Becoming Kareem

by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

It started with the murder of black children.

  On September 15, 1963, about a week after classes started, whatever hope Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech in front of two hundred thousand people at the Lincoln Memorial had given me and other black Americans eighteen days earlier was kicked aside by the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, which killed four black girls just as they were preparing for a sermon called “A Love That Forgives.”

  The damage extended way beyond those crumbled church walls. The shock waves knocked all black Americans to their knees in tears of compassion for the families—and tears of outrage for the America where this kind of morally repugnant act could happen, over and over again.

  I felt all the same fury I’d felt over Emmett Till’s murder. I was about the same age as three of the girls, and I’d been attending Mass when it happened. Same age, same skin color, in church at the same time. The vulnerability I had experienced previously in North Carolina I now felt all the time. In school. Walking down the street. Buying records in a store. There were white people out there who weren’t content to deny us equal rights. They needed to murder us. They murdered children, so no one was safe. They blew up churches, so no place was safe.

  I knew we’d be told to wait for justice. I was used to the “Be patient and wait” excuse by now, but it still made me angry. As it turned out, we did have to wait—for fourteen years! In 1965, two years after the bombing, the FBI investigation decided that four Ku Klux Klansmen had committed the murders. However, no one was prosecuted until 1977, fourteen years after the bombing. Even then, only three of the men were charged and convicted, with the fourth alleged conspirator never charged.

  Living each day looking over my shoulder, suspicious that any package could be a bomb, having friends withdraw from my presence, and being unable to have conversations about my feelings and concerns with my parents left me feeling adrift, belonging nowhere with no one.

  That year I stayed mostly around Harlem, among other black people. I felt safer there, but I also was becoming more and more interested in politics. I knew there was injustice, but now I was anxious to learn the roots of it and the machinery behind it. The kind of stuff we never even addressed in school.

  My attitude carried over into my basketball game. I played much more aggressively, showing everyone that this was one black person who would not be pushed around. I especially liked battling for rebounds, using my body to clear space while snatching the ball off the backboard. Each point I scored was a point for the team, but each ball I grabbed away from the others, pushing and elbowing for it, felt like another point scored for my people. On the court, I wanted to make them feel the way they made me feel off the court: helpless.

  We were winning game after game with no losses. We seemed unstoppable. College and university offers came in daily, but I never saw them. Anything with a school letterhead went directly to Coach Donahue without even being opened. My parents had handed the responsibility of my future over to the coach. They didn’t feel qualified to figure out which offers were the best, so they relied on the coach to decide my future. That made me a little uncomfortable because as much as I admired the coach and appreciated him, he wasn’t family. And even though I had sincere affection for him and I believed he had the same for me, given all that was going on in the world, I wasn’t certain I wanted a white man—even a well-meaning one—making choices for me.

  I didn’t say anything outright, but I did constantly pester him about the letters, which even I hadn’t seen.

  He tried to calm me. “Lew, don’t worry. You can go to any school you want to.”

  “Did Harvard write me a letter?”

  “Don’t bother about who’s written the letters,” he’d assure me. “Any school you want to go to, you can go to.”

  Despite my small misgivings, I continued to work as hard as I could for him. After all, he held my future in his hands.

  All that changed one afternoon. It was a typical winter in New York, cold air whipping around stinging our faces and stiffening our muscles as we marched into the gymnasium. At least the gym floor was toasty as we warmed up against St. Helena’s, a Catholic high school in the Bronx. We were feeling pretty cocky since St. Helena’s had a weak record and had no reasonable chance against us. We were the league powerhouse, the undisputed, undefeated champions

  Even as we warmed up to play, we were really thinking about the game we would playing in two days in Maryland against DeMatha Catholic High School, one of the top high school teams in the country. They would be a real challenge, and if we hoped to beat them, we would have to muster all our skills and determination. But first we had to dispose of pesky St. Helena’s, a minor detour on our way to glory. I figured we would be up at least twenty points by halftime and then coast to an easy victory in the last half. At least we would put on a good show for the home crowd, which had been filling up all the seats at our games.

  When the halftime buzzer sounded, we were up only six points, which in basketball is meaningless. A team can turn that around in a minute or two. Our whole team was in shock. We had been smug and arrogant, and it showed in our lackluster performance. I was playing especially poorly and couldn’t seem to get back on track. Most athletes know to never approach any competition underestimating your opponent because it lowers your level of play, even if you don’t mean for that to happen. And once that does happen, it’s very difficult to climb back up to the level you’re used to.

  As the team filed out of the gym for halftime break, I could hear how much quieter the crowd was than usual. Murmurs instead of laughter. They were probably in disbelief at our poor performance, and a little worried that we were about to break our undefeated streak. I was, too. Our heads hung low, we quietly trooped down the cold stairwell to the locker room and crowded into Coach Donahue’s office. His office was already small, made smaller by the desk and filing cabinets. The single window was fogged over from the cold outside and the heat steaming off our bodies. We plopped down on the old wooden chairs, the sweat from our arms and legs dripping onto the floor.

