SMITH: “IT’S NOT REALLY MY COUNTRY”
“It’s Not Really My Country”:
Lew Alcindor and the
Revolt of the Black Athlete
JOHN MATTHEW SMITH†
Department of History
Purdue University
Historians who have written about the 1968 Olympic boycott movement have
neglected to examine how the University of California at Los Angeles’ Lew
Alcindor developed a political consciousness, treating him as a secondary figure
to the movement’s chief organizer Harry Edwards and sprinters Tommie Smith
and John Carlos. As the most dominant and publicized college athlete of the
time, Alcindor’s role legitimized the movement. He carried the torch of Civil
Rights activism passed down to him by Boston Celtics basketball center Bill
Russell, Cleveland Browns running back Jim Brown, and heavyweight boxing
champion Muhammad Ali. Before him, the United States had never witnessed
such a successful college athlete speak out against racism. His political activism
marked a shift in the “revolt of the black athlete,” from a select few professional
athletes into a movement defined by college athletes who followed Alcindor’s
example by using their growing influence to gain a measure of power for African
Americans.
†
Correspondence to smith600@purdue.edu. The author thanks Aram Goudsouzian, Eric Hall,
Michael Morrison, Randy Roberts, and the anonymous referees for their comments, questions, and
suggestions.
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“You don’t catch hell because you are a Baptist or a Methodist, you don’t catch
hell because you’re a Democrat or Republican, and you don’t catch hell because
you’re a Mason or an Elk, and you sure don’t catch hell because you’re an American; because if you were an American you wouldn’t catch hell. You catch hell
because you’re a black man.”
—MALCOLM X, NOVEMBER 19631
“We don’t catch hell because we’re Christian. We catch hell because we are
black.”
—LEW ALCINDOR, NOVEMBER 19672
A
like Lew Alcindor.3 Before the 1966 season began at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), he led
his fellow freshmen to a fifteen-point victory over the defending national champion varsity in an intrasquad game. The following year, the rail-thin 7’2” center scored fifty-six
points in his first varsity game. That season the Bruins won the national championship,
becoming only the fourth team in history to finish undefeated. Many observers considered him “the best college center in history.” Other commentators worried that Alcindor
might be too good. Coaches scratched their heads trying to conceive of a way to prevent
the seemingly unstoppable force from scoring. Some suggested raising the basket, while
others instructed their teams to hold the ball to prevent Alcindor from touching it. The
Saturday Evening Post wondered, “Can Basketball Survive Lew Alcindor?” The National
Basketball Committee answered the question by banning the dunk, to prevent the game’s
biggest star from ruining the game.4 He responded by perfecting a hook-shot, leading
UCLA to two more national championships and an astounding 88-2 record over the span
of his college career.
Alcindor not only captured America’s attention by what he did on the hardwood but
also by what he said off the court. When he refused to participate in the 1968 Mexico City
Olympics in protest against racism in America, critics called him unpatriotic, a national
disgrace, and an “uppity nigger.” Instead of practicing with the U.S. Olympic team, he
spent his summer in his hometown, New York City, working for Operation Sports Rescue, teaching urban youths the importance of education at basketball clinics. In July he
appeared on NBC’s Today show to promote the youth program. Joe Garagiola, a former
professional baseball player and moderator of the show, began the interview by asking
Alcindor why he refused to play in the Olympics. The reserved, soft-spoken basketball
star answered, “Yeah I live here, but it’s not really my country.” Garagiola suggested, “Well
then there’s only one solution, maybe you should move.” As the tension mounted, the
television station cut to a commercial break. Many viewers, like the Chicago Defender’s
A. S. “Doc” Young, wondered of Alcindor, “Where is YOUR country?”5
Alcindor never had the opportunity to explain on the air what his comments meant.
Why did Alcindor, considered the best college basketball player since Wilt Chamberlain,
with an assured financial future playing professional basketball, refuse to play in the Olympics and claim that he was not treated as an American? Historians who have written about
the Olympic boycott movement have treated Alcindor as a secondary figure compared to
MERICA HAD NEVER SEEN A COLLEGE BASKETBALL PLAYER
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the movement’s chief organizer and sociologist Harry Edwards and sprinters Tommie Smith
and John Carlos, whose Black Power salute on the victory stand become an enduring
image of the movement. These historians have neglected to examine how Alcindor developed a political consciousness. Few Americans knew Edwards, Smith, and Carlos before
the boycott movement, but as the most publicized college athlete of the time, Alcindor’s
role legitimized the movement. He used his celebrity status to articulate the intellectual
framework of a movement that many fans and sportswriters dismissed as unpatriotic and
nonsensical.6
In order to understand fully the meaning of Alcindor’s actions, his own life must be
viewed before 1967 in the context of African-American urban life and the impact of
Malcolm X on black youth. In the early 1960s, the Civil Rights movement raised black
expectations for racial equality but failed to deliver meaningful change. Many black urban
youths like Alcindor grew impatient and responded to Malcolm, who advocated strength,
racial pride, and self-determination, the core tenets of the Black Power movement. Furthermore, Alcindor’s defiant and outspoken attitudes reflected his identification with Boston Celtics center Bill Russell, Cleveland Browns running back Jim Brown, and heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali. Before the Olympic boycott movement, each
of these black professional athletes challenged racial discrimination beyond athletics.
Born a child of the Civil Rights movement, Lew Alcindor grew into a man of the
Black Power era. His life demonstrates historian Timothy Tyson’s argument that the Civil
Rights movement and the Black Power movement “grew out of the same soil, confronted
the same predicaments, and reflected the same quest for African American freedom.”7
The most successful and dominant college basketball player of his time, Alcindor carried
the torch of Civil Rights activism passed down to him by Russell, Brown, and Ali. Before
him, America had never witnessed such a successful college athlete speak out against racism. His political activism marked a turning point in “the revolt of the black athlete.”8
This revolt shifted from a select few professional athletes into a movement defined by
college athletes who followed Alcindor’s example by using their growing influence to gain
a measure of power for African Americans.
Seeds of Revolt
Lew Alcindor was born in Harlem in 1947, one day after Jackie Robinson broke
Major League Baseball’s color barrier in Brooklyn. Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor, Sr. and his
wife Cora raised their only child in the city-owned Dyckman Street housing projects in
the Inwood section of Manhattan, about a mile north of Harlem. An avid reader and a
Julliard-trained trombone player, Alcindor’s father, “Al,” instilled a love for books and jazz
in his son. Al spent his leisure time jamming with celebrated musicians, often taking Lew
to hear the smokin’ sounds of Art Blakey, Dizzy Gillespie, and Yusef Lateef (Bill Evans).
When he struggled to find a symphony orchestra willing to hire a black man, Al found
work as a New York Transit Authority police officer. At home, the Alcindors often gathered around the radio, listening to the Southern drawl of Red Barber as he delivered the
Brooklyn Dodgers’ play-by-play. Occasionally Al and Lew sat in the stands of Ebbets
Field, watching Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, and Joe Black, who along with their
white teammates physically challenged segregation on the field.9
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But it was during another trip with his father that Alcindor learned about the harsh
realities of racism. Sitting on the bus, heading down Broadway, the third-grader looked
up to his dad and asked him why they had to go to 125th Street in Harlem to get a haircut.
The elder Alcindor looked his son in the eye and said, “Lewis, No. 1 is that the white
barbers in the neighborhood might not cut our hair the way we want it, and No. 2 is that
they may not want to cut it at all.”10
Cora Alcindor knew Jim Crow all too well growing up in North Carolina. She impressed upon her son a sense of ambition and discipline, and she emphasized the importance of education. A proud and outspoken woman, she refused to accept second-class
citizenship. When a local grocery store manager requested that she check her bag at the
front counter, a policy that no other customers had been asked to follow, she told the man
loudly, “There’s nothing in this bag that you sell.” Unsatisfied, the manager tried to take
her bag, but she stormed right past him, grabbed her son’s hand, and marched out the
door. She always told Lew, “Don’t let anybody intimidate you.”11
Gradually Alcindor began to learn on his own what it meant to be black in a predominantly white Irish Catholic elementary school in Manhattan. Throughout his formative
years his best friend was white. That all changed in seventh grade when he noticed that
Johnny Harrison began excluding him. Whether he wanted to or not, Alcindor found
himself playing almost exclusively with his two black classmates. One day in the lunchroom cafeteria, he and his friends were playing around, pushing and shoving each other,
until one kid bumped into Harrison. He took offense, blamed Alcindor, and retaliated by
throwing a punch at him. They exchanged a few blows, landing them both in the principal’s
office. After the school bell rang, Harrison and his friends waited outside for Alcindor.
