TheLoop21.com

By: Susan Anderson (follow this member)
Wed, 06/10/2009 - 00:00

It’s the middle of the NBA Finals, the championship battle between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Orlando Magic, and an opportunity to remember the fight against segregated professional basketball in America.

A lot of people are familiar with the old Negro Baseball Leagues, but how many have heard about the African American basketball teams known as “the Black Fives” — after the starting five players — or know about black basketball associations pre-dating the NBA?

Since the 1891 start of U.S. basketball, white-owned, professional sports leagues excluded black athletes. As in other areas of life, African Americans formed their own institutions, including professional basketball teams, to showcase their competitive talents, despite racism. 

Harry Lew was the first African American to play professional basketball, for the white New England Basketball League in 1902. But most teams were segregated. From 1907 through the 1920s, black teams competed for “the Colored Basketball World Championship.” In the 1940s, a handful of black players were signed by white minor teams, and in 1948, Don Barksdale won a gold medal at the London Olympic Games as the first African-American player on a U.S. Olympic basketball team.

In the first half of the 20th century, separate leagues for African Americans, Jewish and Irish players competed against each other. One writer said in Philadelphia, home of outstanding Jewish teams, “the encounters between the 'Yids' and the 'Niggers' were legendary.” According to sports entrepreneur Claude Johnson, the New York Renaissance team in Harlem “won the inaugural World’s Professional Basketball Tournament championship in 1939 by beating America’s ten best white teams.”

Racial stereotypes weren’t limited to black players; Jewish players were especially singled out. “’The reason, I suspect, that basketball appeals to the Hebrew, with his Oriental background,’ wrote Paul Gallico, sports editor of the New York Daily News and one of the premier sportswriters of the 1930s, "is that the game places a premium on an alert, scheming mind, flashy trickiness, artful dodging and general smart-aleckness."

In 1950, the NBA officially broke the color line. Chuck Cooper of Duquesne University was the first black player drafted, by the Boston Celtics. Nat “Sweetwater” Clifton, of the Harlem Globetrotters, and a graduate of Xavier University in New Orleans, was the first to sign an NBA contract, with the New York Knicks. And Earl Lloyd, a graduate of West Virginia State, became the first of this trio to play in an NBA contest, for the Washington Capitals.

The decision to destroy segregation in pro basketball didn’t come out of nowhere. The sheer, winning talent of the black players was evident. The World War II victory over Hitler made Americans more aware of the evil of homegrown racism. The momentum for change came from the decades-long crusade by African American sports writers for equal opportunity on the playing fields. Sports writers at black newspapers didn’t just cover sports; they publicly pressured professional league owners to live up to America’s principles of equality.

As fans follow the progress of this year’s NBA Finals, in a sport in which African Americans dominate, it’s good to remember basketball history, and what it took for the NBA to end racial exclusion.

Susan D. Anderson teaches, speaks and writes about African American history, politics and culture. She is the author of Nostalgia for a Trumpet: Poems of Memory and History, published by Northwestern University Press. She has been a Visiting Professor at Pitzer College, a contributor to the Los Angeles Times Sunday Opinion since 1999, and currently manages an archival program at the USC Libraries.