African-Americans in Basketball
The Smart Set Athletic Club of Brooklyn and the St. Christopher Club of New York City was established as the first fully organized independent all-black basketball teams in 1906. These teams were amateur.
In 1907, the amateur, all-black Olympian Athletic League was formed in New York City consisting of the Smart Set Athletic Club, St. Christopher Club, Marathon Athletic Club, Alpha Physical Culture Club, and the Jersey City Colored YMCA. The first inter-city basketball game between two black teams was played in 1907 when the Smart Set Athletic Club of Brooklyn traveled to Washington, DC to play the Crescent Athletic Club.
In 1908 Smart Set Athletic Club of Brooklyn, a member of the Olympian Athletic League, was named the first Colored Basketball World's Champion.
In 1910, