Shining on the playing field, and in the wallet, should not be enough for professional athletes, says NFL legend Jim Brown.

Brown was a guest on ESPN's Up Close recently to help celebrate Black History Month. Brown told Gary Miller that the high-profile black athletes need to do much more to help less fortunate African Americans.

"It is terrible because you need to be an A-list person to be rich and popular," Brown said, "but the problem is with all the B-list people, all the poor people, Latinos, and poor whites."

Brown also commented on the success of Michael Jordan, and the legal trouble of NFL players Ray Lewis and Rae Carruth. An edited transcript of Brown's Feb. 15 comments follows.

Miller: Where do you think it was instilled in you to make a stand about race relations, a very unpopular stand, throughout your life, because the guys you were with, most of them weren't willing to do this?

Brown: Well, in those days, the 1960's they were. We had warriors in those days. Bill Russell was a warrior. Muhammad Ali was a warrior. Bobby Mitchell was a warrior. The thing that really got me was to be a superstar in our country and have 80,000 people cheer for me and then go outside of the state, can't go to a restaurant because of discrimination. At that particular time I realized that fame and money meant nothing. My manhood, the resurrection of my people, the black community, these became the things that I thought about each and every day of my life. I hate racism, I hate discrimination, I hate capitalism from the standpoint of black and brown people being at the bottom of the ladder, and we have to overcome that, and we have to have a Black History Month, and every time we get a movie on TV it's so special. Then you go to counter that, and you're just a man and you feel like a man, so it lives within me and it lives more in me today, because the atrocities that are going on today are worse than the atrocities that went on in slavery.

Miller: Such as...

Brown: Such as law enforcement. The state laws that are generated are just for the black and brown individuals. The crash unit that aims itself against gang members, that with no rehabilitation in the prison, with 75 percent of the inmates being black and the next vicinity being Latino, with television saying that they don't need diversity. The NAACP in 1999 had to go to the networks, saying that you need to put more black and brown people in television. These things should never be happening today. Let me add one more thing. The athletes, the slam dunk contest that was on the other night, the great All-Star game dominated by African-American individuals with millions of dollars, and then for me to be in Brooklyn, in five schools and see these schools being predominately black, and if these athletes would come to Brooklyn and work with us, we could change the whole educational system there and keep these kids from falling through the cracks. It is terrible because you need to be an A-list person to be rich and popular, but the problem is with all the B-list people, all the poor people, black people, Latinos, and poor whites.

Miller: You talk about law enforcement and we have these cases that are in national headlines, and because Ray Lewis is an All-Pro, which you are familiar with yourself. Rae Carruth was a starter for the Carolina Panthers. Is it a societal thing, and what does it say that the crimes are escalating that professional athletes are being charged with?

Brown: Well, Gary, the NFL is high profile, and naturally when you get people charged with murder, it's going to get the headlines. On the other side of the coin, law enforcement is supposed to be the bastion of fairness. Justice is supposed to be the bulwark of our society? You would have a terrible scandal all over this country of murder by our law enforcement, but it doesn't get the same coverage as two football players that are being charged for murder. That's an idea about the society that you are talking about. Then when you look at Ray Lewis and you look at the people that came and dealt with his character, his mother came and Art Modell, the owner of the Ravens, spoke up for this young man. So, we don't know that at this particular time if these two individuals are guilty, so we have to keep that in mind. What we do know is that in the LAPD, there are many individuals that are guilty but they are not being charged, they are not being prosecuted and the scandal goes on, and in so many cases City Hall covers it up.

Miller: One of the things that was speculated about Ray Lewis was that maybe he didn't even commit these murders, but he knows who did, and he was with a crowd. What about the situation of guys that hang around with the wrong crowd, and how you distinguish between loyalty and saying, "this guy isn't good for my life"?

Brown: Well, you have communities. Unfortunately, you have black communities and you have poor communities that are basically black. Then you have these individuals that rise above their community. The worst thing they ever want to do is walk away from the guys they hung out with. It's a very difficult decision, so I'm going to remove myself from these particular individuals? The best thing is if they can affect the lives of those individuals and help those individuals live a better life. A lot of the time they don't have a two-parent home or a father in the home to guide them on how to do these things, so what they go with first is loyalty. It doesn't mean that a posse is either good or bad. It means that you have situations in a poor community that are just there because of the social situation. I think a lot of life management skills education is necessary and I think that those people that represent themselves as a standard of democracy should change their lives and become better people. I don't think that we have too many examples at the top, starting with our president, to point at, to say, "this is the way to do it."

