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FOCUS | Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Progress Isn't Permanent ... We've Still Got Work to Do.
Brakkton Booker, POLITICO
Booker writes: "The murder of George Floyd by a white Minneapolis police officer last year pushed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to the brink."
How race and identity are shaping politics, policy and power.
hat up Recast family! It’s a historic week. Juneteenth is officially a federal holiday with the passage of the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, which President Joe Biden is scheduled to sign today. While this is an important step in recognizing the impact slavery has had on our nation, our next guest argues we still have a long way to achieving racial and social harmony. For our Friday Q&A, “The Sitdown,” we chop it up with NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
The murder of George Floyd, a Black man by a white Minneapolis police officer last year pushed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to the brink. That is saying something for a man who, in addition to being an iconic athlete, has also been a civil rights activist for more than a half-century.
“I was 8 years old [in 1955] when Emmett Till got murdered,” Abdul-Jabbar says in the opening frames of his new documentary, “Fight the Power: The Movements That Changed America” on the History channel. He asked his parents why Till was brutally murdered, but they couldn’t provide any explanation.
“So from that point forward, I was just looking for the answers: ‘Why are people who look like me at risk in America? What did we do?’”
In many ways, the New York native is still searching for clues.
As he sees it, the social justice protests sparked by Floyd’s death aren’t the harbinger of a new civil rights movement. Rather, he says, it’s a continuation of what he first participated in decades ago.
During the civil rights movement of the 1960s, Abdul-Jabbar, then known as Lew Alcindor, used his perch as one the nation’s top athletes to call attention to social injustices at home and abroad. He appeared with Bill Russell, Bobby Mitchell and Jim Brown during the 1967 Cleveland Summit to support Muhammad Ali’s protests about fighting in the Vietnam War.
A year later, in 1968, his first foray into a protest of his own came when he declined an invitation to the Olympics because of racist and antisemitic statements from Avery Brundage, the longtime head of the International Olympic Committee.
Abdul-Jabbar’s legacy as a champion of civil rights is entering a new chapter. The NBA, for which he played for 20 seasons, recently named an award after him to highlight current players’ push on social justice causes.
We talk NBA, the civil rights movement and why early on he resisted Martin Luther King’s embrace of nonviolence as a method of protest.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
THE RECAST: You're an NBA legend, multiple NBA championship winner, executive producer, author. And now your latest documentary is “Fight the Power: The Movements That Changed America.” What drew you to the project and why is it significant today?
ABDUL-JABBAR: Well, what drew me to the project was the fact that we don't often understand how these things work as far as getting things to change. When one marginalized group is victimized, all marginalized groups are victimized. It might not be your group's turn this time around, but they'll get around to you. And we have to understand that and support all marginalized groups in their fight for equality and equal treatment.
THE RECAST: Part of what I found interesting about the documentary is that you inserted yourself and your activism throughout the years into the narrative arc. Why was that important to weave in?
ABDUL-JABBAR: It was important to include that because that's part of it, you know. Professional athletes have been at the forefront for pointing out some of the inconsistencies in how we’re treated. And the NBA has been at the forefront of making a difference.
I remember coming into the NBA, I played for the franchise that had the very first Black general manager, [Wayne Embry]. And the NBA since that time has made it a point to try to do things that allow its players to step forward and point out things.
Last summer was a great example. Even in the midst of the bubble, they had a few things that they had to get off their chest and they did it in a way that was not offensive, but got to the point of explaining to Americans what the issues were all about. And I was very happy to see the NBA involved in it to that extent.
THE RECAST: And now there’s a new award named after you, the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Social Justice Champion award.
ABDUL-JABBAR: It's just amazing. You know, I didn't expect that. I figured some of the people whose shoulders I stood on would be absolutely appropriate. People like Bill Russell and Jackie Robinson and Muhammad Ali were instrumental in me understanding what we had to do to elicit and promote change. It's absolutely necessary.
THE RECAST: As someone who lived and worked within the civil rights movement, you know, we talk about how the killing of George Floyd kind of ignited the biggest protest that the world has ever seen. A lot of people are calling it the new civil rights movement. Do you see parallels between today and the previous civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s?
ABDUL-JABBAR: I don't think there's any difference. Things haven't changed since the 1950s and ’60s to the degree that we can say that there are two distinct movements. It's just the same movement; it’s just taken 400 years for us to get to this point.
THE RECAST: It's the same movement? You don't feel like there was a significant enough change from when Dr. King helped lead the March on Washington to the protests that we saw after George Floyd?
ABDUL-JABBAR: There’s absolutely been change. But with all the progress, there's also been backsliding. And now there's a backlash. Look at how they're trying to keep people of color from voting and, you know, just don't want them to participate in the democratic process. We've got to start all over from the beginning. It's very frustrating.
