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IN MEMORIAM: Oakland’s Own Bill Russell, 88, Greatest Athlete/Civil Rights Activist Ever (Part 1)

NNPA NEWSWIRE — William Felton Russell was born on Feb. 12, 1934, in Monroe, La., and his family moved to West Oakland in 1942 when he was 8. His father found work on the waterfront and in the Bay Area shipyards in the middle of World War II. They instilled in him a history of racial and family pride that helped him survive in a racially discriminatory Boston environment while playing for the Boston Celtics.

Published

3 years ago

August 9, 2022

Oakland Post

As the first-ranked and highest respected Black sportsman, Bill Russell used his status to lead the nation’s leading Black athletes which included Jim Brown, Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul Jabbar) and many others to support Muhammad Ali’s stance against the Vietnam War.

By Paul Cobb, Post News Group Publisher

Bill Russell, the center of attention in professional basketball, died at 88 after becoming the most decorated athlete in all of the team sports in the United States.

The star of the Boston Celtics from 1956-1969, he changed the way basketball was played by applying his rare combination of basketball and track and field athleticism to fashion a defense-centered dominance. In a sport where one’s ability to score points was prized, he reversed the focus by making defensive thinking to prevent others from scoring.

He died on July 31, after more than 70 years of basketball and civil rights activism.

William Felton Russell was born on Feb. 12, 1934, in Monroe, La., and his family moved to West Oakland in 1942 when he was 8. His father found work on the waterfront and in the Bay Area shipyards in the middle of World War II. They instilled in him a history of racial and family pride that helped him survive in a racially discriminatory Boston environment while playing for the Boston Celtics.

In his early years his home was only three blocks east from Ron Dellums, Oakland’s first Black congressman, and just three blocks west from Frank Robinson, Oakland’s first Black Major League Baseball coach.

While living near Ninth and Center streets, he learned early on that one must fight for honor, dignity, and respect by never backing down from any challenge whether through fisticuffs or verbal slights.

He was mentored at Defremery Park and Recreation Center by the late Dorothy Seale Pitts and George Scotlan along with Bill Patterson, who now serves as an EBMUD Director, to stay centered on what mattered.

Even though he pioneered greatness as an athlete and as a scholar/athlete/civil rights activist who fought to achieve dignity and respect for African Americans, his path to recognition and honor was not easy because was not considered good enough to crack the starting five basketball Warriors lineup at McClymonds High School in West Oakland.

He never stopped trying and practicing with his teammates who were better shooters and scorers. But, at 6-foot 10 inches, he was taller and could jump higher and played defense above the rim. He even became the Warriors’ mascot who created a stunning nimble artistic dance routine as the team’s mascot.

(His achievements attracted many who sought to follow in his footsteps with stylized dance routines that were featured during halftime breaks.)

His mother died when he was 12, never seeing Bill win two state prep titles and two national college crowns at the University of San Francisco after being ignored by many colleges because he was Black.

He was a five-time NBA Most Valuable Player and captain of the 1956 U.S. Gold Medal team at the Melbourne Olympics. He drastically altered defensive play by excelling in rebounding, shot-blocking, and passing to ignite a fast-paced style of play.

He won eight consecutive NBA titles from 1959-1966. As a player-coach in his final three seasons, Russell was the first Black coach in North American sports and the first to win a title, doing so in 1968 and again in his 1969 farewell campaign.

He was the first Black player inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1975 and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011 by Barack Obama, America’s first Black president, for his civil rights and basketball achievements.

Russell was first among Oakland’s and the country’s athletic achievers. His USF team was the first major college to start three Black players. His Celtics team was the first to start five Black players. He was the first to become a player-coach. And he was the first player-coach to win an NBA title. He was first to be invited by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to speak at the 1963 March on Washington. He was the first athlete to utilize his celebrity by traveling to Mississippi to use sports to bring racial healing after the KKK killed NAACP leader Medgar Evers.

As the first-ranked and highest respected Black sportsman, he used his status to lead the nation’s leading Black athletes which included Jim Brown, Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul Jabbar) and many others to support Muhammad Ali’s stance against the Vietnam War.

He always remembered his friends and mentors here in Oakland. Whenever he traveled to Oakland, he would often check in with Maxine Willis Ussery and reminisce about the days when his family would visit her family’s cleaning establishment.

She said he was protective of her and wanted to meet and give his approval to any of her dates and he insisted that he go to dinner with her and fiance Wilfred Ussery to give his approval. Maxine is now the office manager at the Post News Group (Oakland Post).

