Captioning performed by vitac heres a great read to add to your Summer Reading list. Sundays at 8 00, account a co of stories. I always knew there was a risk in the lifestyle and i decided to take it because whether its an illusion or not, i dont think it is. It helped my concentration. It stopped me being bored and other people being boring to come extent. It made me want to prolong the conversation, to enhance the moment. If i was asked would i do it again, the answer is probably yes. Id have quit earlier possibly hoping to get away with the whole thing. Easy for me to say, of course, not very nice for my children to hear. Sounds irresponsible. If i say, yeah, id do that again to you but the truth is it would be hypocritical to say id never touch the stuff if i knew. Because i did know. Everyone knows. Soviet union and soviet system in Eastern Europe contained the seeds of its own destruction. Many of the problems we saw at the end end at the very beginning. I spoke already about attempt to control all institutions and control all parts of the economy and political life and social life. One of the problems is when you do that, when you try to control everything, then you create opposition and potential disdense everywhere. If you tell all artists to paint the same way and one says i want to paint another way, youve made him into a disdent. If you want to subsidize housing and the populace agrees, then put it on the balance sheet. And make it clear and make it evident and make everybody aware of how much its costing. But when you deliver it through these third party enterprises, fannie mae and freddie mac, when you deliver through the Public Company of private shareholders and executives to extract a lot of that subsidy for themselves, that is not a very good way of subsidizing home ownership. Christopher hitchens, Gretchen Morgenson are a few of the engaging stories. Now available at your Favorite Book seller. Now, the history of racial equality in professional sports. Former basketball player bill russell and former Football Player jim brown talk about their struggles. They also discussed the role of africanamericans in college and professional sports today. This panel from the Lyndon Johnson president ial librarys civil rights summit is about an hour. Good afternoon. My name is mike cramer. Im the director of the Texas Program in sports and media here at the university of texas. We are pleased to partner again with the lbj library and museum. This is probably about our fifth event that we have partnered, at least on a piece of a program with them. Todays conversation is part of our series on sports and society that was founded by one of the distinguished alums, cathy mcgar what were pleased to partner with on many occasions. We also have an interesting timing of this today. Yesterday, one of our participants, dr. Harry edwards, formallyintroduce in a moment, we formally announced that we have established a permanent lecture at the university of texas called the dr. Harry edwards lecture on sports in society. [ applause ] and so, we couldnt possibly find a better person in the history of sports and civil rights than dr. Harry edwards. He was gracious enough to lend his name to that lecture. We expect we will have several presentations under that name in the coming years. Today is we have a conversation thats going to occur on the area of sports and civil rights. Ive been a part of many panels and many presentations over the years. Normally, you try and find the best panelists and the best people to make that presentation. Rarely do you have the people, the top people who are presenting. In other words, if you had to pick one, two and three, rarely do you get one, two and three. Today we are fortunate that we have probably the three most important people in the civil rights sports and society and sports and Civil Rights Movement in the last 50 years. We are ecstatic, were pleased, were proud that we can present them and have a conversation with them with you today. Let me say that again. We have here probably the top three people in this whole area in the last 50 years. [ applause ] so let me get on with the program. Its them you are here to see. Id like to introduce to you dr. Harry edwards, mr. Bill russell, mr. Jim brown. [ applause ] take it away, harry. Thank you very much. Its a real pleasure to be here with two men that i have known for about the last 45 or 50 years. If you hear a touch of respect and admiration and affection in my voice during the course of this conversation, you have me correctly. I want to begin by stating that there have been four athletes over the last half of the 20th century who have been utterly transformative. The first, of course, is the immortal Jackie Robinson. [ applause ] the second is the indomitable mr. Bill russell. [ applause ] the third is the incomparable mr. Jim brown. [ applause ] and the fourth is the absolutely unconquerable, miss Billie Jean King. [ applause ] i want to focus on the struggle at the interface of race, sport and society. I went back and read jim and bills first two books. Jim browns off my chest and out of bounds and bill russells goal for glory and second win. I think that those are four books that should be required reading for all athletes entering college and professional sports today because they say so much about where we have come from and the sacrifices that were made in order for them to be where they are today. The things that stuck with me about those books and reading them was, first, how well the philosophies, the perspectives, the ethical arguments and so forth of jim and bill have stood up over the last 50 years. The second thing is that they were superstar athletes when they stood up. They were superstar athletes when they stood up. The third thing that struck me was they never were willing to Exchange White racism for black orthodoxy. They were always about the people and their argument was that i, am a man, am part of the people and i insist on being respected