  Coach closed the door and snapped the lock into place. When he turned to look at us, his face was contorted with anger. We were used to his angry tirades at practice, but this was a whole new level of wrath. He began ranting and raving, marching around the cramped office as if standing still would cause him to spontaneously burst into flames.

  “You don’t deserve to win!” he raged. “You’re terrible! A mess!”

  We didn’t dare say anything. Besides, we didn’t really disagree.

  “You’re a disgrace, playing like you’re sleepwalking!”

  Again, he wasn’t wrong. We didn’t dare look at him because we knew we deserved every word.

  And then he turned his anger on me. His face red with fury, he pointed at me. “And you, Lew! You go out there and don’t hustle. You don’t move. You don’t do any of the things you’re supposed to do.” He glared with burning eyes. “You’re acting just like a nigger!”

  A sharp pain pierced my heart as if he’d just stabbed me with a butcher knife. My throat tightened as if he were choking me with his other hand. The skin on my arms and legs was ice-cold, but my face burned with unbearable heat. I looked him straight in his angry face, but I was too shocked to say anything. An image came to me of my ex–best friend Johnny yelling “Nigger!” in my face.

  Since Johnny, I’d been especially protective so that something like this couldn’t happen again. I’d been careful not to hang around with people who I thought were racist in any way, even if they didn’t know it themselves. Most of the racists I’d met in school didn’t think they were racists. They thought their negative comments about black people or Puerto Ricans or Jews were just facts. To them, black people were lazy, Puerto Ricans were criminals, Jews were cheats. That’s what they’d been told all their lives, so it must be true. I made sure I stayed away from those people and surrounded myself with people I could trust.

  Peo
ple like Coach Donahue.

  With the word “nigger” still echoing in my brain, I just sat there forcing myself to breathe.

  I played the second half in a daze, like someone just told he had six weeks to live. I don’t remember anything about the game, the plays we made or didn’t make, the reaction of the crowd, words spoken to me by my teammates.

  We won.

  On the way to the locker room, I was told I played well. I just nodded.

  I stood under the hot shower trying to collect my thoughts. My world had changed so drastically, it was like everything was on a tilt and I couldn’t get my footing. The adult I trusted most, besides my parents, I could no longer trust.

  Coach Donahue had been a protective wall against the outside world. Now that wall was gone. Worse, he was part of the outside world I needed protection from.

  After my shower, I dressed mechanically, trying to decide what I would tell my parents. They had placed my future in this man’s hands.

  “Lew,” Coach Donahue said, standing at the end of the row of lockers. “My office.” He gestured for me to follow him.

  Like a zombie, I rose and followed him into his office. The pain I felt just being in his presence was unbearable.

  “See!” he said with a huge smile. “It worked! My strategy worked. I knew that if I used that word, it’d shock you into a good second half. And it did!” He sat on the edge of the desk and beamed at me happily.

  I didn’t say anything.

  “I know it seemed harsh at the time, but it got you going.”

  I still said nothing.

  He kept talking excitedly about the lesson to be learned from this, about how it was his job to use any means necessary to make sure I played up to my potential, about strategies to play DeMatha. He could have been talking about space travel for all the attention I paid him. I understood what was going on. He was trying to justify using that word as a motivator and thought I should be grateful because we won. He had no idea that he’d crossed a line that there was no coming back from.

  In his mind, by telling me not to play like a nigger, he was telling me that I was acting like the stereotype that many white people had of a black person: lazy, slow, unfocused. He didn’t want the crowd or the other team or even my own teammates to think of me that way, so I needed to apply myself more. But that meant he saw most black people as that stereotype. He believed most black people didn’t apply themselves, ignoring the fact that politicians kept them from having the same educational and job opportunities as white people.

  I left his office feeling more alone than I’d felt since boarding school.

  We were supposed to leave for the Maryland game right away, so I went home to pack. All the way home, I wondered how I’d be able to play with the team again, and whether I’d be able even to look at Coach without my anger and sadness getting the better of me.

  When I got home, I told my parents what had happened. They both were outraged, feeling just as angry and betrayed as I did.

  “I’m done,” I told them. “I can’t go back to Power.”

  I wanted to transfer immediately to one of the other local high schools. Doing so meant I would lose a year of eligibility and have to do an extra year of high school, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t spend one more minute around Coach Donahue. How could I play to win when winning would confirm what he’d done as being right?

  My parents were sympathetic to my feelings, but they didn’t want anything to get in the way of my going to college as soon as possible. For that to happen, I would have to finish the season, playing for Coach Donahue. Despite their anger, they wanted to do what was best for my future. But all I could see was my own rage. Couldn’t they understand that even being in the same room with that man was asking too much? In the end, however, I didn’t have a choice. I needed my parents’ permission to transfer, and I wasn’t going to get it.

  The train ride to Maryland was subdued. The team had heard what Coach Donahue had said, and they didn’t know how to react. We used to joke at the names he’d called us, but now no one was in a joking mood. If Coach sensed the change in his team or in me, he never spoke about it. He continued as if nothing had happened. Maybe in his mind, nothing had.

  We played DeMatha Catholic High School, the team we’d worried so much about, and beat them. I played hard, not so much to please Coach Donahue, but to show the rest of the team that I wasn’t affected by what he said. I couldn’t show any weakness, or someone else might call me that name.

