Abdul-Jabbar played basketball for 20 seasons for the Milwaukee Bucks and the LA Lakers before being honoured as one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History. In 2012, he was selected by the Secretary of State to be a US Global Cultural Ambassador and in 2016 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest US civilian honour. Abdul-Jabbar is also a best-selling author of 17 books and is an nine-time Columnist of the Year for his essays in The Hollywood Reporter. He has acted in numerous television series and movies including Airplane, Game of Death and FXs number one rated comedy, DAVE. He has also taken on activism in his later years, speaking out against Islamophobia and other forms of social injustice. In 2021, the NBA created the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Social Justice Champion Award. He publishes weekly at Kareem.substack.com