for such. Throughout their books. And then the fourth thing that really blew me away and that i find amazing to this day is how young they were. We are talking about 22, 23, 24 years old. What we call today a young adults. A way of consigning an entire generation of people to sandbox citizenship. But they were speaking out at 24 years old when this happened. So i would like, first of all, to go back to that time, and im going to exercise my prerogatives as the only 72yearold up here and call you young men by your first names. And ask about what took you to that place. How did you end up at that place . Why dont we start, jim, with you in terms of this . How do you end up in that place at 23, 24 years old . Well, doc, i was very fortunate to have a great mother. No father. Went to high school with a great coach. Greatest man i ever met in my life, ed walsh. A great mentor, kenny malloy, and they were impeccable from the standpoint of advocating education, selfdetermination. And i had an example of people that were really good. And there was tremendous discrimination in this country at the time. It was told to me that i could be loved and popular if i would bow down and do a little dance. I dont know if you all knows what that means. But i said, i dont really dance. [ laughter ] i just prefer to be a man. An american citizen. And i pay my taxes. I want my rights. So freedom, equality and justice is what i pursued and i prusued it at all cost because nothing else would substitute for that. No trophy, no form of popularity. Because i was helped as a young man, i knew that my lifes work would be to help others. So thats what you have here. [ applause ] bill, what took you down that path that you took . I was reading going for glory and you stated, i have never been one to pursue being liked. From day one, i was about being respected. What took you down that path at 23, 24 years old . Well, i guess it started when i was born. My mother and father, the first thing i knew about life was my mother and father loved me. And my mother i was born in the segregated south in the 30s in louisiana. Louisiana, uhhuh. And my mother first conversation, she said to me, theres nobody on this planet any better than you. Also, theres nobody on this planet that you are better than them. And so, i grew up with confidence that i was okay. And my mother and father always treated each other with respect. And so, what i went out into the world, thats the way i thought it was supposed to be. Okay. And did everything you could to change it to make that way when it wasnt. Huh . Did everything to make it that way when it wasnt. Well, my mother told me what i was young, she says to me one day, you can play in the front yard for the first time. She had kept me in the backyard all the time. She said, the reason i want you to play in the front yard is people will walk by and they will say things to you, good or bad, but it has nothing to do with you. It has to do with them and their perspective. And so, you play and have fun. Dont worry about that. Okay. And so, when i grew up, i encountered things. I knew i was okay. And so, but moving ahead a few years ago i met nelson mandela. We had a brief conversation. And i asked him how he could be such a good person of all the things that he had encountered. And he said, if i had reacted the way they predicted that i would act, then they were right. But he said, i am a mandela and thats where i get my philosophy from, is that the opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is and so, the only way that humans can evolve is they have to care about each other. That was evident throughout a number of your chapters in your book. Let me ask you ask you this. Jim, in particular, i was looking at a book entitled the 100 most important people in American Sports and quite fittingly Billie Jean King is on the cover. But there was a statement that you made early on in one of your earliest books where you stated that you had never been there had never been a time when you were not conscious of the Civil Rights Movement. You stated, i was very conscious of the Civil Rights Movement and very active in what i called the movement for dignity, equality and justice. In fact, it superceded my interest in sports. Sports gave me an opportunity to help the cause. And that is what i dedicated myself to doing. Now, i know that you supported the Civil Rights Movement. But you were ahead of the Civil Rights Movement in terms of your focus on Economic Development. What led you to move beyond simple desegregation to Economic Development, to starting the black economic union, setting up these offices all over the country, traveling through the deep south in a bus with other professional athletes talking to small black Small Business people in georgia, alabama, tennessee . What led you to that sense that that was the direction things had to go into . Well, it was the understanding that people had to get off of their butts. And regardless of what the condition, use as much intelligence and labor as they could to deliver themselves. We couldnt depend on a government or Corporate America or anyone else. And so, i was always a person that advocated Economic Development because america is a capitalist society. Its based on economics. If you dont use economics in your community, your community will never grow. The Jewish Community in this country and the world has proven that collectively you can be a minority and apply the right principles and emancipate yourself. So i thought that the Africanamerican Community had to apply itself, have the greatest community, the safest communities and probably most of all understand Economic Development. So that was the way that i led. And i attracted the top young mbas in the country. Spencer jordan was my number one guy. Graduate of harvard, magna cum laude. And i got the top black athletes in the country. And i put them together. And we got a grant of over 1 million at the time. We had a fund that any young black entrepreneur