In the book, titled “Michael Jordan: The Life,” Jordan describes to author Roland Lazenby how growing up in the 1970s in North Carolina — where he said the Ku Klux Klan was dominant — shaped his views on race.
Those views were strengthened after he watched the miniseries “Roots” and learned about the suffering of his African-American ancestors.
The tipping point, Jordan said, came in 1977, when a girl at his school called him the N-word.
“So I threw a soda at her,” Jordan says in the book, excerpts of which were detailed in the New York Post. “I was really rebelling. I considered myself a racist at the time. Basically, I was against all white people.”
Suspended by the school for his actions, Jordan tells Lazenby that his mother intervened, urging him not to have racial hatred dominate his life.
Jordan also detailed how he was one of only two black players on the school baseball team and was called inferior while he played.