Harrison yelled at Alcindor, who simply ignored him. Raging over the silence, Harrison
snarled, “Hey, nigger! Hey, Jungle Bunny, you big jungle nigger.” Searching for the
proper insult, Alcindor retaliated, “Fuck you, you . . . milk bottle.” For Alcindor, there
were no words to heal the wounds inflicted by Harrison. He learned to live without his
white friend. Frustrated by such degradation, he became, in his words, “a loner.”12
Alcindor entered Power Memorial Academy, a private all-boys Catholic high school,
in 1961, the same year that the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) began the Freedom
Rides to desegregate interstate travel in the Deep South. At Power he played for head
basketball coach Jack Donohue, a thirty-year-old white Irish Catholic. When the Boston
Celtics were in town, the coach took his young player to Madison Square Garden to watch
star center Bill Russell. Alcindor’s parents trusted Donohue with their son’s future, directing all inquiring college recruitment letters to the coach. Occasionally Alcindor rode to
school with Donohue in his black Falcon sedan. They talked about school and their
upcoming games. They also talked about racism. Donohue told him that the word
“nigger . . . should never be used. There’s no excuse for it.”13
These discussions reflected Alcindor’s growing interest in the Civil Rights movement.
He followed the actions of the Freedom Riders, who risked their lives under the constant
threat of white violence. Television images of badly beaten activists inspired many Northerners, especially college students, to join the movement. The growing activism created a
“revolution in expectations” among African Americans and a “new sense of urgency” to
destroy racial inequality.14 In support of the Civil Rights movement, Alcindor carried a
CORE placard and pinned a Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
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button to his school uniform that read “Freedom Now.” In April of 1962, his mother sent
him to Goldsboro, North Carolina, about fifty miles outside of Raleigh, to attend the
graduation of one of her friend’s daughters. While the Freedom Riders continued their
fight, Alcindor too boarded a Greyhound bus, crammed his wiry seven-foot frame into an
aisle seat, and headed South. As the bus entered Washington, D.C., he saw Jim Crow
signs that read “Johnson’s White Grocery Store” and “Corley’s White Luncheonette.” For
the first time in his life Alcindor could not drink from the same water fountain, use the
same bathroom, or eat at the same lunch counter as whites. Startled by these strict segregation codes, he asked other African Americans, “Are you allowed to walk on the same side
of the street as white people?”15
In Alabama white supremacists did everything in their power to keep blacks and
whites from walking on the same sidewalks. In Birmingham, on September 15, 1963,
four young girls dressed in their Sunday best finished a Bible class on “The Love that
Forgives” at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. The church had served as a meeting
house for Civil Rights workers and consequently became a target of violence. Moments
after their Sunday school class ended, dynamite planted by the Ku Klux Klan exploded in
the basement, killing all four children. After attending mass with his mother, Alcindor
heard the tragic news. His faith shaken, he wanted to hurt somebody. He later wrote in
his autobiography “that nobody cared about black people except black people. . . . We
were alone in a world more hostile than I had been led to believe. . . . God certainly wasn’t
stepping in; they just bombed His house!”16
Birmingham inspired militant action among African Americans. Black Americans
were tired of beatings, bombings, and bloodshed. They were getting angrier, and Malcolm X
was “the angriest.” In his fiery “Ballot or the Bullet” speech, the mesmerizing orator called
for armed self-defense. He told his audience that he did not consider himself an American. Malcolm did not “see any American dream” for black people, he saw “an American
nightmare.” In the chorus of future Black Power advocates, he explicated that Black
Nationalism meant “Give it to us now. Don’t wait for next year. Give it to us yesterday,
and that’s not fast enough.” When Malcolm X encouraged black unity and self-determination, “he foreshadowed later, more fully developed and institutionalized Black Power
sentiment.”17
Against the backdrop of increasing racial violence and black militancy, prominent
black athletes began to speak out against racism. By the early 1960s Bill Russell was
considered not only “the greatest center to ever play the game” but also the most outspoken black athlete in the country at a time when black athletes remained, as a group,
voiceless on civil rights. Increasingly, sportswriters described the Boston Celtics star as
angry, aloof, and militant but “well worth listening to because he is an articulate man.”
Unafraid to speak his mind, Russell represented a more assertive black athlete. In an
interview with the Saturday Evening Post, he emphasized the importance of confrontation
in the black freedom struggle. He said, “We have got to make the white population
uncomfortable and keep it uncomfortable because that is the only way to get their attention.”18 After reading the article, Alcindor gained a new respect for him especially because
he talked about racism outside of sports. Russell offered Alcindor a model for a more
militant and expressive black athlete who defined himself beyond the court.19
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In 1964, two of the most recognized black athletes in America joined Russell as controversial sports figures—Cleveland Browns’ all-star running back Jim Brown, and newly
crowned heavyweight boxing champion Cassius Clay. When Brown published his autobiography, Off My Chest (1964), he made it clear that he agreed with much of what Russell
had said. Brown asserted, “I do not crave the white man’s approval. I crave only the rights
I’m entitled to as a human being.”20 Brown also believed that black athletes could help
African Americans reach their economic goals better than most Civil Rights organizations. With the assistance of star black athletes, like Brown’s teammate John Wooten and
Bill Russell, Brown established the Negro Industrial and Economic Union (NIEU) to help
African Americans start their own businesses.21 Brown’s grassroots organization reflected
the importance of self-help and racial unity, essential components of the Black Power
movement.
On February 25, 1964, Cassius Clay, a new friend of Jim Brown and a disciple of
Malcolm X, defeated Sonny Liston for the heavyweight championship.22 A day after the
fight, when reporters asked him about his relationship with Malcolm X and the Nation of
Islam, he defiantly proclaimed, “I don’t have to be what you want me to be. I’m free to be
who I want.” In the weeks to come Clay made it clear that he was not a “negro,” but that
he was black, a Muslim, a separatist, and would go by the name Cassius X. Many whites
abhorred and feared the champ’s membership in a group that advocated racial separatism,
rejected Christianity, and celebrated blackness. When Clay later accepted the name
Muhammad Ali, given to him by Black Muslim leader Elijah Muhammad, the press almost unanimously refused to use it.23 The champion’s statement encapsulated the ideology of the revolt of the black athlete. In Ali’s mind, black athletes did not have to be
passive, deferential, conforming, or Christian, for that matter. Yet these values were not
accepted by most whites who viewed the brash and outspoken fighter as a threat to the
sport and to America. Ali, Brown, and Russell refused to accept second-class citizenship
no matter how successful they were as athletes. Alcindor, like these three pioneers, would
later pay a steep price for speaking out.
As Ali, Brown, and Russell defied the racial order of American sports, Alcindor learned
that racism could hit when he least expected it. The most publicized high school player in
the country faced unprecedented expectations in his junior year. In early 1964, Power
Memorial entered a game against a weak St. Helena’s of the Bronx team with a forty-six
game winning streak on the line. Leading by only six points at halftime, Jack Donohue
tore into his team for their poor performance. According to Alcindor, his coach pointed at
him and ranted, “And you! You go out there and you don’t hustle. You don’t move. You
don’t do any of the things you’re supposed to do. You’re acting just like a nigger!” Stunned,
he did not hear another word out of Donohue’s mouth. All he “could think of was how
the instant you do something wrong in front of the white race you’re not only a misdoer,
but you’re a nigger too. They hold that word back until you slip up, and then they lay it on
you like a crowbar.” For a moment Alcindor debated whether or not he should return to
the court or go home to tell his parents. Ultimately, he decided against the advice of his
two black teammates and played. After the game Donohue called the star center into his
office and said, “See? It worked! My strategy worked. I knew if I used that word it’d shock
you into a good second half and it did.” Donohue’s animalistic view of Alcindor reflected
the racial stereotype that black athletes’ aggression could be provoked.24 When his former
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player publicized this incident in Sports Illustrated in 1969, Donohue denied his racist
diatribe, suggesting, Alcindor’s “memory may be at fault or maybe he misunderstood what
I said.”25 In the end, Power Memorial won the game, but Alcindor lost his trust in his
coach.
