Black History Month
Written and researched by Maya Harris
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar:
From Sports Illustrated to TIME
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Take a minute to think about the first couple of things that come to mind when you hear the name of the 7-foot-2 Hall of Famer. Some of those things might be, Los Angeles Lakers, six NBA titles or NBA all-time leading scorer. Well, what about actor, mentor or ambassador?
The New York native, born Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr., stood at a towering 6’8 in the eighth grade. Needless to say there were major things awaiting the big man on and off the hardwood.
Alcindor began his season at UCLA in 1966 and instantly caught the public’s eye. They labeled him “the best college center in history” and others said he was too good. The Saturday Evening Post wondered, “Can Basketball Survive Lew Alcindor?” The Nation Basketball Committee had an answer to the question by banning the dunk from college basketball. Alcindor sent a clear rebuttal by perfecting the hook shot also known as the infamous skyhook.
He joined the Milwaukee Bucks as the first overall pick in the 1969 NBA Draft. He quickly adjusted to the pace of the game on a professional level. With the conclusion of the 1971 NBA finals Alcindor converted to Islam because he saw Islam as “the correct way to live.” He adopted the name Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, “noble, powerful servant.” By why change his name? In an interview with Playboy magazine Abdul-Jabbar said, “. . .[I was] Latching on to something that was part of my heritage, because many of the slaves who were brought here were Muslims. My family was brought to America by a French planter named Alcindor, who came here from Trinidad in the 18th Century. My people were Yoruba, and their culture survived slavery . . . . My father found out about that when I was a kid, and it gave me all I needed to know that, hey, I was somebody, even if nobody else knew about it. When I was a kid, no one would believe anything positive that you could say about black people. And that’s a terrible burden on black people, because they don’t have an accurate idea of their history, which has been either suppressed or distorted.”
He later joined the LA Lakers franchise where for the next 15 seasons Abdul-Jabbar brought numerous titles to the Laker household. However sweet victories had not always come his way.
The Civil Rights movement brought with it many supporters and activists not only in politics but also in athletics. Track runners, Tommie Smith and John Carlos are well-known names during the boycott of the 1968 Olympics. However, they were not the only African American athletes that took a stand. Writers and analysts that have made the boycott of the 1968 Olympics a topic of their works tend to forget about the UCLA Center. Abdul-Jabbar developed a political consciousness about the treatment of African Americans in sports and it lead him to be a part of the “revolt of the black athlete” platform. As a child of the Civil Rights movement, Kareem was exposed to Black Power and the revolts occurring on a political and athletic level.
“When I was 17, I worked in a mentoring program in Harlem designed to improve the community. That’s when I first gained an appreciation of the Harlem Renaissance, a time when African-Americans rose to prominence in American culture. For the first time, they were taken seriously as artists, musicians, writers, athletes, and as political thinkers.”
Kareem Abdul Jabbar is a true renaissance man from the heart of Harlem. He has gone from the banned dunk, to boycotts, from Sports Illustrated to TIME, and even has a number of written works on the issues going on in our world today. With his views on Black Power, Abdul-Jabbar used his celebrity status to teach inner city youth the importance of educating themselves so that one day they could achieve self determination
Black History Month
References:
Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem. Kareem. Random House, 1990. (Hardcover: 233 pages); Encyclopedia of World Biography. 2nd ed.;From Lew Alcindor to Kareem Abdul Jabbar (Lothrop 1973); “Kareem Abdul-Jabbar –Interview.” TalkAsia. CNN. 2 July. 2005 <http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/07/08/talkasia.jabbar.script/index.html>; Abdul-Jabbar, Kareem “Kareem Abdul-Jabbar-Online Interview.” Time.com 25 Feb.1999. <http://www.time.com/time/community/transcripts/1999/022599jabbar.html> Smith, Jane. I. Islam in America. Columbia University Press, 2000. (Paperback: 355 pages); Sean Gregory “10 Questions For Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.” Time Magazine 24 May 2004.]
- “EXTREMELY SMART.” EXTREMELY SMART. N.p., 28 Nov. 2011. Web. 07 Feb. 2015. <http://extremelysmart.org/tag/lewis-alcindor/>.
- Gordon S. White, Jr., “Bruins Control
Game from Start to Win 3 Title in 4 Years,” New YorkTimes, 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?”
- “Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.” Bio. A&E Television Networks, 2015. Web. 07 Feb. 2015.
Saturday Evening Post 14 January 1967, pp. 70-73; Jeff Prugh, “‘Stuff ’ Shot Ruled out of College Basketball, LAT, 29 March 1967