He paid one of his highest compliments to Bill Patterson for guiding and counseling him since his high school days. He said Patterson helped him understand that he must never allow himself to be a victim. He was proud of Coach Ben Tapscott, the McClymonds’ basketball coach, who not only continued to maintain the school’s tradition as the winningest high school in the country with an emphasis on academic achievements.

He invited Tapscott to share the glory with him when he was inducted and honored by the University of San Francisco.

In an interview with Russell and former WNBA Coach Nancy Lieberman, just months before his passing, he was making plans to donate a jointly signed basketball to salute the achievement of Oakland’s African American Sports and Entertainment Group for purchasing the Oakland Coliseum.

Bill Patterson, Geoffrey Pete, Ben Tapscott, Joe Ellis, Jumoke Hinton, Rev. Gerald Agee, Ray Bobbitt, Arif Khatib, Virtual Murrell, Gary Reeves, Nancy Lieberman, Jonathan Jones, Al Attles, Jr. and many others have asked The Post to put them on the task force to gather the list and honor the Bay Area’s historic cavalcade of Athlete/Activists who also became “firsts” in their respective sports. For those who want to volunteer to be included, please contact Maxine Ussery @510-287-8200 or mussery@postnewsgroup.com.

“We must find a way to honor our highest achievers,” said Bill Patterson and Ben Tapscott

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Oakland Post: Week of November 5 – 11, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of November 5 – 11, 2025

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5 days ago

November 7, 2025

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Oakland Post: Week of October 29 – November 4, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of October 29 – November 4, 2025

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1 week ago

November 3, 2025

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Past, Present, Possible! Oakland Residents Invited to Reimagine the 980 Freeway

Organizers ask attendees coming to 1233 Preservation Park Way to think of the event as a “time portal”—a walkable journey through the Past (harm and flourishing), Present (community conditions and resilience), and Future (collective visioning).

Published

2 weeks ago

October 27, 2025

Oakland Post

Hundreds of residents in West Oakland were forced out by eminent domain before construction began on the 980 freeway in 1968. Courtesy photo.

By Randolph Belle
Special to The Post

Join EVOAK!, a nonprofit addressing the historical harm to West Oakland since construction of the 980 freeway began in 1968, will hold a block party on Oct. 25 at Preservation Park for a day of imagination and community-building from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Organizers ask attendees coming to 1233 Preservation Park Way to think of the event as a “time portal”—a walkable journey through the Past (harm and flourishing), Present (community conditions and resilience), and Future (collective visioning).

Activities include:

Interactive Visioning: Site mapping, 3-D/digital modeling, and design activities to reimagine housing, parks, culture, enterprise, and mobility.
Story & Memory: Oral history circles capturing life before the freeway, the rupture it caused, and visions for repair.
Data & Policy: Exhibits on health, environment, wealth impacts, and policy discussions.
Culture & Reflection: Films, installations, and performances honoring Oakland’s creativity and civic power.

The site of the party – Preservation Park – itself tells part of the story of the impact on the community. Its stately Victorians were uprooted and relocated to the site decades ago to make way for the I-980 freeway, which displaced hundreds of Black families and severed the heart of West Oakland. Now, in that same space, attendees will gather to reckon with past harms, honor the resilience that carried the community forward, and co-create an equitable and inclusive future.

A Legacy of Resistance

In 1979, Paul Cobb, publisher of the Post News Group and then a 36-year-old civil-rights organizer, defiantly planted himself in front of a bulldozer on Brush Street to prevent another historic Victorian home from being flattened for the long-delayed I-980 Freeway. Refusing to move, Cobb was arrested and hauled off in handcuffs—a moment that landed him on the front page of the Oakland Tribune.

Cobb and his family had a long history of fighting for their community, particularly around infrastructure projects in West Oakland. In 1954, his family was part of an NAACP lawsuit challenging the U.S. Post Office’s decision to place its main facility in the neighborhood, which wiped out an entire community of Black residents.

In 1964, they opposed the BART line down Seventh Street—the “Harlem of the West.” Later, Cobb was deeply involved in successfully rerouting the Cypress Freeway out of the neighborhood after the Loma Prieta earthquake.

The 980 Freeway, a 1.6-mile stretch, created an ominous barrier severing West Oakland from Downtown. Opposition stemmed from its very existence and the national practice of plowing freeways through Black communities with little input from residents and no regard for health, economic, or social impacts. By the time Cobb stood before the bulldozer, construction was inevitable, and his fight shifted toward jobs and economic opportunity.

