The sports world continues to mourn Bill Russell, one of the greatest basketball players to ever play the game. As Blavity previously reported, Russell was a legend on the court and extremely influential off the court, as well. Here are five ways Bill Russell impacted us outside of his role as a player by refusing to back down in the face of injustice.

1. Initiating first sports boycott for civil rights

In 1961, Russell came to the defense of two Black Celtics teammates, Satch Sanders and Sam Jones, who were refused service at a Lexington, Ky. coffee shop before a preseason game in the city. Once Jones told Russell about the incident, Russell rallied the team’s five Black players and informed Coach Red Auerbach that they were flying home and boycotting the game in protest.

Upon arrival back in Boston, Russell and the other players received a surprise welcome by mostly white fans who backed their decision to stage the very first known sports boycott for civil rights. “We’ve got to show our disapproval of this treatment,” Russell told reporters back in Boston, “or else the status quo will prevail.”

2. Standing up to racists in Mississippi after Medgar Evers' death

Mississippi was one of the most dangerous places in America for Black people, as illustrated by the 1963 assassination of civil rights activist Medgar Evers. Shortly after Evers’ death, Russell called Evers’ brother Charles and asked what he could do to help.

Charles recruited Russell to open Mississippi’s first integrated basketball camp, and the basketball star traveled to the state to support the effort — a very important and radical move in the deep segregationist state. Russell later recounted being threatened by armed racists while there, but he refused to back down, and the camp was a success.

3. Standing up for MLK's Dream

Russell was 29 when he went to the 1963 March on Washington. The Celtics star stood in the front row during Martin Luther King, Jr.‘s “I Have a Dream” speech. In a speech Russell gave commemorating the 50th anniversary of the March, he explained that King had invited him to sit on the stage, but Russell declined, feeling that the honor should go to the activists who had planned the march. “I’ve heard a lot about how far we’ve come in 50 years,” Russell said during the anniversary celebration in 2013, “but from my point of view, you only register progress by how far you have to go.” Adding that “the fight has just begun.”

4. Backing Muhammad Ali at the Cleveland Summit

Current Celtics star Jaylen Brown posted a photo from 1967 of Russell sitting at a press conference in Cleveland alongside Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The athletes famously met with Ali after he refused to participate in the military draft during the Vietnam War. The trio of sports superstars publicly backed Ali’s decision. Sports writer Gautam Varier says the Cleveland Summit moment was “the first big instance of athletes joining hands to combat what they felt was injustice, and it allowed those who came after them to do the same.”

5. Taking a knee with Colin Kaepernick

Russell’s activism continued throughout his long life, and one of his last major acts of standing up involved him kneeling. After Colin Kaepernick lost his position within the NFL in 2017 for his kneeling protests against police killings of Black men and other racial injustices, Russell was quick to throw his support behind the quarterback. Russell posted a picture of himself, kneeling while wearing the Presidential Medal of Freedom that Barack Obama had awarded him in 2011.

In all these ways and more, Russell demonstrated that he stood even taller in real life than he did on the basketball court. He set the stage for athletes using their fame and influence to fight for rights, and he supported his fellow athletes, activists and ordinary people around the country. As amazing as his basketball career was, Russell’s championing of civil rights and justice may be an even greater legacy.

ActivismBill RussellBlack-AthletesCivil-rightsracial-injustice