  We finished the season undefeated, then won the city championship for the second year in a row. We were chosen as the number one Catholic high school team in the country, and I was once again selected for the All-City and All-American teams. It should have been a season of triumph and happiness, but it wasn’t. It ended in bitterness and anger.

  14.

  Final Confrontation with Coach Donahue

  When my junior year ended, I figured I was rid of Coach Donahue, at least for the three months of summer. I certainly wouldn’t be attending his Friendship Farm basketball camp again. But I didn’t want to roam the streets playing basketball, staring shyly at girls I didn’t have the nerve to talk to, and doing nothing significant. There was too much going on in the outside world for me to sit by idly. I was determined to participate. Somehow.

  I applied to the Heritage Teaching Program for the Harlem Youth Action Project (HARYOU-ACT), a city-sponsored antipoverty program designed to keep kids off the streets and teach us about our African American heritage. I was accepted into its journalism workshop as a reporter at a salary of $35 a week, which is equal to about $272 today. I wanted to prove that I was worth every penny.

  Everything about the job excited me. I was thrilled to be working in Harlem, which was the cultural center of African Americans in New York City. Although I’d been born there, we’d moved away when I was too young to get to know the place or the people. Sure, I occasionally went to Harlem to grab a bite to eat or play a few games of streetball with the locals, but then I immediately hopped the subway and returned home again. I had always loved being in Harlem, and now I could explore it to my heart’s content.

  And I couldn’t wait to learn more about my African American heritage. In 1964, very little was written, broadcast, or openly discussed about black history or culture. Hardly any black characters appeared in movies or on TV, and the few who did were generally background figures who silently served meals or chauffeured for rich white people. For comic relief, they’d occasionally throw in a boisterous black character who dressed outrageously and spoke loudly and with poor grammar. My teachers at school were no help in dispelling these stereotypes. Either they were ignorant of black history or they didn’t think it worth teaching—I couldn’t decide which was worse.

  Equally important, I would be writing. My English teachers had always praised my writing ability, even reading some of my papers aloud in class. But this wasn’t class. I would be writing articles that people would read outside the safety of the classroom. This would be a whole new challenge, and as much as the competitor in me was excited by the challenge, I was also scared. With basketball, everything was immediate: You shot the ball and either you scored or you didn’t, you won the game or you didn’t, but you judged your success or failure right away. With writing, you composed your ideas, wrote and rewrote them until you couldn’t stand to read them again, printed them, sent them out to readers, and waited for their response. The wait would be nerve-racking.

  At least the summer was mine to succeed or fail in. No more Coach Donahue to please.

  Or so I thought.

  When Coach Donahue discovered I wasn’t returning to Friendship Farm, he was truly surprised.

  “Lew, what do you mean you’re not coming back?” he asked.

  “I’ve made other plans,” I said, unwilling to confront him.

  I could see he was totally clueless how much he’d hurt me. “But I refurbished the whole camp and placed advertisements. For the first time, w
e have paying campers who aren’t just from Power.” Thanks to me and the rest of the team, his reputation as a coach had grown, and he was ready to reap the rewards. “You’ve got to come, Lew,” he pleaded. “You’re a draw to the new campers.”

  I really wanted to tell him what I thought of him and his camp. I wanted to write those words ten feet high on the sides of buildings and on subway cars, to carry my message throughout the city so everyone knew just how I felt. I now was in the position to hurt Coach Donahue the same way he had hurt me—through betrayal. He had betrayed my trust in him to protect me, and I could betray his trust in me to support his camp. I could have my revenge on him. All I had to do was not go.

  The thing was, though, the Good Boy in me still felt as if I owed him. He had taken me to see pro ball games, he had driven me to school, he had coached me from a skinny, awkward kid to a powerhouse player with scholarship offers from across the country. Basically, he was a good man and a good teacher. But the fact that he didn’t seem to know what he had done that was so bad showed how he saw me only as a basketball player helping him win games, not as an individual, seventeen-year-old black kid, who had to face a hostile environment every day. Still, I felt as if it would be wrong of me to punish him for being who he was rather than who I wanted him to be.

  I agreed to attend Friendship Farm for three weeks in August. He was happy, my mother was happy, and I was, if not happy, satisfied that I’d paid him back in full. After this, I owed him nothing. I would be free.

  15.

  Meeting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

  My HARYOU journalism workshop was located in the Harlem Branch YMCA, on West 135th Street. The main building, constructed in 1931–32, looked like twin brick towers with a shorter connecting brick building, resembling a Lego version of a medieval castle. Part of my ignorance of my own culture then was that I didn’t know the significance of what I thought was just another YMCA, like the hundreds across the country. I didn’t know that it was built especially for African American men because most of the other YMCAs were only for white men. I didn’t know that the famed civil rights leader Malcolm X had stayed there as a young man. I didn’t know that the celebrated Jamaican American writer Claude McKay had lived there for five years. I didn’t know that the scientist George Washington Carver, baseball superstar Jackie Robinson, and singer-actor Paul Robeson had either stayed or performed there.