Fast-forward 45 years: Cobb recalled the story at a convening of “Super OGs” organized to gather input from legacy residents on reimagining the corridor. He quickly retrieved his framed Tribune front page, adding a new dimension to the conversation about the dedication required to make change. Themes of harm repair and restoration surfaced again and again, grounded in memories of a thriving, cohesive Black neighborhood before the freeway.

The Lasting Scar

The 980 Freeway was touted as a road to prosperity—funneling economic opportunity into the City Center, igniting downtown commerce, and creating jobs. Instead, it cut a gash through the city, erasing 503 homes, four churches, 22 businesses, and hundreds of dreams. A promised second approach to the Bay Bridge never materialized.

Planning began in the late 1940s, bulldozers arrived in 1968, and after years of delays and opposition, the freeway opened in 1985. By then, Oakland’s economic engines had shifted, leaving behind a 600-foot-wide wound that resulted in fewer jobs, poorer health outcomes, and a divided neighborhood. The harm of displacement and loss of generational wealth was compounded through redlining, disinvestment, drugs, and the police state. Many residents fled to outlying cities, while those who stayed carried forward the spirit of perseverance.

The Big Picture

At stake now is up to 67 acres of new, buildable land in Downtown West Oakland. This time, we must not repeat the institutional wrongs of the past. Instead, we must be as deliberate in building a collective, equitable vision as planners once were in destroying communities.

EVOAK!’s strategy is rooted in four pillars: health, housing, economic development, and cultural preservation. These were the very foundations stripped away, and they are what they aim to reclaim. West Oakland continues to suffer among the worst social determinants of health in the region, much of it linked to the three freeways cutting through the neighborhood.

The harms of urban planning also decimated cultural life, reinforced oppressive public safety policies, underfunded education, and fueled poverty and blight.

Healing the Wound

West Oakland was once the center of Black culture during the Great Migration—the birthplace of the Black Panther Party and home to the “School of Champions,” the mighty Warriors of McClymonds High. Drawing on that legacy, we must channel the community’s proud past into a bold, community-led future that restores connection, sparks innovation, and uplifts every resident.

Two years ago, Caltrans won a federal Reconnecting Communities grant to fund Vision 980, a community-driven study co-led by local partners. Phase 1 launched in Spring 2024 with surveys and outreach; Phase 2, a feasibility study, begins in 2026. Over 4,000 surveys have already been completed. This once-in-a-lifetime opportunity could transform the corridor into a blank slate—making way for accessible housing, open space, cultural facilities, and economic opportunity for West Oakland and the entire region.

Leading with Community

In parallel, EVOAK! is advancing a community-led process to complement Caltrans’ work. EVOAK! is developing a framework for community power-building, quantifying harm, exploring policy and legislative repair strategies, structuring community governance, and hosting arts activations to spark collective imagination. The goal: a spirit of co-creation and true collaboration.

What EVOAK! Learned So Far

Through surveys, interviews, and gatherings, residents have voiced their priorities: a healthy environment, stable housing, and opportunities to thrive. Elders with decades in the neighborhood shared stories of resilience, community bonds, and visions of what repair should look like.

They heard from folks like Ezra Payton, whose family home was destroyed at Eighth and Brush streets; Ernestine Nettles, still a pillar of civic life and activism; Tom Bowden, a blues man who performed on Seventh Street as a child 70 years ago; Queen Thurston, whose family moved to West Oakland in 1942; Leo Bazille who served on the Oakland City Council from 1983 to 1993; Herman Brown, still organizing in the community today; Greg Bridges, whose family’s home was picked up and moved in the construction process; Martha Carpenter Peterson, who has a vivid memory of better times in West Oakland; Sharon Graves, who experienced both the challenges and the triumphs of the neighborhood; Lionel Wilson, Jr., whose family were anchors of pre-freeway North Oakland; Dorothy Lazard, a resident of 13th Street in the ’60s and font of historical knowledge; Bishop Henry Williams, whose simple request is to “tell the truth,” James Moree, affectionately known as “Jimmy”; the Flippin twins, still anchored in the community; and Maxine Ussery, whose father was a business and land owner before redlining.

EVOAK! will continue to capture these stories and invites the public to share theirs as well.

Beyond the Block Party

The 980 Block Party is just the beginning. Beyond this one-day event, EVOAK! Is building a long-term process to ensure West Oakland’s future is shaped by those who lived its past. To succeed, EVOAK! Is seeking partners across the community—residents, neighborhood associations, faith groups, and organizations—to help connect with legacy residents and host conversations.

980 Block Party Event Details
Saturday, Oct. 25
10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Preservation Park, 1233 Preservation Park Way, Oakland, CA 94612
980BlockParty.org
info@evoak.org