Former Bulls guard Craig Hodges wanted a similar protest

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August 30, 2020
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In 1992, Craig Hodges had a Colin Kaepernick end to his NBA career. After winning two championships with the Chicago Bulls and claiming the 3-point competition title for three consecutive years, Hodges found himself out of the league, playing his last game at the age of 31.

Much like Kaepernick, a solid reserve quarterback who hasn’t played since the 2016 season when he began kneeling during the national anthem to protest social injustice, Hodges believes he was despised by league teams for his activism. After being cut by the Bulls in 1992, he received no offer from any of the other teams, prompting him to file a lawsuit against the NBA later on.

In his activist efforts, Hodges specifically wanted to protest Game 1 of the 1991 NBA Finals between the Bulls and the Los Angeles Lakers, staged just months after Rodney King was brutally beaten by LAPD officers. He went to discuss it with teammate Michael Jordan and Lakers star Magic Johnson, the two biggest stars in the league at the time.

“I knew the answer before I went to them,” Hodges told CBS Sports while speaking to Johnson and Jordan. “The funny thing for me is how quickly they rejected him. Both conversations lasted less than two minutes. Magic came on the pitch the day before the first game, and I asked him about it and he said” it’s Too extreme. “I’ve already discussed this with Mike in the locker room and he says,” man, he’s crazy, man. So it’s nothing I’ve never faced before. “

After the Bulls won the ’91 championship, Hodges and his teammates were invited to the White House by then-President George HW Bush. Hodges wore a dashiki and wrote a letter to Bush detailing the racism black Americans were facing in the country at the time.

When NBA players teamed up last week to protest Jacob Blake’s police shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Hodges saw the kind of activism he pushed for nearly two decades earlier.

“It was great,” Hodges told CBS Sports. “I felt like all the ancestors were smiling, and I said ‘man, our young brothers have a backbone.’ We already know women have a backbone, because they did this and they will leave, no problem. But it’s for the siblings who cling to the trinkets of white supremacy and racism and the things that come with it: a nice house in a gated community next to my billion dollar owner. This is the model of success for young African Americans. now let’s talk about wanting to get out of the community instead of building it. As opposed to how I can make my community reflect my culture or heritage and still be appreciated. “

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LeBron James recently shared a note Kaepernick wrote to him that partly said “thank you for being true”. James helped lead NBA players on their knees during the national anthem when the season kicked off in the Orlando bubble. Players, coaches and referees knelt to protest George Floyd’s death. Then, last week, James was part of a core of players who contacted former President Barack Obama asking whether to end the postseason after Blake’s shooting.

Hodges was particularly impressed with players like James using their platform to drive change, aiming for progress, considering the game’s biggest star is now at the forefront of activism efforts.

“I like that they are dealing with the information they have and that they are working with the information they have. You don’t have to be a history scholar, but you have to have empathy,” Hodges said of James and the NBA players. “You have to try to see the world not from your millionaire sight, but from the poorest person sitting in the corner with a can in hand asking you for a dollar. That’s how I see some of these young brothers, I’m feeling that, because I’m not too far from that. “

Follow reporter Scott Gleeson on Twitter @ScottMGleeson

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Former Bulls guard Craig Hodges wanted a similar protest

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