When the school year ended Alcindor could not wait to escape to Harlem. In the
summer of 1964 he worked in the heart of Harlem at HARYOU-ACT, a youth education
program that called for social action from within the black community to solve neighborhood problems.26 Similar to other Black Power community organizations, HARYOUACT emphasized that “underprivileged peoples must somehow be taught to define and
solve for themselves their most oppressive problems” and that young people “must seek
out their own leadership” to bring meaningful change within their communities.27 In this
way, HARYOU-ACT emphasized Black Power pluralism, where African Americans focused on “community control.” Pluralists “hoped to generate Black Power within the
economic, educational, and political institutions of their communities.”28
For Alcindor, HARYOU-ACT fostered political, cultural, and social awareness. Writing
for the organization’s newspaper, he researched at the Schomburg Center for Research in
Black Culture. The Schomburg Center introduced him to history that he had not learned
at Power Memorial. Historian John Henrik Clarke encouraged him to learn about African-American history, the Harlem Renaissance, Black Nationalist Marcus Garvey, and
scholar-activist W.E.B. DuBois. He poured over the works of great black writers like
Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston, and Ralph Ellison. He read the
Nation of Islam’s newspaper, Muhammad Speaks. Page after page, Alcindor discovered a
whole new world, a world where black people had a history and a culture that filled him
with racial pride.29
Outside the Schomburg Center, the busy streets of Harlem hummed with energy.
People were “Dancing in the Street” to Martha and the Vandellas’ new hit song. Merchants encouraged shoppers to “buy black.” African Americans lined up outside the Apollo
Theatre to hear their favorite soul artists. On the West Side black men tested their basketball skills on the asphalt courts known as “The Battlegrounds.”30
On busy street corners Black Nationalists stood on step-ladders preaching that “the
devil is the white man.” Methodists, Baptists, Episcopalians, and Catholics congregated
in “storefront churches.” CORE activists protested discriminatory hiring practices by
white-owned businesses, segregated housing, and poorly funded schools. Harlem was the
center of New York’s black culture and black activism.31
Beneath Harlem’s diverse political culture, racial tensions simmered to a boil. On
July 16, 1964, a white off-duty policeman shot and killed a fifteen-year-old African American. Conflicting reports grayed a story that many saw in black and white. Lieutenant
Thomas Gilligan claimed that James Powell charged at him with a knife; other witnesses
said Powell was unarmed. At a rally two nights later, CORE set up an old blue kitchen
chair and a miniature American flag at the intersection of 125th Street and Seventh Avenue. One after another, angry speakers climbed the chair and vented before an audience
of black citizens and white police officers: “James Powell was killed because he was black.
. . . It is time to let The Man know that if he does something to us, we are going to do
something back.” Later, over 200 people marched to the 123rd Street police station where
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they demanded Gilligan’s arrest for murder. When the police tried to turn the crowd away,
the demonstrators sang the Civil Rights anthem, “We Shall Not Be Moved.”32
Almost immediately Harlem turned into a war zone. When the police attempted to
barricade the station, a scuffle broke out between officers and protestors. Bottles began to
fly down at helmeted police officers from tenement rooftops. Policemen charged back,
taking over Harlem like it was enemy territory. Some of the demonstrators were arrested,
others ordered to disburse. In a matter of minutes, violence spread like wildfire throughout Harlem. Rioters pelted police with rocks, bricks, and garbage can lids, others hurled
Molotov cocktails through store windows, looters grabbed radios, jewelry, and food. Police fought back with bullets and blood-soaked billy clubs. When twenty-four-year-old
Melvin Drummond emerged from the subway, police immediately clubbed him, handcuffed him, and clubbed him again. When seventeen-year-old Lew Alcindor stepped off
the subway he could smell the smoke from the burning buildings. Bullets flew past his
head. Men, women, and children cried for their lives. Fearing for his own life, Alcindor
ran home to safety. For six days Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant burned. When the fire
finally burned out and the smoke cleared, the riots left one dead, 141 seriously injured,
519 arrested, and thousands of dollars in damage. None of these statistics measure the
psychological damage on the people of Harlem.33
In the aftermath of the riot Alcindor interviewed local residents who survived the
wreckage. Listening to their stories, he identified with their suffering and frustration; he
felt their pain and powerlessness. When Martin Luther King, Jr. visited Harlem to talk
with local Civil Rights leaders, the aspiring journalist covered the press conference for the
HARYOU-ACT newspaper, listening to King advocate non-violence.34 But King’s strategy had little appeal for Alcindor and other young black activists who began to examine
critically the direction of the Civil Rights movement. For Alcindor, urban rebellion inspired his radicalization. It encouraged him to question nonviolence and embrace a more
militant position. His experiences in Harlem fueled his rage and identification with Black
Power. He wrote, “I decided that in my personification of Black Power and black pride, I
was no longer going to pussyfoot around the whites. I was going to speak my mind.”35
As Alcindor developed his political identity, questions remained about where he would
play college basketball. After leading Power Memorial to three consecutive Catholic City
championships and a seventy-one-game winning streak, the press gave what seemed like
hourly updates on where he might go to school. “His high school press clippings,” the Los
Angeles Times John Hall wrote, “make Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell look like YMCA
players.” On May 4, 1965, before hundreds of reporters, photographers, television crews,
radio broadcasters, and his classmates, the high school celebrity announced that he would
play for the two-time defending national champion UCLA Bruins.36 At UCLA Alcindor
followed the footprints of great black athletes, including Ralphe Bunche, Jackie Robinson,
and Rafer Johnson. Bunche, a United Nations diplomat, had written to the rising star
that “UCLA has an exceptionally fine record with regard to thorough and relaxed integration.”37 Johnson, a gold medal decathlete in the 1960 Olympics, was voted student body
president his senior year. To Alcindor, Johnson’s experience proved “that UCLA was a
place where a young black man could succeed not only on the court, but off it as well.”38
With the cameras watching, the world wondered what the basketball prodigy would do
next.
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More Than a Basketball Player
When the 1965-1966 college basketball season began, no one would have predicted
that a small college in El Paso, Texas, would interrupt UCLA’s run at three straight national championships. Many observers figured that the only thing that might hold UCLA
back was a rule that prevented freshmen from playing at the varsity level. Basketball fans
would have to wait another year to watch Alcindor play. The UCLA basketball team
watched the championship game from home, while Texas Western broke the ultimate
college basketball color barrier by starting an unprecedented five black athletes against allwhite Kentucky. At Maryland’s Cole Field House, a sea of white faces surrounded Texas
Western’s players. Many fans waved Confederate flags and shouted racial epithets, but
Texas Western refused to let their surroundings intimidate them. On Texas Western’s
second possession, David “Big Daddy” Lattin, a powerful 6’6” 240-pound center, slammed
the ball over the outstretched arms of Kentucky’s Pat Riley. Riley later said, “It was a
violent game. I don’t mean there were any fights—but they were desperate and they were
committed and they were more motivated than we were.” Throughout the game, whenever Lattin dunked over a white player, it symbolized the great fear of white supremacists:
actualized black male superiority. Texas Western’s victory signaled a new era of basketball—a game dominated by African Americans.39
By the time Alcindor’s first varsity season arrived, sportswriters could not wait to
interview him. The previous year Athletic Director J.D. Morgan informed the media that
UCLA did not allow freshmen to speak to the press. Still, the athletic department received
over one hundred requests to interview Alcindor. After he scored fifty-six points in his
first varsity game against University of Southern California, national magazines ran feature stories on the college basketball superstar. Writers consistently described him as an
aloof and detached loner who valued his privacy. Readers learned that Alcindor spent his
time off the court in his Santa Monica apartment listening to the records of John Coltrane,
Miles Davis, and Thelonius Monk. He studied the Koran, The Autobiography of Malcolm
X (1965), and Malcolm X Speaks (1965). Newsweek compared him to Bill Russell, Jim
Brown, and Muhammad Ali. Assistant Coach Jay Carty viewed Alcindor differently, suggesting, “He’s too intelligent to be manipulated as Ali has been. He won’t get involved in
a radical movement or go into withdrawal.” Carty’s comment reflected the larger sports
culture that rejected the infusion of racial politics into sports.40
During the late 1960s the UCLA campus witnessed increased student activism. College youths debated the Vietnam War, Black Power, and drug laws. On February 21,
1967, two years after the assassination of Malcolm X, about thirty students held a vigil on
the “Bruin Walk” in remembrance of the slain leader. Three students wearing black arm
bands stood out: Alcindor and his black teammates Lucius Allen and Mike Warren.41
After his death, Malcolm X became more than a martyr; as historian William Van Deburg
argues, “He became a Black Power paradigm—the archetype, the reference point, and
spiritual advisor in absentia for a generation of Afro-American activists.” Malcolm encouraged young blacks “to question the validity of their schoolbook-and-media inspired
faith in an integrated American Dream.”42 His message resonated with Alcindor, who
delivered a lecture on “The Myth of America as a Melting Pot” in his sociology class. He
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exposed the façade of America’s cultural homogeneity and emphasized the importance of
celebrating racial differences in a positive way.43 He later wrote of Malcolm, “I knew he
was talking about black pride, about self-help and lifting ourselves up. He was talking
about real people doing real things. I grabbed on to it. And I have never looked back.”44
Alcindor’s participation in the Malcolm X vigil revealed his growing identification with
the Black Power movement. He no longer viewed himself simply as a basketball player.
