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“Power of the Dream,” a new documentary co-produced by Storm forward Nneka Ogwumike and former Storm star Sue Bird, landed on Amazon Prime Video last month.
Featuring firsthand perspectives from Ogwumike, Bird, and other former/current WNBA players, the documentary tells how 144 players united during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 to help flip the U.S. Senate.
Bird’s media company Togethxr, which she co-founded, was among those that co-produced the video. Bird also played a big role in 2020.
“To see how she took a stand off the court and helped drive that force for change and social justice was really powerful,” Storm forward Ezi Magbegor said. “She doesn’t always experience the same thing as Black women do, but she still showed so much support. You don’t always need to be going through what people are going through, you can still make a change outside of that.”
Magbegor said the documentary captures her rookie season and “welcome to the league” moment.
“Just educate yourself; learn a little bit,” Ogwumike said about why people should watch. “I think if it’s something that you don’t know about or if it’s something that you do follow, there’s things that I’ve learned even just by watching it. Even though I was a part of the process, seeing what it means for the progress of women’s sports as it relates to social and cultural impact, is really inspiring.”
The documentary focuses on the WNBA players’ activism in the “Wubble,” the name given to the bubble environment at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., where players were kept in COVID lockdown to complete the 2020 season.
Kelly Loeffler, who owned the Atlanta Dream (she sold it in 2021), was running for reelection for U.S. Senator in Georgia and opposed the league’s social-justice initiatives, saying “we need less — not more — politics in sports.”
Rallying around her opponent, Raphael Warnock, in a crucial Senate race she was favored to win, the WNBA looked to make a difference.
“There was real stuff happening there,” Ogwumike said. “I don’t think we realized how historical our actions would be. We just wanted to do what was right in the moment and help the viewers really capture how we felt and the emotions we felt in that moment. I think it’s pivotal to the story.”
The activism wasn’t limited to Senate races.
On July 25, 2020, the Storm faced off against the New York Liberty.
At this point in the documentary, the back of Magbegor’s jersey is shown, displaying Breonna Taylor’s name in white, highlighted in black, under her last name. Then-Liberty guard Layshia Clarendon and then-Storm forward Breanna Stewart stood at center court in front of ESPN cameras.
As Ogwumike mentioned in the documentary, it became clear that “a league of women who understood what was most important” would “dedicate the season to say her name (Breonna Taylor) and Black Lives Matter,” as Clarendon declared.
“It was really powerful,” Magbegor said. “I think it just shows that there’s things bigger than basketball. Just to be so unified in that moment with so many Black women, the league obviously consists of 80% Black women, but just to be with each other in that moment was empowering and showed what we were really playing for.”
Days later, to honor Jacob Blake, a Black man who was shot and injured by a police officer in Kenosha, Wis., players wore white T-shirts with seven bullet holes on the back.
That same day, all games were postponed.
Ogwumike’s shirt read “arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor,” as she went on ESPN alongside Bird to announce that games would be postponed for the second day in a row as a call to action.
“I think that us playing in the bubble, in a world where everyone was being affected and a lot of women and Black people were being disproportionately affected by not just COVID-19 itself, but also the effects of it and police violence,” said Ogwumike, who played for the Los Angeles Sparks in 2020 and is president of the WNBA players’ union. “For us, we wanted to hopefully serve as a representation of how our microcosm tries to step and link together, providing advocacy and ally-ship in times where everyone really needs it.
“We just really wanted to serve as an example as best as we could in a time where people really just needed some type of light.”
As the Storm went on to win the WNBA Finals to tie the league record for most Finals wins, bigger victories were ahead.
Warnock was one of two Democrat senators elected in Georgia who created a 50-50 split in the Senate, giving newly elected Vice President Kamala Harris the tiebreaking vote.
Bird noted in the documentary that text messages went out celebrating, “We did it, we got a senator elected.”
“I wanted to do my best to be able to help tell the stories of all the women in that bubble and all the people that advocated for us, educated us and helped us kind of mobilize and organize in 2020.” Ogwumike said. “It seemed like eons ago, but so much happened in that time. I’m just grateful that we were able to get enough resources to highlight how major our experience and impact was.”
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