A few hours ahead of a Philadelphia road game in March 1965, Wayne Embry was with his Cincinnati Royals teammate Oscar Robertson in their hotel room when the phone rang. It was Embry’s wife, Theresa (Terri), on the other end of the line, calling from their family home in Cincinnati, Ohio.
“Wayne, Yvonne and I are going to Selma to march,” she told Embry.
Shock rushed through Embry’s body. Earlier that month, hundreds of civil rights demonstrators made the 54-mile march from Selma, Ala., to the state capital of Montgomery for the right of African-American citizens to vote.