What we do not realize when we think about the career of the legendary Bill Russellis the context in which he played basketball. The situation is far, far from perfect for African Americans, athletes or not, in America today. But in the 1950s and 1960s, when the Celtics’ backbone exerted unprecedented dominance over the NBA, being black, on or off the field was even more synonymous with injustice, discrimination and hatred.
While Boston fans have mostly encouraged Bill Russell during his career, he still had to deal with the racist behavior of some of them and other townspeople for almost 15 years.
An article from the Boston Globe comes back to this complicated and unfortunately often abusive relationship between the most successful player in history and the local population.
Keep in mind that when Bill Russell arrived in Boston in 1956 from the University of San Francisco, sports fans in Boston had never had an African American star athlete on one of their teams. . Unfortunately, not everyone liked it, no matter how much success and glory it brought to the Celtics …
Russell, who had bought himself a house in the rather upscale and predominantly “white” suburb of Reading, soon saw the front of his home tagged with racist comments. His home has been vandalized several times and threatening letters, obviously with a racist and supremacist lexicon, were also part of his daily life.
Even Celtics fans present at all matches could sometimes be overtly racist … In his autobiography published in 1979, Bill Russell even described the city of Boston as a “racism flea market”.
This explains why Bill Russell is one of the few players whose jersey was withdrawn in a ceremony … without an audience. At his own request, the 11-ring pivot demanded that his jersey’s climb to the heights of Boston Garden be done before fans could enter the room. Basically, Russell didn’t even want the ceremony to take place. It was Red Auerbach who insisted …
“Bill had a grudge against the city of Boston. If I may, that animosity was completely justified. He considered the Celtics like his family, so he wasn’t completely opposed to them paying him homage.
He just didn’t want the fans to be there, “said Tommy Heinsohn, one of his most loyal teammates at the time.
Bill Russell was, and still is, a man of integrity. Whoever has a statue of him in Boston, for example, refused, 44 years ago, to become the first African-American introduced to the Hall of Fame in Springfield. He felt that others before him should have been entitled to this honor. Bill Russell had therefore never accepted the ring that goes with the distinction. It has been done since the end of 2019.
In a tweet, the man with 11 league titles between 1957 and 1969 explained his decision.
“In a private ceremony with my wife and close friends like Alonzo Mourning, Ann Meyers, Bill Walton and others, I accepted my ring. In 1975, I refused to be the first black to be there. access. I felt that other players should have this honor before me. It’s good to see progress on that side. “
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