On UCLA’s campus Alcindor often found himself the target of racial ignorance. On
a predominantly white campus with a scarce black population, many white students could
not identify with their black classmates. He recalled that while walking through campus,
one white student asked his friend, “Hey, is that Lew Alcindor?” The friend replied,
“Yeah, that’s him. He’s nothing but a big——.” One woman pointed and shouted at
him, “Look at that big black freak!” When he dated a white woman, racists labeled her a
“nigger lover.” Black athletes and black students had a difficult time finding off-campus
housing. When the school newspaper, the Daily Bruin, investigated, one Westwood landlady told a reporter, “I never rent to Negroes because they have oil on their skin that gets
into the walls and never, never comes out.” In this environment Alcindor told a reporter,
“The South is in Montgomery, Alabama. But the South is also in Cicero, Illinois. The
South is in Great Neck, Long Island. The South is in Orange County, California. It’s
everywhere.” Angry at the constant reminders of racial injustice, he made no more attempts to integrate himself on a white campus. He found himself “consumed and obsessed by” his “interest in the black man, in Black Power, black pride, black courage.”45
Alcindor began searching for new ways to express his political convictions.
His success as a basketball player did not prevent him from feeling that he was a target
of discrimination on the court. In his first varsity season the UCLA Bruins finished with
a perfect record, including an easy 79-64 victory over Dayton in the championship. Alcindor
frightened opponents and thrilled the crowd with his powerful reverse slam dunks. Coaches
were awestruck at the sight of a man over seven-feet tall who could take off just under the
free-throw line and dunk with one hand. UCLA coach John Wooden commented, “If
you can possibly get him the ball under the basket, it’s almost impossible to legally prevent
him from scoring. Sometimes he even frightens me.”46 Three days after UCLA won the
national championship, the all-white members of the NCAA rules committee banned the
dunk shot, a decision that everyone associated with the game understood as “The Lew
Alcindor Rule.” The star basketball player claimed that the rule “smacks a little of discrimination. When you look at it . . . most of the people who dunk are black athletes.”47
As black players became increasingly visible on successful teams during the 1960s,
dunking became largely a black phenomenon. Dunking, according to social critic Nelson
George, “establishes a player’s physical mastery of an opponent.” Davis W. Houck, professor of communication, suggests, “There’s more to dunking a basketball than the physical
act and the corresponding two points. Dunking is far more a symbolic and rhetorical act,
one that implies a complex cultural politics . . . dunking implicates matters of violence.”
Therefore, when black athletes like Alcindor, Houston’s Elvin Hayes, and Texas Western’s
David “Big Daddy” Lattin dunked on white players, it threatened whites’ sense of security
and place within the game. Dunking was perceived as showboating, an individual act in a
game that had historically discouraged individualism. Kentucky coach Adolph Rupp said,
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Alcindor led the Bruins to a perfect record in his first varsity season. COURTESY OF THE SPORTS
INFORMATION OFFICE, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES.
“I’m glad to see [the rules committee] do something about it. It doesn’t belong in basketball.” Willie Worsley, who played for Texas Western’s 1966 team, commented, “I think
along about the time we won, they were seeing that people of color were dunking, jumping higher, and running faster. They were thinking, ‘That’s not how the game’s played.
Let’s see if these “athletes” can shoot.’” Alcindor agreed with Worsely’s assessment: “there
was no good reason to give it up except that this and other niggers were running away with
the sport.”48
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But the dunk ban could not stop Alcindor from dominating the game. In fact, the
ban only made him better. Historically, African Americans have adapted to conditions of
racism and oppression. Consistent with this tradition, Alcindor adapted to the restrictive
forces of the new rule. He developed a soft touch near the basket and cultivated an array
of shots, including his indefensible “skyhook.” The skyhook became his new weapon.
The shot reflected his artistic creativity. Time and time again, Alcindor cupped the ball in
his hand the way ordinary men hold a baseball, extended his arm toward the sky, quickly
pivoted toward the basket, and then gracefully flipped the ball over the outstretched arms
of any player who tried to guard him. There was no rule to stop the skyhook.
Banned from dunking, Alcindor developed the “skyhook.” COURTESY OF
THE SPORTS INFORMATION
234
OFFICE, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES.
Volume 36, Number 2
SMITH: “IT’S NOT REALLY MY COUNTRY”
Lew Alcindor (right) met with
Muhammad Ali and Bill Russell (left)
to discuss their views on racism, photographed June 6, 1967. © BETTMANN/
CORBIS.
Olympic Boycott
Nearly one month after the NCAA banned the dunk, Muhammad Ali refused to
enter the United States military at the Houston induction center. The heavyweight
champion’s reclassification from 1-Y (not qualified for draft) to 1-A (available for draft)
ignited a national debate over whether or not Ali should serve in the Vietnam War. When
Ali learned that he was eligible to serve in the military, reporters hounded the champ,
hurling questions at him, until finally he fired back, “Man, I ain’t got no quarrel with them
Vietcong.” It may have been the most provocative anti-war statement of the period. To
most white writers, Ali was unpatriotic, un-American, and a draft dodger. The quotation
gave people another reason to dislike him. Sportswriter Red Smith condemned him,
“Cassius makes himself as sorry a spectacle as those unwashed punks who picket and
demonstrate against the war.” Journalist Jimmy Cannon lamented, “I pity Clay and abhor what he represents.”49 In the infancy of the anti-war movement, Ali’s war denunciation cost him dearly.
When the New York State Athletic Commission suspended Ali’s license and title for
refusing induction, black athletes rallied behind him. On June 4, 1967, Ali met a group of
black athletes at Jim Brown’s NIEU headquarters in Cleveland. When the ten well-dressed
athletes, including Brown, Bill Russell, and Alcindor, joined Ali at a table in front of the
press, many expected to hear that they had asked the conscientious objector to reconsider
his draft position and enter the army. Those rumors proved false. In the end the press
conference was anticlimactic. Brown revealed, “We just wanted to get the facts on the
matters involved in [Ali’s] situation. He convinced us he was sincere in his religious belief.”50 Brown believed that the support of famous athletes would show the press and the
public that Ali was “backed by more than just the Muslims.” The Michigan Chronicle
stated that the meeting proved that “prominent Negroes in sports are concerned with their
not so fortunate brothers.” It also demonstrated “a growing unity among the outstanding
figures of the black athletic world.”51
The conference carried a meaning greater than the athletes’ statement. It was the first
time that black athletes unified across various sports to rally behind a single cause. Significantly, because the most successful, powerful, and outspoken black athletes of the time
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supported Ali, the press had to listen to what they had to say. Alcindor later revealed the
importance of the meeting in his own life:
I remember being very flattered and proud to be invited to the meeting, because these were professional athletes and I was just in college. And I was one
hundred percent behind Muhammad’s protesting what I thought was an unjust
war. Jim Brown took the lead in the discussion. . . . He told us that our stature
as heroes in the black community could help gather support for Ali. . . . [Ali]
gave so many people courage to test the system. . . . He was, and is, one of my
heroes.52
Although he may have been the only college athlete at the meeting, Alcindor’s presence
reflected his growing identification with politically-conscious black professional athletes.
In Cleveland, Alcindor learned that as a prominent college athlete he shared a responsibility with Brown, Russell, Ali, and others to speak out.
In the summer of 1967, Alcindor returned to Harlem, where he worked for Brown’s
NIEU and the New York City Housing Authority as a youth mentor. He conducted
basketball clinics with the New York Knickerbockers’ Emmette Bryant, Freddie Crawford,
and other athletes. The clinics gave inner city youths an opportunity to learn basketball
fundamentals from their hometown hero. The playgrounds became classrooms where
Alcindor stressed education as the key to empowerment. He also emphasized racial pride.
