Bushwick (Brooklyn) was the site of the very first recorded game between two all-black basketball teams, in 1907, at a court on the corner of Knickerbocker and Gates Avenues.
An early Sunday morning bicycle ride through Harlem leads to sacredness, grace, astonishment, acknowledgment, gratitude, and smiles.
I want to mention several recent and upcoming birthdays, related to the Black Fives Era of basketball.
_______________ “The colored race looks upon him as their Babe Ruth. He is a great baseball player as well as the colored race’s standout cager. Like such men as Nat Holman, Rody Cooney and Davy Banks, Jenkins gets away from a standing start at bullet-like speed.” — The Hammond (Indiana) Times, 1938
Historically black colleges and universities (“HBCU’s”) were intimately involved in the history of the Black Fives Era of basketball. This week (February 22, 1922) marks the anniversary of the Harlem-based St. Christopher Club’s defeat of visiting Morehouse College, 31-25, snapping the Southern Conference champions’ 42-game winning streak.
Two Black Fives Era birthdays this week, both merit consideration for the Basketball Hall of Fame, although one case is much stronger than the other.
I’m repeating below a section of a post from February 2008, in which I endorsed Senator Barack Obama as President of the United States of America.
100,000 people in St. Louis at an Obama rally was wonderful. But as a historian, what struck me more was another mob scene — the one during the East St. Louis Race Riot of July 2, 1917.
On October 13, 1910, history was made when Major A. Hart formed the first all-black play-for-pay basketball team, a new squad called the New York All Stars.
Yesterday, I mentioned the 112th anniversary of the founding of the St. Christopher Club, the black athletic club that took root in Harlem. Today I want to make you aware that the St. Christopher Club was more than
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