As a ballplayer, Willie Mays was arguably the greatest of all time — baseball’s GOAT. But he also starred in another endeavor — as an important California civil rights pioneer. Mays never wanted to be an activist about anything off the baseball diamond. But the racism he encountered after moving to San Francisco stirred others to leap to his cause and ultimately helped motivate the city and state governments to outlaw housing discrimination.
The headline on the story read: “Willie Mays is Refused S.F. House–Negro.” “I didn’t figure I would have this much trouble trying to buy a place,” Mays told a TV reporter. “When I go looking for a house, I don’t worry about who’s living beside me.” Unlike nervous white people of that era. San Francisco Mayor George Christopher — a moderate Republican, back when such a breed existed — offered to let Mays and his wife live temporarily at his home.