Sporting a “natural” Afro, he told a group of black youngsters, in the rhetoric of Muhammad
Ali, that “Black is beautiful, don’t ever forget that.” Working at the grassroots, Alcindor
had “become a Daddy Grace, A Father Divine, and a Malcolm X,” sportswriter Howie
Evans wrote.53 In search of affirmation of his own racial identity, he returned to the place
where his own racial consciousness began. Working with urban youth allowed him to
convey the basic themes of Black Power—black pride and black self-determination—to
young people searching to find meaning in their own lives.54
Alcindor’s activism took on a more militant attitude in the fall of 1967, when he
attended the Los Angeles Black Youth Conference at the Second Baptist Church. San Jose
State College sociology instructor Harry Edwards invited a group of black athletes to
attend a workshop, the Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR), to discuss the possibility of boycotting the 1968 Mexico City Olympic games.55 During the Thanksgiving
workshop Edwards made a case for a boycott. Afterwards, a number of athletes voiced
their own views. Standing in front of a packed Sunday school room Alcindor delivered,
what Edwards called, “perhaps the most moving and dynamic statements in behalf of the
boycott.” The UCLA star stood up and said:
Everybody knows me. I’m the big basketball star, the weekend hero, everybody’s
All-American. Well, last summer I was almost killed by a racist cop shooting at
a black cat in Harlem. He was shooting on the street—where masses of black
people were standing around or just talking a walk. But he didn’t care. After all
we were just a bunch of niggers. I found out last summer we don’t catch hell
because we aren’t basketball stars or because we don’t have money. We catch
hell because we are black. Somewhere each of us has got to take a stand against
this kind of thing. This is how I make my stand—using what I have. And I
take my stand here.
His moving speech elicited a five-minute standing ovation from the two hundredperson audience.56 Outside the church, a violent confrontation broke out between the
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Black Power organization “US” and a group of the American Communist Party, forcing
Edwards to take a roll call vote instead of a private one. Although it is unclear how
individual athletes responded to his statement, Alcindor’s stance signified an important
shift in the revolt of the black athlete. Before the OPHR, only a select few professional
athletes spoke out about racial discrimination. But, Alcindor made it clear that as the
most dominant, publicized black college basketball player he would use his celebrity status
to facilitate change within the black freedom struggle, and he encouraged others to do the
same.57
When Harry Edwards emerged from the church he claimed that the “50 or 60” black
athletes in attendance “voted unanimously” to boycott the 1968 Olympic games. He told
the press that black athletes had the power to facilitate change within the Civil Rights
movement: “This is a significant stand because I know of no other group of people who
can make our feelings known. I hope the country can see what these black athletes have
done.” When sportswriters asked San Jose State sprinter Tommie Smith about Edwards’
boycott announcement, he said, “Harry has taken it upon himself to make a statement.
He was not authorized to do so. No, I won’t verify it. I’m giving no statement.” Sports
Illustrated’s Jonathan Rodgers, an African-American reporter who was allowed to witness
the proceedings, wrote that Alcindor did vote in favor of the boycott. But, when Alcindor
left the meeting he refused to comment on his position.58
The next day, UCLA’s athletic department telephones rang non-stop. The media
demanded to know if the best college basketball player in the country would boycott the
Olympics. After practice he met with the press to discuss his position. He told reporters
that the boycott resolution did not bind him personally. His account of the Black Youth
Conference differed from Edwards’ version. Alcindor said, “I can’t comment on what Mr.
Edwards said. All I can say is that everybody agreed that it would be a good idea to
boycott. That does not speak for any one person. Actually there is no boycott as of now.
There can be no boycott until it’s time for anybody to boycott.” While most white coaches
resisted black athletes’ political activism, John Wooden allowed his star player to express
his political convictions. He said, “I don’t want to get involved with the way a boy feels
about society—whether he is black, yellow, or white. The way a boy feels about these
things is his own business.” Alcindor’s teammate Mike Warren also denied attending the
meeting, even though Edwards claimed that he participated. Alcindor explained that he
had not made a final decision. He added that if he did play he would miss a quarter of
school and lose his eligibility for UCLA’s first nine games, and he would not graduate on
time, which was true. Most importantly, he justified his own activism. Black athletes were
“looking out for the best interests of black people as a whole,” he said. “If you live in a
racist society, you have to react—and this is my way of reacting.”59
Sportswriters seemed unsatisfied with Alcindor’s answers. They pressed him further.
One reporter asked the twenty-year-old what he would do to solve America’s “racial problem.” Frustrated, Alcindor threw a question right back: “Look, man, why do you ask me
these questions? I am a basketball player. I am not a sociologist. I am not a politician.
And I am not a political scientist.” He asserted, “I’m not someone who’s supposed to
change the world.”60 Yet Alcindor had directly challenged the apolitical black college
athlete standing alongside Ali, Brown, and Russell in Cleveland. By joining their cause,
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Alcindor, unlike other lesser known college athletes, was transformed into the leading
symbol of the college revolt. He had become an activist, standing alongside black students
in memory of his hero Malcolm X and working with underprivileged Harlem youth.
When the NCAA banned the dunk shot, he called it discriminatory. He had dared to say
that racists resided in Los Angeles, California, just like in Montgomery, Alabama. For
most white sportswriters who believed that sports were free of racism, Alcindor’s views
were unacceptable. Consequently, the UCLA star carried a great burden to answer the
questions of the media who demanded more of him than points scored and games won.
Immediately after the OPHR meeting Alcindor, Tommie Smith, Harry Edwards, and
other black athletes came under attack for the boycott proposal. Bigots postmarked hate
letters to Alcindor. Critics called him a traitor and unpatriotic. Angry alumni chastised
UCLA for not throwing him out of school. When Alcindor visited opposing schools,
basketball fans spewed racial epithets at him.61 Edwards’ detractors accused Edwards of
manipulating amateur athletes. New York Times columnist Arthur Daley claimed that
Alcindor and Smith were “victimized by those who would use them to promote a boycott
that has no chance of serving its purpose.” Edwards denied the accusation, “I think that
charge is sheer idiocy. How can you manipulate anybody like Lew Alcindor?” Even John
Wooden believed it was “outside influences trying to use Negro athletes.”62 The suggestion that these black athletes were “manipulated” revealed that many whites circumscribed
them only to those roles that fit traditional athletic performance, not Civil Rights activism.
Most whites viewed the boycott as an illogical form of activism. Life’s editors wondered, “What can [black athletes] gain by boycotting the Olympics, which have been
notably free of racial discrimination?”63 Many columnists cited integrated professional
sports and the high salaries of a select few black stars as evidence that black athletes had
“been given equal treatment and equal opportunity to succeed in the field of sports.”64
Political commentator Bob Considine wrote that black athletes were “stupid” for believing a boycott could create any meaningful social change.65 Melvin Durslag of the Los
Angeles Herald Examiner denounced the boycott proposal by “the black nationalist group.”
He wrote that “sports is an area in which discrimination is least prevalent, it is almost
amusing that black racists would choose this field as their showcase.”66 In Durslag’s view,
Alcindor and other black athletes had become racial separatists for associating with
Muhammad Ali and considering a boycott. Such criticism demonstrated whites’ discomfort with black athletes who refused to accept athletic integration as an end in itself toward
racial equality.
Although the majority of mainstream media denounced the boycott, those involved
with the OPHR did find a few supporters. Robert Lipsyte, a white sportswriter for the
New York Times, reminded readers that the athletes involved in the boycott were all college
students, and on many campuses it was expected for them to be politically active. He also
pointed out that for many black athletes competing in the Olympics “might seem hypocritical to those who believe that this country has offered black Americans only ‘tricks and
tokenism’; civil rights legislation that doesn’t work, an antipoverty war that doesn’t help
the poor, political oppression and police-state tactics on the street.” Few sportswriters
recognized, as Lipsyte did, that sports could not be divorced from racial politics.67
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Although hardly any whites sympathized with the boycott movement, African Americans remained divided on the issue. A.S. “Doc” Young, an African-American sports columnist for the Chicago Defender, described the boycott as “strictly at odds with the goals of
the race in a manner that insults all the great contributors to the struggling ideal of American equality, colored and white alike.” Young agreed with sprinter Charlie Greene, who
said, “It comes down to a matter of if you’re an American or if you’re not. I’m an American, and I’m going to run.”68 Jesse Owens, a hero of the 1936 Olympics, deplored the
boycott movement. “There is no place in the athletic world for politics,” he declared.
