when Kaepernick knelt, the president was still Barack Obama). It is systemic.

LeBron James is leading together a campaign against the suppression of the vote, a problem that affects minorities. The NBA allowed protests during the anthem, messages on jerseys and the floor, but the routine had diluted the effect. Players believe that from homeowners who are among the nation's largest fortunes, they can get more than money: political influence to combat injustice. That is why they took the step.

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