Bridge near TD Garden named for NBA legend Bill Russell: ‘What a bridge does is bring people together’ - The Boston Globe

Russell marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., opened the state’s first racially integrated basketball camp in Mississippi, and spoke with students in Boston who were protesting school segregation, Wu said.

“He was always humble, and he was always thinking about what he could do next,” Wu said.

Governor Maura Healey said Russell “showed strength and dignity” in the face of racism and “made powerful contributions to the civil rights movement.”

“The intensity, the passion he brought to the game made him a natural leader off the court as well,” she said.

She described Russell as a leader and role model who “taught us what it means to stand up for a cause, what it means to dedicate your life to others.”

Celtics star Jaylen Brown said he met Russell twice before his death. His smile “would just light up an entire room,” he recalled.

“I think that the decisions that we make today and tomorrow have an effect on the next generation. We’re here to talk about the legacy of the great Bill Russell, not only what he did on the basketball floor . . . but how many championships he won off the court as well, the things he stood for in the community.”

Brown said it’s only fitting the city decided to name a bridge after the Celtics legend, “because what a bridge does is bring people together.”

“The role that sports play in our society is bringing people together,” he said. “I know what a role it is to be able to stand in rooms like this . . . and stand for something. And be willing to collaborate in order to make this city a better place.”

Also in attendance at Monday’s ceremony were four children of K.C. Jones, the late Celtics point guard who won eight championships playing alongside Russell. Jones would go on to steer the Larry Bird Celtics to two NBA championships between 1983 and 1988, as one of the first Black coaches in the league — the first being Russell himself.

Jones’ son, also named K.C., told The Boston Globe that Russell, along with his father and others in that generation, laid the groundwork for what the league is today.

“It was very tough for them to do what they had to do.” Jones said. “Somebody has to be the first, and if you’re the first you take a lot of that abuse. But you open up such a wide berth so that everyone else can follow.”

Jones, who lives in Worcester, said that, to him and his siblings, it will always be simply the “Uncle Bill Bridge.”

The bridge named in Russell’s honor is the North Washington Street Bridge, a short walk from TD Garden, which connects the North End and Charlestown.

State Representative Aaron Michlewitz joked that Monday’s ceremony puts an end to the hundred-year argument over whether the span should be known as the “Charlestown Bridge” or the “North End Bridge.”

“There is no better historical person to end that argument than the greatest winner in this city’s history,” he said, referring to Russell. “Check that — the greatest winner in American sports history.”

The bridge has been under construction for approximately four years, as engineers demolished its aging predecessor in 2020 to replace the structure with a more modern design. The bridge is now open to vehicular traffic, as well as pedestrians on its northbound side, and is expected to be fully open by next April.

The bridge also includes a stretch of Boston’s Freedom Trail — which, several of the attendees noted, will now have a new landmark honoring a civil rights hero of Boston.

“Standing up, marching with Martin Luther King — there were so many different things in history that he was a part of,” said State Senator Sal DiDomenico, who represents Charlestown, to the Globe. “You take a look at the history books, Bill Russell was there, side by side with those figures making that change.”

Wu also announced that two parks at either end of the bridge will be renamed in honor of Robert “Bobby D.” DeCristoforo, a North End community advocate and sportswriter, and Boston Fire Department Lieutenant Stephen Minehan, who died in 1994 fighting a nine-alarm blaze in Charlestown.

A statue of Russell, who won 11 titles with the Celtics as a player and as the league’s first Black head coach, was unveiled in City Hall Plaza in 2013, after President Obama presented him with the 2010 Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

Officials said Monday that when the prospect of a statue was first mentioned to Russell, he said he would agree if a youth mentorship program was funded in connection with it.

Camilo Fonseca can be reached at camilo.fonseca@globe.com. Follow him on X @fonseca_esq and on Instagram @camilo_fonseca.reports. Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com.