UCLA’s Black Student Union advocated for the Olympic boycott. Martin Luther King,
Jr., activist turned author Louis Lomax, and CORE director Floyd McKissick endorsed
the OPHR’s various demands, including the restoration of Muhammad Ali’s boxing license and title. Jackie Robinson thought a boycott would accomplish little, but he admired the “youngsters.” He commented, “I feel we’ve got to use whatever means, except
violence, we can to get our rights in this country.” Robinson’s perspective reflected the
complex attitudes among African Americans toward an Olympic boycott.69
Most importantly, black college athletes followed the lead of the OPHR, organizing,
protesting, and boycotting on college campuses. Influenced by the Black Power movement and student rebellion, black athletes protested racial inequality at more than three
dozen predominantly white universities and colleges. Throughout the late 1960s, black
college athletes demanded various athletic and academic reforms including more black
coaches, black academic counselors and faculty, black athletic trainers, and black cheerleaders. African-American athletes also complained that they were often forced to take
classes that kept them eligible but did not necessarily help them reach graduation requirements. In most cases, black athletes withheld their athletic services as a bargaining chip to
negotiate substantial change.70 In a very real sense these athletes risked their athletic
scholarships, and, in some cases, future professional careers by joining the revolt. These
athletes, like Alcindor, realized that their athletic status empowered them as Black Power
activists, and in turn, transformed the movement into one defined by college athletes.
While black college athletes discovered their political identity, in late February of
1968 Alcindor and his two black teammates, Mike Warren and Lucius Allen, officially
decided not to play in the Olympics. UCLA athletic director J.D. Morgan called their
decisions “purely academic.” Los Angeles Times sports editor Paul Zimmerman viewed the
choice suspiciously, suggesting Alcindor’s decision was “probably based on a desire to get
at the big package of pro basketball money that awaits him as quickly as possible.” To
Zimmerman, it was impossible for a black athlete like Alcindor to have genuine academic
goals unless they were attached to financial incentives. William Gildea of the Washington
Post commented that Alcindor’s decision seemed “illogical.” The Sporting News’s Jim Scott
called the UCLA star’s academic justification “an outrageous deception.” Although numerous basketball players had pulled their names from Olympic consideration, sportswriters focused on Alcindor’s actions above all other athletes.71 To most whites, there was
simply no legitimate reason for Alcindor’s refusal to represent his country at the Olympics.
In the summer of 1968 Alcindor was asked, once again, on national television why he
would not play in the Olympics. He announced that America was “not really my country.” His comment raised more than a few eyebrows. “Doc” Young of the Chicago Defender
stated, “Here’s a guy who stands to become a millionaire the moment his college eligibility
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ends—for merely playing basketball—and he has the nerve to run the country down.”
The Los Angeles Times received piles of mail excoriating the basketball star. One reader
wrote, “When Lew Alcindor states on television that ‘America is not really my country,’ I
have to agree that he is a black nigger.” Another bigot, infuriated by Alcindor, vented, “I
used to call them Negroes, but I’m getting to the place where they are just plain . . .
niggers.” Reading these letters, Charles Maher, a white columnist for the Times, began to
understand what Alcindor really meant. He observed of the last author, “This man unhappily expressed the attitude of more white people than we would care to admit. One
wonders how these people can expect the black man to take great pride in calling himself
an American when they still take perverse satisfaction in calling him a nigger.”72
Alcindor’s critics failed to understand that he was not satisfied simply because basketball offered him a secure financial future. They did not realize that he had witnessed the
worst kinds of racial brutality and poverty in Harlem. He explained, “I’ve been fortunate
because of my basketball ability. But I’m only one of many black persons in this struggle.
I can’t run around hollering I’m grateful for what I’ve received.”73 His detractors argued
that he had an obligation to represent his country. But, he maintained, “Yes, I owe an
obligation to my country, but my country also owes an obligation to me as a black man, an
obligation that has not been fulfilled for 400 years. For too long I have been a second class
citizen. Not me personally; I have been very fortunate. I’m talking collectively, about me
as a black man.”74 For Alcindor, Black Power meant using his athletic status to speak out
for those who had no political voice, to articulate the frustrations of young black radicals
who demanded freedom and dignity.
The life of Lew Alcindor reveals that the seeds of the revolt of the black athlete were
planted during the Civil Rights movement. Frustrated by the lack of progress in the
African-American struggle for freedom, he turned to the philosophy of Malcolm X, and in
his words he found strength, racial pride, and a firm conviction about the importance of
independence for black people. Although Alcindor succeeded on an integrated basketball
team, he eschewed integration as a measurement of racial equality. Like Bill Russell, Jim
Brown, and Muhammad Ali, he defined himself politically off the playing field even though
it was unpopular to do so. In his personification of Black Power, he used his celebrity
status to teach inner city youth the importance of education, so that one day they too
could define themselves. Only when African Americans achieved self-determination and
empowerment could Lew Alcindor accept America as his country.
1
Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements, ed. George Breitman (New York:
Grove Press, Inc., 1965), 4.
2
Jeff Prugh, “Alcindor Says Olympic Boycott Doesn’t Bind Him Personally,” Los Angeles Times, 25
November 1967, p. 21 (hereafter LAT).
3
In 1968 Alcindor converted to Sunni Islam and changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. However, he did not publicly announce his name change until 1971. I will use “Lew Alcindor” instead of
“Kareem Abdul-Jabbar” to situate him properly as a historical actor.
4
Gordon S. White, Jr., “Bruins Control Game from Start to Win 3rd Title in 4 Years,” New York
Times, 26 March 1967, p. 157 (hereafter NYT); “What to Do About Lew,” Time, 16 December 1966, p.
58; Rex Lardner, “Can Basketball Survive Lew Alcindor?” Saturday Evening Post, 14 January 1967, pp.
70-73; Jeff Prugh, “‘Stuff ’ Shot Ruled out of College Basketball, LAT, 29 March 1967.
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SMITH: “IT’S NOT REALLY MY COUNTRY”
5
Lew Alcindor with Jack Olsen, “A Year of Turmoil and Decision,” Sports Illustrated, 10 November
1969, p. 35 (hereafter SI); Sam Goldaper, “Alcindor Clarifies TV Remark, Criticizes Racial Bias in U.S.,”
NYT, 23 July 1968, p. 31; A.S. “Doc” Young, “The Week’s Wash,” Chicago Defender, 29 July 1968, p. 24
(hereafter CD).
6
Harry Edwards, The Revolt of the Black Athlete (New York: Free Press, 1969); David K. Wiggins,
“‘The Year of Awakening’: Black Athletes, Racial Unrest, and the Civil Rights Movement of 1968,” in
Glory Bound: Black Athletes in a White America, ed. David K. Wiggins (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1997), 104-122; Douglas Hartmann, Race, Culture, and the Revolt of the Black Athlete: The
1968 Olympic Protests and Their Aftermath (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003); Amy Bass, Not
the Triumph But the Struggle: The 1968 Olympics and the Making of the Black Athlete (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002); Othello Harris, “Muhammad Ali and the Revolt of the Black Athlete,”
in Muhammad Ali: The People’s Champ, ed. Elliot Gorn (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995), 5469; Donald Spivey, “Black Consciousness and Olympic Protest Movement, 1964-1980,” in Sport in
America: New Historical Perspectives, ed. Donald Spivey (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1985),
239-262.
7
Timothy Tyson, “Robert F. Williams, ‘Black Power,’ and the Roots of the African American Freedom Struggle,” Journal of American History 85 (1998): 541; other historians have also demonstrated that
the Civil Rights movement and Black Power movement overlapped each other. See Peniel Joseph, Waiting ‘til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America (New York: Henry Holt and
Company, 2006); Barbara Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic
Vision (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003).
8
Edwards, The Revolt of the Black Athlete.
9
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar with Raymond Obstfeld, On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey through the
Harlem Renaissance (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007), 49; Lew Alcindor with Jack Olsen, “My
Story,” SI, 27 October 1969, pp. 83-85; Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Peter Knobler, Giant Steps (New
York: Bantam Books, 1983), 4-11; Kareem Abdul-Jabbar with Mignon McCarthy, Kareem (New York:
Random House, 1990), 6-15.
10
Ibid; Alcindor with Olsen, “My Story,” 85 [QUOTATION].
11
Abdul-Jabbar and Knobler, Giant Steps, 8-9.
12
Ibid., 22-24, 24 [1st QUOTATION]; Alcindor with Olsen, “My Story,” pp. 83, 87 [2ND QUOTATION].
