Twenty years before Colin Kaepernick’s national anthem protest took the world by storm, a former LSU basketball player did the same thing before an NBA game.

Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, formerly known as Chris Jackson during his time at LSU, said Monday he has no regrets for protesting the national anthem in 1996. Abdul-Rauf spoke to LSU students, faculty and staff during the LSU Office of Multicultural Affair’s keynote address in the LSU Student Union ballroom.

Abdul-Rauf played basketball at the University from 1988 to 1990, with the NBA’s Denver Nuggets from 1990 to 1996 and with the Sacramento Kings from 1996 to 1998.

“Abdul-Rauf is an inspiration to all of us who hear and answer the call to bring attention to oppression [and] to be of aid to those who suffer and to fight continuously for justice,” said LSU Black Alumni Chapter Vice President Katrina Pete Dunn.

Abdul-Rauf’s life began in Gulfport, MS, with his single mother and two brothers. He said he used basketball as a way to cope with his poverty, absent father and Tourette’s Syndrome.
“Basketball took the place of thinking about that father that I didn’t have,” Abdul-Rauf said. “I would think to myself, ‘Man, I hope that I become so good that my daddy will introduce himself to me.’”

At 9 years old, Abdul-Rauf would wake up at 4 a.m. every day and practice basketball. He said he believed that succeeding in basketball was his only option in life.

Abdul-Rauf came to the University in 1988 as a full-time student and basketball player. He enjoyed the opportunity to play basketball, but continued to struggle academically and attended remedial reading courses as a result.

“I was breaking records on campus,” Abdul-Rauf said. “I was on the covers of magazines, but I had low self-esteem. I didn’t look at myself as being intelligent. I just didn’t have the confidence.”

Abdul-Rauf was one of the most prolific players to ever wear a Tigers uniform, winning SEC Player of the Year in both years at LSU. His 30.2 points per game in 1988-89 remains a Division I record for a freshman. Despite only playing two season, he ranks in LSU’s top ten for points scored, field goals made and free throws made. 

It was also at LSU that Abdul-Rauf was inspired to eventually protest the national anthem.

“The thing that sparked it was when [former LSU Basketball] coach Dale [Brown] gave me The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” Abdul-Rauf said. “I don’t know why he gave it to me, but he did. [Malcolm X’s] life just had me thinking about my life, and what I want to do with myself.”

In March of 1996, Abdul-Rauf refused to stand during the national anthem of the Denver Nuggets’ game against the Chicago Bulls game, as he believed it was a symbol of oppression.

“I don’t have any regrets,” Abdul-Rauf said. “When you get to that point where the truth means more to you than anything, money doesn’t matter. Once you see something, you can’t unsee it. [Arundhati Roy said] to be silent, to say nothing, is just as political of an act as speaking out.”

Abdul-Rauf received a suspension from the NBA for his protest and was fined $31,707 for every subsequent game missed. In 2001, his Mississippi home burned down. Prior to this, the home had Ku Klux Klan symbols drawn on the wall and a truck had driven through the garage during construction.

Abdul-Rauf offered his advice to students as they enter their careers.

“Find out what it is you want to do,” he said. “Don’t let it be about the money. Let it be about the love. God wants the money to come, it’ll come. If it doesn’t, at least you’re doing something you love and you like work.”

Attendees enjoyed hearing about the life of Abdul-Rauf, some having never known about his political activism until that night.

“It was a great discussion,” said natural resource ecology & management junior Elijah Hanzy III. “He did what people consider to be radical today 20 years ago. We are in an age of social media where everything spreads faster, so that’s why a lot of people don’t know about it.”

The keynote speech was moderated by African American Culture Center assistant director Evante Cortez Topp and hosted by the Clarence L. Barney Jr. African American Culture Center and the A.P. Tureaud Sr. LSU Black Alumni Association.