From a YMCA gym in Atlanta to the modern campaign trail, a new documentary reveals how basketball became a powerful tool for connection, leadership, and social change.
On a winter afternoon in Atlanta, the YMCA gym hums the way sanctuaries do before something holy happens. Sneakers squeak. A basketball thumps the floor, steady as a heartbeat. Then the door opens, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. walks in wearing a suit.
He takes off his jacket. Keeps his tie on.
“Just get me the ball.”
Ambassador Andrew Young remembers thinking, Look at this guy—he’s five-foot-seven. Who does he think he is? What he didn’t know—what the youth lining the baseline were about to discover—was that Dr. King understood something deeper than height or hops. He understood rhythm. Passing. Trust. He understood that a basketball court could become a commons, and that a game could become a language.
To everyone’s surprise, King could play. More importantly, he could connect. Andrew Young became his point guard—not just that afternoon, but throughout the movement itself.
“I was a point guard in the civil rights movement.”
— Ambassador Andrew Young
On the hardwood, King met young people where they were, and in doing so, carried them somewhere higher.
That small, luminous moment anchors Hoops, Hopes & Dreams, a 20-minute documentary directed by conceptual artist and filmmaker Glenn Kaino. The documentary explores how Dr. King and, decades later, President Barack Obama used basketball as a tool for community building, political organizing, and social change. It premiered on January 19, 2026—Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Kaino—born in Los Angeles in 1972 and shaped by his Japanese-American heritage and his upbringing in East Los Angeles—has built a career around connection. Working across sculpture, painting, film, and large-scale installations, his art often brings together people and ideas that rarely meet. When he heard Andrew Young mention playing basketball with Dr. King, Kaino recognized an untold story hiding in plain sight. This wasn’t trivia; it was strategy. It was Dr. King practicing the art of meeting people where they are.
From there, the throughline became clear. Kaino, a lifelong basketball fan, saw a direct echo in Barack Obama. On campaign stops across the country, Obama organized pickup games with volunteers, firefighters, police officers, students, and former college players. He shot around with NBA stars, planned fundraising games, and used basketball to project accessibility and vitality—a leader comfortable sweating alongside the people he hoped to serve.
Hoops, Hopes & Dreams frames this connection as a passing of the baton—a generational bridge linking the civil rights movement to modern politics through the universal language of sport. On the court, titles fall away. Everyone plays by the same rules. Everyone has to pass the ball.
Produced by Kaino alongside Alexys Feaster and the late Michael Latt, the film is executive produced by Jesse Williams and Dr. Bernice A. King.
“The idea of MLK playing ball to build community was electric to me.”
— Jesse Williams, Executive Producer
For Williams, basketball was central to his own upbringing—a gathering place and shared language. “We’re used to seeing Dr. King frozen in black-and-white images,” he says. “But this shows him in motion.” He emphasizes that movements are built through presence. “Movements don’t happen through posters or timelines. They happen through human connection—meeting people where they are.”
“Basketball creates a level floor. You show up. You pass. You listen.”
— Jesse Williams
Now available to stream on Hulu and Disney+ under the #HuluOnDisneyPlus banner—and also listed on The Roku Channel—Hoops, Hopes & Dreams invites audiences into a quieter chapter of American history. One where progress doesn’t always begin at a podium, but on a gym floor.
In honoring Dr. King, the film reminds us that change is not only declared—it is rehearsed. Sometimes in churches. Sometimes in streets. And sometimes, in a YMCA gym, where a man in a tie asks for the ball and shows a generation how to play as one team.
Feature Images – Courtesy and Photo credit_ Glenn Kaino, Hoops, Hopes & Dreams
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