num_pages: 448
description: Bill Russell was not the first African American to play professional basketball but he was its first black superstar. From the moment he stepped onto the court of the Boston Garden in 1956 Russell began to transform the sport in a fundamental way making him more than any of his contemporaries the Jackie Robinson of basketball. In King of the Court  Aram Goudsouzian provides a vivid and engrossing chronicle of the life and career of this brilliant champion and courageous racial pioneer. Russells leaping wide-ranging defense altered the games texture. His teams provided models of racial integration in the 1950s and 1960s and in 1966 he became the first black coach of any major professional team sport. Yet like no athlete before him Russell challenged the politics of sport. Instead of displaying appreciative deference he decried racist institutions embraced his African roots and challenged the nonviolent tenets of the civil rights movement. This beautifully written booksophisticated nuanced and insightfulreveals a singular individual who expressed the dreams of Martin Luther King Jr. while echoing the warnings of Malcolm X.
language: English
title: King of the Court: Bill Russell and the Basketball Revolution
publisher: University of California Press