ARTS AND CULTURE

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Former NBA player and entertainer

Regarded as one of the 50 greatest players to have competed in the NBA, basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has also been a powerful voice off the court against racism and for inclusivity at a time when American sports have been roiled by racial controversy. In 2020, Abdul-Jabbar challenged antisemitism in American sports head-on, writing in his Hollywood Reporter column that athletes, politicians and celebrities who engaged in Jew-baiting were promoting the “dehumanizing characterization of a people that caused the police abuses that killed… George Floyd.” Abdul-Jabbar then quoted the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.” (Photo: Wikimedia / Creative Commons License)