THE RECAST: In the film you say, “the right to protest is embedded in every American's DNA.”
I can think of movements prior to George Floyd’s killing like after Trayvon Martin’s death, like Occupy Wall Street. Each got a lot of media attention. But the progress from these movements was slow in bringing about lasting change or the change never materialized. Do you feel like Americans protest enough or use their voices enough to hold leaders' feet to the fire?
ABDUL-JABBAR: Well, [protesters] do it sometimes and then they slack off. For example, we fought the Civil War. We gave Black Americans the right to vote, own property, serve on juries, own patents, you know, the full amount of privilege and responsibility of all other American citizens. And then it was very convenient, we rescinded it by Jim Crow laws and it took a hundred years to rescind those Jim Crow laws. And now we're right back at the beginning again in some ways.
So we have to understand that the progress isn't always permanent. There are many, many examples of backsliding ... that [erase] all the gains that we've made. We have to understand that we are connected by the hip to Dr. King and for that matter, the Boston Tea Party. That was a protest.
THE RECAST: Going back to the civil rights movement, in the film, there is a photo of you and Dr. King and others. You also mentioned that you weren't feeling very patriotic after his assassination. And following that, it was one of your first forays into using your platform as an athlete to protest. Can you talk about sitting out of the Olympics and why it was important for you to take a stand then?
ABDUL-JABBAR: Well, the Olympics came right after the assassination of Dr. King [in 1968]. To see someone murdered like that really was a horrible event.
And in addition to that, the chairman of the Olympics was named Avery Brundage. He was the individual who in 1936 refused to let Jewish athletes compete on our Olympic team because they would have Mr. Hitler [in attendance]. There's no way I was going to be able to work with him in any fashion. And I was very happy not to go to the Olympics for that reason.
THE RECAST: And another thing you said, the film, too, was about how you didn't necessarily agree at first with Dr. King's message of nonviolence. It seemed like you were perhaps leaning toward the Malcolm X way of thinking. Talk to me about how that change took place.
ABDUL-JABBAR: For me, Malcolm X really appealed to me because he spoke about the anger that we feel and the way that the motivation to retaliate is so strong. When you see your people just brutalized like that, you want to do something to counteract that.
But Dr. King understood what Mr. Gandhi found out, was that by making the oppressor show what a bully is, it totally delegitimizes his efforts. And that happened in the case of the British Empire and they finally gave up control of India. And it also happened here in our country, when we achieved the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.
So Dr. King understood that the tactics might be painful, but they would be successful. And if we tried to retaliate tit for tat, we'd end up dead, just like what happened in Tulsa or any other time that Black Americans tried to resist and were killed.
THE RECAST: Is there any room for more and more aggressive tactics now?
ABDUL-JABBAR: You have to determine that in each individual case. There's no one rule that governs everything.
THE RECAST: I know you said that things haven't changed all that much from all of these protest movements. What is the big takeaway that you want folks who view the film to leave with?
ABDUL-JABBAR: It's my hope that people will understand that the basic issue for all of these protest movements was basically the same. All of the people who felt that their rights were being denied and withheld or want to see that change. And those sentiments in those situations still exist today. So as I've been saying all along, we've got work to do.
Hey there, it’s been quite the week. Before some of you head off for a three-day holiday, we’ve got some quick updates to inform you about. Then we’ll toss to Rishika and Teresa for our Weekend To-Dos.
In White House news, POLITICO’s Daniel Lippman confirms Stephonn Alcorn has been promoted to be racial justice and equity policy analyst. He most recently served in a similar role with the Domestic Policy Council.
A remembrance that on this date six years ago, nine church members were killed at the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C. President Barack Obama later delivered the eulogy for the slain pastor.
Speaking of Obama, the Supreme Court overwhelmingly dismissed a challenge to his signature health care law on Thursday by a 7-2 vote.
You don’t want to miss this compelling essay by Nicholas Casey, The New York Times’ Madrid bureau chief, who writes how his father vanished when he was 7.
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SNL’s Michael Che has a new sketch show, airing on HBO Max and titled, “That Damn Michael Che.” (Surely there’s a story behind that title …)
Lin Manuel Miranda’s on the hot seat this week, what with the blowback over “In The Heights” and its dearth of darker-skinned Afro Latinos in leading roles. So amid the Sturm und Drang, you might have missed the news that he’s making his directorial debut in “Tick, Tick … Boom!” a musical about “Rent’s” Jonathan Larson, starring Andrew Garfield.
We’re digging this new song by singer/songwriter Amber Mark. The video’s pretty cool, too.
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