Black Fives: The Story of Integration in Pro Basketball

[G.O.A.T]

Going to post this in five parts.

I hope you all enjoy and learn something and feel free and encouraged to participate in the conversation...

Thanks!

PART ONE:

[FONT="Palatino Linotype"]The greatest stain on the record of the BAA/NBA in its early years is the lack of urgency and forward thinking in terms of handling segregation. The NBA finally broke its color barrier in 1950 when Boston selected Chuck Cooper from Duquesne in the second round of the college draft. Six rounds later Washington selected Earl Lloyd who would become the first black player to play in a NBA game. Before either had signed with their team, the Knicks had lured Sweetwater Clifton from the Harlem Globetrotters and signed him to a contract. It was the second year of operations as the NBA and fifth overall when you include the BAA history. There was never a policy against signing or drafting black players, but the indifference to the issue that characterized the leagues owners was common amongst White America at that time. It was not as if they didn’t like black people, or that they didn’t want them in their league. It was simply that they did not want to take the criticism and answer the questions that would come once they did integrate. Prior to Clifton, Cooper and Lloyd, Jackie Robinson had broken the color barrier in Major League Baseball in 1947. Before that though, there were a number of professional basketball players who were black or African-American, including Robinson himself who suited up professionally for the Los Angeles Red Devils in the 1946-47 season, before he ever played Major League Baseball. The Red Devils were one of the few racially integrated teams of that era. At the same time Lester Harrison had signed Dolly King and Pops Gates, formerly of the All-Black New York Rens, to his Rochester Royals team in 1946 while still playing in the NBL. Before the season started Buffalo Bison (later Tri-City Blackhawks) owner Ben Kerner agreed to share the criticism by having Gates play for his team. Later that season the Detroit Gems signed Willie King and the Youngstown Bears signed Bill Farrow. The four players signing as well as Robinson’s pursuits received little attention, perhaps because it was a minor league in many people’s eyes sure, but also perhaps because the Toledo Jim White Chevrolets and Chicago Studebaker Flyers had suited up black players during World War II also in the NBL. (Though none were ever under professional contract) A number of former Harlem Globetrotters, ten players in total, Casey Jones, Bill Jones, Al Price, Shannie Barnett, Duke Cumberland, Sonny Boswell, Tony Peyton, Bernie Price, Rosie Hutson and Hilary Brown, took the court. But well past their prime, they struggled on and off the court, Toledo disbanded after losing their first four games and Chicago finished 8-15 in last place and lost to Fort Wayne in the first round of the playoffs.

These players were pioneers yes, some of the first players to play pro basketball on integrated pro teams in the United States, but they were far from the first black pro ball players. Black Pro Basketball players date back almost as far as their white counterparts. In fact as early as 1902 “Black Fives”, as all-black basketball teams of that era were known, began to organize in churches, social clubs and YMCA’s all over the country. Officially the first established team was the Brooklyn Smart Set Club which formed in 1905, even then integration was an issue commonly being broached but never sufficiently addressed. Right around the time the first Black Fives were being organized, Bucky Lew played in the all-white New England League and Frank Wilson integrated the Mohawk Valley League. From 1911 to 1917, the Eastern Pro League (a forerunner of the ABL) had a number of black player’s suit up for various teams. So while there were a lot of progressive attitudes about race mixed in around pro basketball, there was never a viable league where black players could get on an equal playing field with whites. As Kareem Abdul-Jabbar put it in his book ‘On the Shoulders of Giants’ “If Black players wanted to play pro basketball, they’d need to create their own teams and their own leagues.” That’s exactly what they did.

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The man many credit with bringing basketball to the Black community was Edwin Henderson, the first Black man to teach Physical Education in an American School and founder of the first all-black league the Interscholastic Athletic Association (ISAA). Henderson believed strongly that athletic competition had the ability to move America toward racial equality faster than most any other method. As he stated “Fairness creeps out of the soul in the athletic world to a larger extent than anywhere else in the world.” His belief was that athletic competition would allow more black men and women to attend respected Universities and dispel negative stereotypes about race within America. Henderson had first been introduced to basketball while at Harvard in 1904 for a Physical training convention. He took the game back to Washington DC and began teaching it to children and young adults in the area, it was the first time the sport was widely introduced to black Americans. The game quickly expanded and became popular on the East Coast in particular in DC and New York City. In 1907 the Brooklyn Marathon Athletic Club hosted Manhattans St. Christopher Club in the first organized basketball game between two black teams. By 1908 the Olympian Athletic League had finished it’s first season and the Brooklyn Smart Set Club (organized in 1898) became the first Champions. They were crowned the “Colored Basketball World Champions”, an unofficial term at the time. Henderson meanwhile played and managed the Washington 12th Street YMCA club team which won the Colored Basketball Championship in 1910. Consisting of primarily former or current Howard University students, the 12th streets, led by player-coach Henderson broke off to form Howard University’s first varsity basketball team which went undefeated in the 1910-11 season on their way to the Colored Basketball World’s Championship. A truly great pioneer of the sport, Henderson joined Joe Louis, Althea Gibson, Jackie Robinson, Bill Russell and Jesse Owens as the inaugural induction class of the Black Athletes Hall of Fame.