13
Abdul-Jabbar and Knobler, Giant Steps, 35-37, 44-45; Alcindor with Olsen, “My Story,” p. 88;
Joel Cohen, Big A: The Story of Lew Alcindor (New York: Scholastic Book Services, 1971), 26 [QUOTATION]; George Walsh, “The Wooing of a Seven-Foot Wonder,” Saturday Evening Post, 14 March 1964,
pp. 70-71.
14
Mark Hamilton Lytle, America’s Uncivil Wars: The Sixties Era from Elvis to the Fall of Richard Nixon
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 119; August Meier and John H. Bracey, Jr., “The NAACP as
a Reform Movement, 1909-1965: ‘To reach the conscience of America,’” Journal of Southern History 59
(1993): 26.
15
Walsh, “The Wooing of a Seven-Foot Wonder,” p. 71; Abdul-Jabbar and Knobler, Giant Steps, 4549.
16
Adam Fairclough, Better Day Coming: Blacks and Equality, 1890-2000 (New York: Penguin Books,
2002), 273-278; Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-1963 (New York:
Simon & Schuster, 1988), 888-892; Abdul-Jabbar and Knobler, Giant Steps, 60-61.
17
Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks, 25, 26 [2ND QUOTATION], 31-32, 33 [3RD QUOTATION], 43; Joseph,
Waiting, 100-102, 100 [1ST QUOTATION]; William L. Van Deburg, New Day in Babylon: The Black Power
Movement and American Culture, 1965-1975 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 5 [4TH QUOTATION].
18
Aram Goudsouzian has argued that Russell “defied any easy characterization as an integrationist”
and unlike many Black Power activists, “he never embodied a greater rejection of American ideals and
institutions.” See Goudsouzian, “Bill Russell and the Basketball Revolution,” American Studies 47 (2006):
61-62; Gilbert Rogin, “We Are Grown Men Playing A Child’s Game,” SI, 18 November 1963, 76, pp.
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JOURNAL OF SPORT HISTORY
80-82; Ed Linn, “Bill Russell’s Private World,” Sport, February 1963, pp. 61, 67; and Ed Linn, “I Owe
the Public Nothing,” Saturday Evening Post, 18 January 1964, pp. 60-62.
19
Alcindor recalled reading the controversial Saturday Evening Post article in Kareem, 21.
20
Jim Brown with Myron Cope, Off My Chest (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1964), 162-166, 162
[QUOTATION].
21
Tex Maule, “The Curtain Falls on a Long Run,” SI, 25 July 1966, p. 20.
22
Jim Brown discusses how he met Ali in Thomas Hauser, Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times (New
York: Touchstone, 1991), 106.
23
Thomas R. Hietala, “Muhammad Ali and the Age of Bare-Knuckle Politics,” in Muhammad Ali:
The People’s Champ, ed. Elliot Gorn (Urban: University of Illinois Press, 1995), 128; Robert Lipsyte,
“The Champion Speaks, but Softly,” NYT, 27 February 1964, p. 34 [QUOTATION]; “Clay Says He Has
Adopted Islam Religion and Regards It as Way to Peace,” NYT, 28 February 1964, p. 22; “Clay Puts
Black Muslim X in His Name,” NYT, 7 March 1964, p. 15.
24
Alcindor with Olson, “My Story,” p. 90. For a discussion on racial stereotypes and black athletes
see David K. Wiggins, “‘Great Speed but Little Stamina’: The Historical Debate over Black Athletic
Superiority,” in Glory Bound, ed. Wiggins, 177-199; Harry Edwards, “The Sources of the Black Athlete’s
Superiority,” Black Scholar 3 (1971): 32-41; John Hobermann, Darwin’s Athletes: How Sports Has Damaged Black America and Preserved the Myth of Race (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997).
25
Alcindor with Olsen, “My Story,” p. 90; Phil Pepe, Stand Tall: The Lew Alcindor Story (New York:
Grosset & Dunlap, 1970), 39 [QUOTATION].
26
For a history of HARYOU see Cyril Degrasse Tyson, Power and Politics in Central Harlem, 19621964: The Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited Experience (New York: Jay Street Publishers, 2004).
27
Kenneth B. Clark and Jeannette Hopkins, A Relevant War Against Poverty: A Study of Community
Action Programs and Observable Social Change (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), 5-8.
28
Van Deburg, New Day in Babylon, 112.
29
Abdul-Jabbar with Obstfeld, On the Shoulders, 51-54; Abdul-Jabbar with McCarthy, Kareem, 156.
30
Abdul-Jabbar with McCarthy, Kareem, 6.
31
For a discussion of Harlem in the 1960s see John Henrik Clarke, ed., Harlem: A Community in
Transition (New York: Citadel Press, 1964); Klytus Smith et al., The Harlem Cultural/Political Movements:
From Malcolm X to ‘Black Is Beautiful’ (New York: Gumbs & Thomas, 1995).
32
Fred C. Shapiro and James W. Sullivan, Race Riots: New York, 1964 (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell,
1964), 1-10, 43-47; “Harlem: Hatred in the Streets,” Newsweek, 3 August 1964, p. 16 [QUOTATION].
33
“Harlem: Hatred,” pp. 16-19; Abdul-Jabbar and Knobler, Giant Steps, 73.
34
Abdul-Jabbar and Knobler, Giant Steps, 71-74; Abdul-Jabbar with Obstfeld, On the Shoulders, 5657. The August 13, 1964, issue of Jet includes a picture of Alcindor standing near King at the press
conference in Harlem.
35
Alcindor with Olsen, “My Story,” p. 95.
36
John Hall, “No More ‘Camps,’” LAT, 5 May 1965, sec. B, p. 3; Robert Lipsyte, “Alcindor Accepts
U.C.L.A,” NYT, 5 May 1965, p. 56.
37
Ralph J. Bunche to Lew Alcindor, 26 March 1965, box 27, Athletic Department, 1965-1970
folder, Franklin D. Murphy Papers, University of California at Los Angeles Archives, Los Angeles, California (hereafter UCLA Archives).
38
Scott Howard Cooper, The Bruin 100: The Greatest Games in the History of UCLA Basketball
(Lenexa, Kans.: Addax Publishing Group, 1999), 11.
39
Frank Fitzpatrick, And the Walls Came Tumbling Down: The Basketball Game that Changed American Sports (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999), 23-34, 205-217, 210-211 [QUOTATION].
40
H. Anthony Medley, UCLA Basketball: The Real Story (Los Angeles, Calif.: Galant Press, 1972),
68-69; Jeff Prugh, “Basketball’s Mt. Vesuvius: Aloofness a Mask for Lew, LAT, 3 February 1967, sec. C, p.
1; John Riley, “Big Lew Measures His Lonely World,” Life, 17 February 1967, pp. 105-106; “Lew Alcindor:
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Alone in a Crowd,” Look, 21 February 1967, pp. 95-98; “The Making of a Legend: Lew Alcindor,”
Newsweek, 27 February 1967, pp. 59-61, 62 [QUOTATION].
41
Alcindor did not comment on his role in the vigil but was pictured in the school newspaper. It is
unclear whether Alcindor participated in anti-war protests. Ruth Chao and Phil Klein, “Vigil Commemorates Death of Malcolm X,” Daily Bruin (UCLA student newspaper), 22 February 1967, p. 1
(hereafter DB); Dennis Litrell, “Black Power—What Is It? And Who Needs It?” DB, 3 October 1966,
pp. 4-5; “Black Power Advocate Explains His Philosophy,” DB, 27 October 1967, p. 2. For a discussion
of student activism at UCLA during the 1960s see Kurt Kemper, “Reformers in the Marketplace of Ideas:
Student Activism and American Democracy in Cold War Los Angeles” (Ph.D. dissertation, Louisiana
State University, 2000).
42
Van Deburg, New Day in Babylon, 2.
43
Jack Scott, Bill Walton: On the Road with the Portland Trail Blazers (New York: Crowell, 1978),
187. On the myth of the “melting pot” see Gary Gerstle, American Crucible: Race and Nation in the
Twentieth Century (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001), 3-4.
44
Abdul-Jabbar with McCarthy, Kareem, 156.
45
It is unclear how many black athletes contributed to the total 2 percent black population at UCLA.
