58th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education

Banquet - Commemorating the 58th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education
Thursday, May 17, 2012 - 7 pm

Featured Remarks by Bill Russell

Download the Invitation here.

Featured Remarks by Bill Russell

William "Bill" Felton Russell was born in the small agricultural community of Monroe, Louisiana, during a time when African Americans were subjected to constant indignities particularly in the Deep South.  After the Russell family relocated to California his efforts in the classroom and in athletics resulted in a basketball scholarship to the University of San Francisco at a time when African American players were a rarity in college basketball.  At a height of six feet ten inches he became captain of their successful team facing crowds that were sometimes hostile toward Russell and the other African American players. Russell refused to be demoralized by these experiences.

In 1956 he led the U.S. basketball team in the Olympics and later that year joined the National Basketball Association as a player for the Boston Celtics, leading the team to record breaking success.  Russell threw his high visibility and prestige behind the emergent Civil Rights Movement participating in the 1963 March on Washington.  He broke barriers in 1966 by becoming a player/coach of hte Celtics when no African American had ever coached a major league sports team in the United States.  He retired from the Celtics in 1969 and coached the Seattle Supersonics from 1973 to 1977.  He has written a number of bestselling books including Second Wind (1979) and Russell Rules (2002).  In 2006 he was inducted into the inaugural class of the Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame and in 2011 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.