Baylor staged a sit down strike in 1959 because of Jim Crow.
On January 16th, 1959, Minneapolis Lakers forward Elgin Baylor refused to play in a neutral-site game for the Lakers against the Cincinnati Royals in segregated Charleston, West Virginia. Baylor and his Black teammates could not stay at the all-white hotel with the rest of the team. Why was there an NBA game in Charlestown, West Virginia? The NBA was a shaky enterprise in the 1950s. The Minneapolis franchise was financially hurting. The Lakers’ center George Mikan, the NBA’s best player, retired and Minneapolis customers found other things to do. The team wasn’t very good and almost ended up in St. Louis. Charlestown, West Virginia was not on anybody’s list to house an NBA franchise but Minneapolis had Hot Rod Hundley on the team who was a star for West Virginia University. The thinking was simple. People in Charlestown would come out to see Hundley and maybe some additional revenue would flow the owners’ way.
“I love basketball. I like playing in the league very much but not at the expense of my dignity,” said Baylor. Bob Short and NBA President Maurice Podoloff were irate. Podoloff publicly sided with Baylor, and the league ultimately made a rule that teams would not play in segregated states unless the teams were guaranteed shared accommodations for all players. The NBA put a pre-season game in Lexington, Kentucky in 1961 featuring the Boston Celtics and the St. Louis Hawks. Black players from both teams were refused service in a hotel restaurant. Bill Russell and K.C. Jones took Satch Sanders and Sam Jones to tell Celtics coach Red Auerbach that they weren’t playing. Al Butler, left with them, and two Black players for the Hawks joined the boycott. Auerbach sided with his players. Both protests have been forgotten but NBA players were in the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement.
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