The past is not only history, it is also memory. At the end of the Second World War, the black American soldiers who returned home -after leaving thousands of brothers dead on the European battlefields- found in their country that they had to give up their seats on public transport. One morning, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on an Alabama bus. Thus was born one of the most beautiful and most violent epic denunciations in the history of mankind. Craig Hodges remembers -by the story of his mother and grandmother- those years of street fighting for civil rights. One of the greatest 3-point shooters of all time, decided to “stay in his seat” in the NBA and was banished forever. “They made me pay,” he would say years later.
Affiliated with the Young Communist League of the United States, his militancy for civil rights began on March 3, 1991, when the African-American taxi driver, Rodney King, was brutally beaten and arrested by four Los Angeles police officers. The NBA final playoffs between the Chicago Bulls and the Los Angeles Lakers were taking place at the time. Hodges requested -in the media- the suspension of the game, and begged Michael Jordan (teammate) and “Magic” Johnson, top rival star, to increase a measure of force in support of the detained taxi driver. They both refused. “I did not have the support I expected,” he would say some time later. The Bulls’ win provided their first championship.
The team was feted at the White House by President George Bush Sr. Hodges attended dressed in his white dashiki, the traditional robe worn in West Africa for important occasions. “It was a cultural imperative. I had to go as my mother would have liked: with my clothes, which reflected well where I come from “explained in the sports magazine Sporting News. The player delivered an eight-page letter to the president in which he exposed the problems of racial segregation and discrimination suffered by African Americans. The letter reached the media, and was decisive for the end of his sports career. “After that no team wanted to hire me. I couldn’t get a single agent. He brought up my political affiliation, and Michel Jordan himself told me that he had embarrassed them all before Bush. It was decisive in my expulsion from the Bulls ”.
He did not play professional basketball again in the United States.. In 1992, a majority white jury acquitted the four police officers who beat King, and thousands of people took to the streets of Los Angeles, rioting for six days, in the most brutal race riots in the city’s history. The balance was 63 dead, 2,383 wounded, 5,780 businesses set on fire, and more than 12,000 people arrested and charged. Neither Michael Jordan nor “Magic” Johnson commented on the incidents.
The enormous dimension of Craig Hodges, as a star of North American basketball, is manifested in the fact that on the day of Today he maintains his unbeatable record in the NBA Triple Contest. The establishment cared little for his talent. “Any African American who achieves significant success has an added burden, and many in the US accept Michael Jordan or Oprah Whinfrey as long as you don’t get too controversial around broader issues of social justice”, expressed Barack Obama in the documentary “The Last Dance”. Craig Hodges now lives on aid and some temporary jobs. His ex-partner is a mega-millionaire. His shoes, the Nike “Air Jordans,” sell for $100 a pair, and are made for $100 a month. 100 x 100: round balance. “Mike” is “Mike”. And “Mike” has always “got up from his seat”.
