EARLY BLACK STARS IN THE NBA

After Chuck Cooper joined the Boston Celtics in 1951, becoming the first African American player in the NBA, black players took what was once a highly mechanical and rigid game and developed it into a spontaneous and artistic forum for self-expression. Bill Russell, and Wilt "The Stilt" Chamberlain—who both stood close to 7 ft tall—elevated the game with their thunderous slam dunks and graceful layups.

In college Russell led the University of California at San Francisco to two national titles and as a professional helped to lead the Boston Celtics to nine NBA titles. Chamberlain played 14 years in the NBA (1959-1973) and was an all-star for 13 of those years.

He set a single-game scoring record in 1962 when he scored 100 points against the New York Knickerbockers. Chamberlain amassed more than 31,000 points and 23,000 rebounds during his career, second only to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. While Russell and Chamberlain set new standards for the position of center, players such as Elgin Baylor and Oscar Robertson introduced speed and agility to the NBA. Baylor, a 1958 graduate of Seattle University, led the Los Angeles Lakers to the 1968 finals and scored 71 points in a single game. Robertson, who graduated from the University of Cincinnati and played on the 1960 gold-medal-winning U.S. Olympic basketball team, became an all-star in the NBA and had almost 10,000 assists during his career.

The success of these professionals and the growing strength of the Civil Rights Movement opened new doors for young black athletes as predominantly white schools rushed to attract the best high school stars. Soon young black men were being recruited from inner-city high schools in New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.

In 1966 James Cash became the first black player at Texas Christian University and Perry Wallace was the first black to be recruited by the Southeast Conference in 1967. Billy Jones followed Wallace, integrating the Atlantic Coast Conference a year later.

The University of California at Los Angeles won ten national titles from 1964 to 1975, largely because of black players such as Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar). Alcindor, standing more than 7 ft tall, was so dominant at UCLA that league officials had to outlaw the slam dunk while he was in school.