Many athletes are leading efforts at the intersection of activism and sports. One of the latest athletes to use their platform to spread awareness about social injustice is NBA player Jrue Holiday, ESPN reported.
Holiday—a New Orleans Pelicans guard—recently announced he is donating the remainder of his 2019-2020 season salary to nonprofits focused on social justice, small Black-owned businesses and historically Black colleges and universities throughout the country. The fund—dubbed the Jrue and Lauren Holiday Social Justice Impact Fund—is worth over $5 million.
“Honestly when it came down to it, it was me and my wife talking about what we could do to kind of further this movement and progression and being able to help out our community and just being able to help,” he said in a statement, according to the news outlet. “God has blessed us with so much. We know a couple of things that are important are time and money, and right now, we have both. To be able to give away our money to help further this movement and Black-owned businesses that have taken a hit in COVID-19, to us, it felt like the perfect time and opportunity.”
News about Holiday’s act of generosity comes after San Antonio Spurs player Patty Mills shared he would donate $1 million of his salary to racial justice organizations in his homeland of Australia. “I’m taking every cent from these eight games that we’re playing, which for me will turn out to be $1,017,818 and 54 cents, and donating that directly back to Black Lives Matter Australia, Black Deaths in Custody and to a recent campaign that’s called We Got You,” said Mills in a video. “So I’m playing in Orlando because I don’t want to leave any money on the table that could be going directly to Black communities.”
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