Miller: At an ESPN round-table discussion on race relations in 1998, with President Clinton, John Thompson talked about how you had been denied endorsement opportunities when you were a player because of the color of your skin. What are your thoughts on this issue today?

Brown: John is a part of the system, and so is Tiger (Woods) and so is Michael (Jordan) and they are very successful people because they are talented, but the revolution that is needed and is starting now in 2000 is for those individuals to forget about the endorsements as individuals. They are all individually rich. So what? The bottom part of America, the poor people, the brown people, the black people, are suffering. The economy is not better for those people, the job market is drying up, the black fathers are not at home, the school systems are terrible. Security in schools is the most dominant aspect of going to school today. These individuals have to get off those horses and forget about endorsements, because the reason that we didn't get endorsements was because of racism, and as racism eased up on the top of our echelon, these particular individuals, who make no controversial statements, who do not get involved politically on any level, who don't deal with gang members, or necessarily the so-called outside poor people. They benefit individually. I could have millions of dollars if I just laughed and danced and did a thing like in Uncle Tom's Cabin and played the good Negro boy, "he's a good old boy and all that, don't look me in my eye." I could be rich on the hill, but when I have 500 black gang members and Latinos come to my home, the white folks in my neighborhood don't like it. The police don't like it, although they say they don't know my address, but since 1988 I dealt with gang members and helped changed their lives around them and made them good citizens. I think we have the responsibility to go to the belly of the beast, to the bottom of it and do something. Not worry about Phil Knight and all the boys who have all the big money and the image that we portray.

Miller: How come you weren't doing the Mean Joe Greene commercials or selling cars? Was the opportunity not there or did you just not want to do it?

Brown: Look we're talking about Black History Month. We're talking about freedom, equality, and justice. We're talking about inclusion. We're talking most of all, about truth. Black History Month comes out of the fact that racism has prevailed in this country. Slavery is just a few hundred years ago, a couple hundred years ago, the atrocities, the sickness, the psychological damage that has been done to us in slavery now reaches out to different generations. This is what is really going on. This is what has to be changed. It's not overt anymore, but it's very subtle, and it's also very damaging. Gangs and self-hatred and red and blue killing each other comes out of psychological depression, that I am not as good as someone else, but I'm going to be great in this neighborhood. So that's the fight. You don't want to be a rich man pitching something, doing what somebody tells you to do. I don't admire white people because they are white. I admire people because they are intelligent, good, and kind, and fair. We have to deal with the qualities that all human beings can have and the best of those qualities, so that's why I speak out and that's why a came on the show, to be able to say these things and say them emphatically. But there's a balance in what I say to you because I talk about good white folks, I talk about good black folks, I talk about exploitation of both races.

Miller: Let's talk about Michael Jordan and the Wizards. How important is it that Michael Jordan, a minority, is involved in the Wizards ownership?

Brown: It would have been important 20 years ago when it was very difficult. But with David Faulk and Phil Knight and Michael's popularity in America, that's almost like a gimme. It has no meaning symbolically or otherwise. Michael is going to make more money and he's going to be popular, which is good for Michael, but it's really not good for poor black folks or anybody. It's not even symbolically good. It's so far removed from the problem. The problem is no longer on a ship on the top level. It is about inclusion on the bottom. The bottom is falling out, so when we talk about these guys playing in the All-Star game and these guys that get on your show and talk about, "I've got to make another 20 million dollars for my family," it's a joke! Come on, we all know it, but that's their right as individuals, but they are capitalists. You would call them the modern day carpetbaggers.

Miller: That seems to be the national religion.

Brown: It is, capitalism is a thing, but it's run amuck and it's destroying a great portion of this country and it's making us look very bad in the world market because we have proclaimed democracy. Capitalism isn't the greatest form of democracy. I don't want to go any further into it, but as an individual, Michael is wonderful. He pleases so many people. With the social revolution coming in this particular millennium, I don't know where Michael is going to be and frankly, I don't care because, it's going to come from the little people, the poor people.