2023-05-20 02:19:17
American football legend, but also actor and civil rights activist, Jim Brown died Thursday at the age of 87, his family announced on Instagram. He died peacefully at his Los Angeles home, she said. “For everyone, he was an activist, actor, and a football star,” paid tribute to his wife, Monique Brown. “To our family, he was a loving husband, father and grandfather. Our hearts are broken”.
A very talented running back, Jim Brown was one of the first superstars of American football, indicates the American press agency Associated Press. He led the Cleveland Browns to their last NFL title in 1964 and was named the league’s MVP a year later. Jim Brown had ended his short career the same year, in 1965, at the height of his glory, only eight years after his first professional match.
“Jim Brown is a true icon, not just for the Cleveland Browns, but for the NFL,” Cleveland team owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam said. “He was definitely the best player to ever wear the Browns jersey, and probably one of the greatest players in NFL history. Jim was one of the reasons the Browns have so many fans today.
Stopped half a dozen times
Former US President Barack Obama joined the concert of praise on Friday, saluting on Twitter the memory of “one of the greatest American football players of all time”.
Having become an actor following his football career, he had played in more than thirty films, including “The Dirty Dozen” or “Mars Attacks! “.
Jim Brown was also involved in the civil rights movement in the United States, using his popularity to advance the cause of African Americans in the 1960s. In June 1967, reports AP, he was thus at the origin of the “Cleveland Summit”, an event that brought together some of the most famous black athletes of the time, in support of boxer Mohammed Ali, who had refused to serve in Vietnam. Also committed against gang violence in Los Angeles, where he ended his life, he founded, in 1988, a program to help young people and ex-convicts from disadvantaged areas of the city.
“Jim Brown was a talented athlete – one of the most dominant players to ever tread a sports field – but also a cultural figure who helped promote change,” NFL boss Roger Goodell said. evoking “a precursor and a model for athletes who get involved in social initiatives outside their sport”.
Her reputation, however, had been tainted by accusations of violence against women, according to the New York Times, which recalls that the former glory of American football had been arrested “more than half a dozen times, in most cases after women accused him of having engaged in violent behavior”. Jim Brown had however never been found guilty of a major crime, specifies the American daily, because his accusers had refused to testify in certain cases, or because he had ended up being cleared in others.
In 1999, he was still sentenced to three years probation, one year of domestic violence counseling, after smashing his wife Monique’s car with a shovel. Having failed to comply with the conditions of his sentence, he was sentenced in 2000 to six months in prison, before being released after three months.
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