While he was describing some of the intimate details of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous I Have A Dream speech that was delivered nearly 60 years
ago, Dallas Mavericks guard Theo Pinson wanted to make one thing perfectly clear.
Pinson knows of the struggles King endured. He knows King helped organize non-violent marches from Selma, Ala., to Montgomery, Ala. And he knows King led marches for the right to vote, labor rights and desegregation.
However, Pinson also said of King: “He wanted to make sure everyone was treated equally, and he clearly got that done and we’re still working at it until this day. And until this day, I continue to thank him for everything he’s done for us as African-Americans. And not just African-Americans, in my opinion.
“I think he opened the eyes f
or everybody. Everybody is the same, everybody bleeds red, everybody is the same person. Just because the color of your skin is different doesn’t mean you’re better than anybody else.”
The Mavs will celebrate King’s birthday on Wednesday during their game against the Atlanta Hawks. They know he fought a hard fight during his 39 years on this earth, and that he wanted equal justice for everyone.
One of the primary leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, King used his platform to encourage players in the NBA to become activists in a non-violent way. His goal was to lift every voice and make society better for everyone, no matter their race, color or creed.
“I like that Martin Luther King played an impact on everybody’s life that’s here today,” forward Dorian Finney-Smith said. “And as you can see today, we’ve got a great group of guys from all different types of cultures and we all get along well, so hopefully we’re making him happy.”
When King delivered his impactful I Have A Dream speech on the National Mall in Washington, DC, on Aug. 28, 1963, Boston Celtics Hall of Fame center Bill Russell sat on the front row after personally receiving an invitation from King. Also, when the MLK Federal Holiday Commission was established in 1986, David Stern – the NBA commissioner at the time – was one of its founding members.
Thus, King and his “all men are created equal” mantra, often went hand-in-hand with the NBA.
“He was a massively important figure in our history,” center Dwight Powell said, referring to King. “All the things he stands for we’re still fighting for today, and I think he did an amazing job setting the groundwork and leading by example. That’s something that we need to fight for and continue to fight for all across the world.
“He’s still the catalyst in that, and he’s still an important figure. So, we all should be very grateful internally for the sacrifices he made as well as all the sacrifices that men and women made during the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S, with him being one of the leaders, especially.”
Nico Harrison embraced everything King embodied so much that when he was in college, Harrison had a giant poster of King hanging on his wall.
“What he meant to me, obviously he’s just like a role model,” said Harrison, who is the general manager and president of basketball operations for the Mavs. “He’s someone you can look up to, someone that wanted us all to be judged by the content of our character, not by the color of our skin.
“So, to me that’s everything. That’s what we’re trying to do every day — just following in his footsteps.”
Because King was very outspoken and always had a captive audience during his many rallies and protests, Pinson believes King encouraged people to speak out, especially when they thought they were being treated in a disrespectful or racially-motivated manner.
“I think he definitely set the tone of making it OK to speak out,” Pinson said. “As human beings, when we see somebody do it, we tend to follow behind. We say, ‘Ok, it is OK to do this, it is OK to do that.’ And then there’s a lot of people who just don’t know.
“You can grow up in different areas and you just don’t know certain things are happening. So once you get that out there, it’s mor
e easier for everybody else to speak up. They’ll say, ‘Oh, I didn’t know that was happening. Maybe I can help in that aspect.’ He definitely paved the way.”
King’s activism and sacrifices also paved the way that opened doors for people of all races to make a better life for themselves and for their families.
“He sped the process up 50, 60, 100 years,” Harrison said. “And I think the way he went about it – with non-violence – was great, although some people said it was controversial.
“But it’s what was needed at the time, because it made people pay attention to it.”
It certainly made the NBA pay attention, because they had nine games on their schedule this past Monday when the nation celebrated Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day. One of the games was played in Atlanta, where King was born, and another was played in Memphis, where the Civil Right Museum resides and where King was assassinated on April 4, 1968.
“He’s an icon, som
ebody we all look up to,” Mavs governor Mark Cuban said. “He inspired so many people, even to this day.”
On Oct. 14, 1968, King was the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, which was awarded to him posthumously for leading non-violence resistance to racial prejudice in the United States. King would have turned 94 this past Sunday, and his legacy surely lives on.
“It’s hard to just put in any words what he means to us – to the world,” Pinson said. “He was for everybody. He stood up for us. He wasn’t going to back down for anything.
“Even if people said, ‘No, no, no, this is not going to happen,’ he just continued to press forward and kept going forward.”
And because King kept pressing forward and kept keeping hope alive, many people are living better than they probably would have if not for the sacrifices made by King. Then again, Powell is holding out hope that everyone will eventually receive the dream that King always had.
“I have to hold onto hope for that day,” Powell said. “I think that’s something that we all need to hope for and envision in our mind for the future and for the next generation to continue to believe and understand that it is a possibility, and it’s up to us to continue to work towards that.”
Twitter: @DwainPrice
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