could come and make that loan and get the benefit of the knowledge of our National Business planning team. And so, that was the way i felt we could gain equality quicker than doing anything else. You know, i want people to really understand. Were talking about think of a 26, 25, 26, 27yearold athlete today that would have that kind of insight and vision. Thats how far ahead you were in terms of that situation. It astounds me even now. Bill, you, too, had a sense of the necessity of Economic Development. Not only did you have your own business here, but long before globalization came into the language and lex exxon of the society, you had already set up relationships in west africa and were talking about how we needed to connect with african countries and have some mutual Economic Development and so forth. You also went into the south. I mean, two months after the assassination, i know you went down to mississippi. And it was a frightening time, and held integrated basketball clinics in mississippi two months after medgar evers death. Of course, your celtic teammates said, just keep a low profile. But you went down and held those clinics. While you were down there, you talked to young people about the necessity of completing school, becoming economically viable and so forth. Well, most of the people, as i could see, were economically deprived. I felt that as one of the places where you can purchase equality if you have what started out as a charity, you could make it a force. I know i was in boston. And there was a great many questions about why i would go to africa. People told me, africans dont like you. Well, the people that were telling me that didnt like me. [ laughter ] so i wanted to go and see for myself. Okay . Some guy came to me and he says, what do you know about africa . You dont know anything about them. They are not like you. You got no business doing that. So i said, you know, i have this family that are friends of mine. They have been accused of supporting the irish revolution. The family was the kennedys. I knew all of them. In fact, im old enough that i remember meeting and sitting and talking with rose kennedy. And i says, well, if its all right for them to go back where their ancestors came from, why isnt that all right for me to go back where i think my ancestors came from . And so, it was all about see, i never, ever considered myself as a leader or anything like that. All i did was one thing i wanted to make sure that i never did anything that my father would be ashamed of. So the things i did, for example, i coached the boston celtics. I was the player coach of the boston celtics. So they said, you are the first black coach in the nba. In fact, you are the first black coach manager in baseball, football and basketball in the major leagues. What about that . And i said to them, if red had ever said to me, this is a great social experience experiment, i would have nothing to do with it. The only reason i would do it because im convinced that im the best person for the job. [ applause ] so where i considered trying to do everything in my life based on merit. And i expected all of the people i surround myself with to do the same . Jim and i have known each other since college. And he used to tell me all the time that he was a better basketball player than i was anyway. [ laughter ] averaged 38 points a game. And i said, jim, no. [ laughter ] in fact i said to him one time, i says, you know, i think you are one of the greatest athletes, if not the greatest athlete, of the 20th century. But leave basketball alone. [ laughter ] you see, jim saw and i supportsupported some of the if you dont have any wherewithal to exercise influence, then you will never succeed. In exercising influence. And i tried to live a life that would exercise influence. I personally am not interested in that. Im just interested in i raise my kids. And i always let them know that i loved them. I think one of the key things about raising kids. My daughter i have to fight off her telling me what to do now. She graduated from harvard law school. The minute she gets a degree from harvard, she knows everything. [ laughter ] and so, i just try to see where things are needed, recognize that things are needed and try to put myself in a place where i can make a difference. Lets jump to the present. Where did the train leave the track . I mean, where are the bill russells . Where are the jim browns . I know we dont expect people to do the same way do things the same way that they were done in the 60s in the same sense that bill, you and jim didnt do things the same way that Jackie Robinson did or that jesse owens or joe lewis did. How did we come to a place where we have the level of uninvolvement, apathy, almost a lack of concern about the broader issues that you speak of now . You mentioned Jackie Robinson. I met him a couple times. When he died, i got a call from rachel robinson. She said that she wanted me to be a pallbearer at his funeral. And i said, at my age, thats an overwhelming honor. Why me . She said, you were one of jackies favorite athletes. And i took that to say jackie had done a tremendous thing for us. He was the first black to play baseball, but he was never a pushover. And he took us to a place that opening up this whole world for us. But i was not going to revisit that place. I wanted to take it to the next step. Which you most certainly did. And so, when red asked me he said hes retiring. I went back to my coach. He says, im retiring. I got to find a coach to replace me. He said, first, do you want the job . I said, hell no. [ laughter ] i said, i watch what you go through. I dont want no part of that. So we agreed, both made out a list of ten guys that we would approve of. He says, nobody can get the job unless you approve of it. So i made a list of ten and he made a list of ten. There were no matches. And so he said, what do you want to do . I said, i dont know. He says, okay, well he decided however on this one coach. Bxxeiim and he