Green and Black

How the

WORDS:

Celtics beat racism

WORDS:

JAMES

DRAVEN

Boston steps onto football’s biggest stage as a FIFA World Cup host city, welcoming the world for group matches, knockout football and the quarter-finals. For a city with teams across all five major American sports, global spectacle is nothing new – but its sporting past tells a more complicated story.

As the 2026 FIFA World Cup approaches, the United States finds itself at a complex crossroads. The country will soon welcome footballers from across the globe at a time when immigration dominates political debate, deportations make headlines and the language of exclusion feels louder than it has in decades.

Yet sport offers a counterpoint. It remains one of the few cultural spaces built explicitly around the idea that people from different places, backgrounds and beliefs can meet on equal terms.

At its best, sport offers a vision of society as it might be: diverse, competitive and inclusive. Yet the history of US sport reveals a more complicated reality – and few places illustrate this better than Boston.

As I walk through The Sports Museum at Boston’s TD Garden, I can feel the layered history of the city – sporting triumph and tension side by side. Glass cases shine with silverware, worn basketball boots and jerseys are treated with the reverence of religious relics, but the stories told on the walls reach deeper still: moments when athletes became symbols of courage in a city still wrestling with its conscience. Standing before the exhibit on the Celtics, it’s impossible not to feel that every trophy gleams a little differently when you know what it cost to earn.

While celebrated for its role as one of the most important stops on the Underground Railroad and a central hub for the movement towards the abolition of slavery, Boston was also infamous for resistance to civil rights reforms in the 20th century. These tensions spilled into sport, where Black athletes often faced hostility from fans, exclusion from socialspaces and discrimination in housing and employment. Yet paradoxically, within this environment, the Boston Celtics emerged as one of the most racially progressive franchises in American professional sport.

"Throughout the Civil Rights era, the Celtics continued to challenge the unspoken racial norms of professional basketball."

In 1950, the Celtics selected Chuck Cooper, the first Black player ever drafted by an NBA team, at a time when Black players were considered a risk – to ticket sales, to white fans, to the fragile comfort of segregation. Cooper was not drafted as a symbol, though; he was drafted because he could play – and, in doing so, he cracked open a door that had been firmly shut.

Nobody would walk through that door more decisively than Bill Russell. Russell arrived in Boston in 1956 and immediately transformed the team. He was not the flashiest scorer, but he dominated games through tactics, intelligence and an unrelenting will to win. Championships followed – eleven in thirteen seasons – turning the Celtics into the NBA’s first true dynasty. Yet while Russell was celebrated on the court, his life beyond it was shaped by hostility.

Russell was booed by his own fans, subjected to racial slurs and targeted by hate mail. His home was broken into and vandalised, his trophies smashed, his walls defaced with racist abuse. The city adored the victories he delivered, but often failed to offer him basic respect in return. Russell never romanticised this contradiction. He spoke openly about it, refusing to perform gratitude for the successes he achieved at such personal cost.

What makes Russell’s story extraordinary is not just what he endured, but how he responded. In 1961, when Black Celtics players were denied service at a segregated restaurant in Kentucky, Russell and his teammates refused to play the scheduled exhibition game. It was a rare act of collective defiance at a time when athletes were expected to remain silent. Five years later, Russell went further still, becoming the first Black head coach in NBA history, simultaneously leading from the bench and on the court, where he continued to play. It was an unprecedented moment, placing a Black man in authority within a league – and a city – still wrestling with racial inequality.

Throughout the Civil Rights era, the Celtics continued to challenge the unspoken racial norms of professional basketball. In 1964, they became the first NBA team to field an all-Black starting line-up, ignoring the widespread belief that white supporters needed a white presence on the court. The logic was simple: the best players should play. Russell’s presence made that principle unavoidable. Despite everything, Russell’srelationship with Boston remained complicated. He loved the team, revered his teammates and respected the game. But he never softened his assessment of the city’s racial failings. That honesty, once uncomfortable, now feels essential. It forces us to consider that progress in sport does not automatically translate to justice in society.

And yet, the Celtics’ history also offers something rare: proof that institutions can change. From Cooper’s draft selection to Russell’s coaching appointment, the franchise repeatedly chose to push forward rather than retreat into the comfort of conformity. In recent years, the team has embraced that legacy, acknowledging past failures while supporting modern players who speak out against racism and inequality.

Boston’s Sports Museum is an essential stop if you’re in the city, since it confronts historic racism while simultaneously celebrating Boston’s achievements in bringing equality to sport: it was, after all, the Boston Bruins who made Willie O’Ree the first Black NHL ice-hockey player in 1958.

As the world prepares to arrive in the United States for the World Cup, Bill Russell’s story feels newly urgent. Global sport depends on openness – on movement, diversity and shared humanity. It asks fans to cheer for excellence wherever it comes from – and for nations to host visitors not as threats but as guests.

Bill Russell once said that winning was a responsibility. He lived that belief not just on the court, but in courage. His legacy is not simply the many championship banners that hang from the rafters at TD Garden – home of both the Celtics and the Bruins – but a reminder that sport’s greatest power lies in its ability to challenge who belongs… and to expand that answer. In divided times, that is the most important victory of all.

GETTING THERE Several airlines operate daily non-stop services from London to Boston Logan International Airport. From there, take the MBTA via the Silver Line bus, a short water taxi, taxi, or ride-share into the city. Most journeys to central Boston take 15–30 minutes. The Sports Museum is based in TD Garden at 100 Legends Way. GETTING AROUND Boston is a walkable city, so stick to exploring on foot or by taxis and ride-share services. There will be shuttles out to Boston Stadium (better known as Gillette Stadium when the World Cup isn’t on), which is 22 miles from downtown Boston. BEST TIME TO GO During the Fifa World Cup is the most obvious time to visit in 2026, but otherwise expect mild springs and autumns, very cold winters and crowds in summer – particularly this year. FURTHER INFORMATION sportsmuseum.org tdgarden.com meetboston.com