There was a wonderful article about my efforts with the history of the Black Fives printed in the City Room section of yesterday’s Saturday edition of the New York Times.
Article by James Barron in Section A of yesterday’s Saturday edition of the New York Times.
There was a wonderful article about my involvement in the Barclays Center art project — and my efforts with the history of the Black Fives — printed in the City Room section of yesterday’s Saturday edition of the New York Times.
It was written by award-winning journalist James Barron.
The piece starts out like this:
In 1996, the National Basketball Association published an encyclopedic history — 800 pages about the players and the teams. Claude Johnson, who was the league’s director of international licensing at the time, leafed through it and found only two and a half pages devoted to the all-black teams that had predated the N.B.A.
Only two teams were mentioned. There must have been others, he thought.
He has spent the past 16 years filling in the gaps, starting with amateur basketball clubs organized in the early years of the 20th century. They were followed in the 1920s by a few professional teams — some with black owners, some with white owners, including one run by, among others, a grandfather of the wrestling promoter Vince McMahon.
Your generous tax-deductible donation helps the Black Fives Foundation use this history to teach life lessons relevant today! Thank you!