“Campus Minority Groups Claim Only 12 Percent,” DB, 19 January 1968; Alcindor with Olsen, “UCLA
Was a Mistake,” 36 [1st QUOTATION], 37 [3RD QUOTATION], 38 [6TH QUOTATION]; John Wooden with Jack
Tobin, They Call Me Coach, rev. ed. (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1988), 144 [2ND QUOTATION]; Pete
Axthelm, “The Angry Black Athlete,” Newsweek, 15 July 1968, p. 57; Susan M. Atwater, “Westwood
Housing Probed: Negroes Refused Local Apartments,” DB, 9 February 1967 [4TH QUOTATION]; “The
Making of a Legend,” p. 62 [5TH QUOTATION].
46
White, Jr., “Bruins Control Game”; “The Making of a Legend,” 59.
47
Pepe, Stand Tall, 94; “Alcindor Calls No-Dunk Rule Discriminating,” CD, 16 September 1967, p.
18.
48
Nelson George, Elevating the Game: Black Men & Basketball (Lincoln: University of Nebraska,
1992), xv; Davis W. Houck, “Attacking the Rim: The Cultural Politics of Dunking,” in Basketball Jones:
America above the Rim, eds. Todd Boyd and Kenneth L. Shropshire (New York: New York University
Press, 2000), 152; Jeff Prugh, “‘Stuff’ Shot Ruled Out of College Basketball,” LAT, 29 March 1967, sec.
B, p. 1 [1ST QUOTATION]; Fitzpatrick, And the Walls Came Tumbling Down, 239, 240 [2ND QUOTATION];
Abdul-Jabbar and Knobler, Giant Steps, 160 [3RD QUOTATION].
49
Hauser, Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times, 145 [1ST QUOTATION]; Robert Lipsyte, “Clay Refuses
Army Oath; Stripped of Boxing Crown,” NYT, 29 April 1967, p. 1; Hietala, “Muhammad Ali,” 129 [2ND
QUOTATION].
50
Interestingly, no newspaper cites any quotations from Alcindor during the press conference. The
other athletes present were: Cleveland Browns Walter Beach, Sid Williams, and John Wooten, Washington Redskins Bobby Mitchell and Jim Shorter, Kansas City Chiefs Curtis McClinton, and Green Bay
Packers Willie Davis. See Chuck Heaton, “NIEU Huddle Result: Cassius Still Won’t Go,” Cleveland
Plain Dealer, 5 June 1967, pp. 59, 61; “Clay Will Hear Plea from Negro Athletes,” LAT, 3 June 1967, sec.
A, p. 5.
51
Jim Brown with Steve Delsohn, Out of Bounds (New York: Kensington Publication Corp., 1989),
190; Walter Hoye, “The Stars Air Views: Meeting with Ali Not a Total Waste,” Michigan Chronicle, 17
June 1967; “Black Athletes Backed the Champ!” Muhammad Speaks, 16 June 1967.
52
Hauser, Muhammad Ali, 178.
53
“Jim Brown’s NIEU Opens in Harlem,” New York Amsterdam News, 22 July 1967, p. 42 (hereafter
NYAN); “In The Stratosphere,” NYAN, 29 July 1967, p. 23; “Housing Authority Basketball Clinics,”
NYAN, 29 July 1967, p. 32; Lew Alcindor as told to Dick Kaplan, “Why I Turned Down a Million
Dollars,” Sport, November 1968, pp. 27, 76; David Llorens, “Natural Hair: New Symbol of Race Pride,”
Ebony, December 1967, p. 140; Howie Evans, “Sort of Sporty,” NYAN, 31 August 1968, p. 27.
54
Jeffrey O.G. Ogbar, Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity (Baltimore, Md.:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), 2.
Summer 2009
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55
Harry Edwards, Tommie Smith, and Lee Evans to “Brothers,” 16 October 1967, box 41, NCAA
1975 folder, Athletic Department Administrative Files, UCLA Archives.
56
Edwards, Revolt of the Black Athlete, 53.
57
Hartmann, Race, Culture, and the Revolt, 57.
58
Scott More, “Negroes to Boycott Olympics,” San Jose Mercury, 24 November 1967, pp. 1-2; Jeff
Prugh, “Negro Group Votes to Boycott ’68 Olympics,” LAT, 24 November 1967, sec. C, p. 1 [QUOTATIONS]; Johnathan Rodgers, “A Step to an Olympic Boycott,” SI, 4 December 1967, pp. 30-31; Hartmann,
Race, Culture, and the Revolt, 285n55.
59
UCLA operated on an academic quarter system. Prugh, “Alcindor Says” [1ST AND 3RD QUOTATIONS]; Dwight Chapin and Jeff Prugh, The Wizard of Westwood: Coach John Wooden and His UCLA
Bruins (Boston: Houghlin Mifflin Company, 1973), 158, 159-160 [2ND QUOTATION].
60
Prugh, “Alcindor Says.”
61
Alcindor with Olsen, “A Year of Turmoil and Decision,” 35.
62
Arthur Daley, “Sports of the Times,” NYT, 28 November 1967, p. 60; Scott Moore, “Edwards
Denies Manipulation of Negro Athletes in Boycott,” San Jose Mercury News, 26 November 1967, p. 10
(hereafter SJMN; the San Jose Mercury News is the evening edition of the San Jose Mercury); Axthelm,
“Angry Black Athlete,” 56.
63
“Olympics Boycott Is Off Target,” Life, 8 December 1967, p. 4.
64
Louis Duino, “Olympic Team Will Survive Boycott by Negroes,” SJMN, 26 November 1967, p.
73 [QUOTATION]; “Olympic Boycott?” Chicago Tribune, 25 November 1967, p. 12; “Where Negroes
Have ‘Struck It Rich,’” U.S. News & World Report, 11 December 1967, p. 71.
65
Bob Considine, “Olympic Runaways,” Los Angeles Herald Examiner, 10 December 1967 (hereafter LAHE).
66
Melvin Durslag, “Why Not Boycott NFL, NBA?” LAHE, 26 November 1967.
67
Robert Lipsyte, “Pride and Prejudice,” NYT, 25 November 1967, p. 54. Other white liberal
sportswriters wrote investigative columns on black athletes as well. See Axthelm, “Angry Black Athlete”;
Olsen, “The Cruel Deception”; Dick Schaap, “The Revolt of the Black Athletes,” Look, 6 August 1968,
pp. 72-77.
68
A.S. “Doc” Young, “The Oddball Performers,” CD, 5 December 1967.
69
Skip Johnson, “Olympic Boycott Justified,” DB, 9 January 1968; “Athletes’ Reaction to Ban Is
Varied,” SJMN, 25 November 1967, p. 67 [1ST QUOTATION]; Chuck Garrity, “Negroes Disagree on Game
Boycott,” LAT, 25 November 1967, p. 21; “Should Negroes Boycott the Olympics?” Ebony, March 1968,
pp. 110-116. The OPHR also demanded the removal of Avery Brundage as International Olympic
Committee chairman, the barring of all-white teams representing South Africa and Rhodesia, the addition of two black coaches to the men’s track team, the appointment of at least two blacks to policymaking positions on the U.S. Olympic Committee, and the desegregation of the New York Athletic
Club. Hartmann, Race, Culture, and the Revolt, 83 [2ND QUOTATION], 95-97.
70
Edwards, The Revolt of the Black Athlete, 88; David K. Wiggins, “‘The Year of Awakening’: Black
Athletes, Racial Unrest, and the Civil Rights Movement of 1968,” in Glory Bound, ed. Wiggins, 104-122;
idem, “‘The Future of College Athletics Is at Stake’: Black Athletes and Racial Turmoil on Three Predominantly White University Campuses, 1968-1972,” in ibid., 123-151.
71
Paul Zimmerman, “Olympic Bids Rejected by 3 Bruins, Trojan,” LAT, 28 February 1968, sec. B,
p. 1; Zimmerman, “Most Yanks Proud to Play,” LAT, 1 March 1968, sec. B, p. 2; William Gildea,
“Alcindor’s Reason Seems Illogical,” Washington Post, 6 March 1968, sec. E, p. 1; Jim Scott, “Westwords,”
Sporting News, 23 March 1968, p. 36; Bass, Not The Triumph But the Struggle, 186; “88 Cagers Seek
Olympic Spots,” CD, 3 April 1968.
72
A.S. “Doc” Young, “This Week’s Wash”; Charles Maher, “Alcindor’s Country,” LAT, 30 July 1968,
sec. E, p. 2; Maher, “Alcindor: a Sequel,” LAT, 23 August 1968, sec. E, p. 2.
73
“Alcindor Works with N.Y. Kids—‘More Important Than Mexico City,’” CD, 3 August 1968, 14.
74
Alcindor as told to Kaplan, “Why I Turned Down,” 76.
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