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Originally founded and started in the Christian Community as a way of pursuing spiritual harmony, Basketball, it was largely believed should remain an amateur sport. The early YMCA clubs consisted area members only on each team. The idea of stacking a team with talent was frowned upon and thought a taboo. A major step towards the professional game came in 1910 when Major A. Hart resigned as manager of the amateur St. Christopher Club and started the New York All Stars; the first All-Black basketball team to pay it players. Heavily and widely criticized for this endeavor, Hart took the Christopher Club’s best players and added top talents from the area including Charles Scottron, Ferdinand Accooe from the Smart Set Club and Charles Bradford, a Negro League Baseball Star. The team was boycotted by the ammeter clubs within the city’s leagues and so the All Stars were pioneers of another future pro basketball trend as they took to the road to barnstorm and issue challenges for other top teams to face them. Hart scheduled games at the Manhattan Casino in Harlem as well and while the All Stars were a force on the court, they were never able to overcome the negative perception of their professional pursuits. Unable to pay the players and pay for operations, Hart was forced to disband his All Stars in 1913. However as Blackfives.com put it “Though his efforts were ahead of their time and failed, Major Harts flirt with Professionalism emboldened other Black Fives to mimic his efforts, paving the way for later breakthroughs by such Champions as: The New York Incorporators, The Loendi Big Five, The Commonwealth Big Five and ultimately the New York Rens…”. In fact, in 1914 Will Anthony Madden, one of the games early pioneers and a promoter for the New York All-Stars who had returned to the St. Christopher Club of New York as manager just a year prior, again broke away again. This time forming the St. Christopher Club of New York Inc. The team was later dubbed the New York Incorporators and won the 1915 Colored World’s Championship. [/FONT]

[jlauber]

Every story has a beginning. Hard to believe that only as far back as 60 years ago, that there was so much racial inequity.

GREAT POST!

[Batz]

Subscribed to this...

[PHILA]

Looking forward to it.

[jlauber]

Wilt encountered some racism in his life, but he grew up in a mixed neighborhood, and was generally accepted by the white population where ever he went. But Russell and Oscar had to endure far more discrimination. Hopefully G.O.A.T can get into that here as well.

[Maga_1]

G.O.A.T keep acknowledging us , please.

[jlauber]

It is always good to get an education...in between all the lively debates.

[Solid Snake]

G.O.A.T keep acknowledging us , please.

Random question, in your avatar, would that buttocks happen to belong to...Shawn Johnson?

[Maga_1]

Random question, in your avatar, would that buttocks happen to belong to...Shawn Johnson?

Alicia Sacramone

[dj ys]

The guy behind Black Fives is a really good guy (fellow CMU alum). He's actually running for office in Connecticut

http://www.claudeforgreenwich.com/

[G.O.A.T]

PART TWO:

[FONT="Palatino Linotype"] If the game was going to move towards professional sport, it would need an audience and they would need a reason to show up. So even before George Mikan was born, basketball

[L.Kizzle]

Nice

[jlip]

I'm an African American from Memphis and actually teach African American history at a local community college. I just may include some of this in a couple of my lectures. Awesome work, G.O.A.T.

On a side note... Being that Oscar Robertson is from TN, I find it quite strange that he's not really that popular here.

[50inchvertical]

You should also buy the DVD ESPN did on the topic, "Black Magic." You can get it through Netflix or Blockbuster

[jlauber]

I'm an African American from Memphis and actually teach African American history at a local community college. I just may include some of this in a couple of my lectures. Awesome work, G.O.A.T.

On a side note... Being that Oscar Robertson is from TN, I find it quite strange that he's not really that popular here.

From the posts that I have read, you must be an outstanding history teacher. We need more of them.