Former No. 1 overall pick Joe Barry Carroll and attorney Joseph Shaw say they were humiliated when a security guard escorted them from the Tavern at Phipps in Atlanta when they refused to give up their seats to a couple of white women, an action they say was part of a broader pattern of discrimination against blacks.

"You're probably thinking: Two black gentlemen go to a bar -- this is a joke," Jeffrey Bramlett, an attorney for the men, told the jury during opening arguments. "But it's no joke. The evidence will show a serious civil rights violation."

The restaurant's lawyers said the men were asked to give up their seats as part of a long-standing "good manners" practice that's been in place at the restaurant for 20 years. Attorney David Long-Daniels said thousands of men have complied with those rules, from stars like Michael Jordan to the other men at the bar the night of the incident.

"Chivalry is not dead," he said. "And it's not a civil rights violation to give up your seat to a woman."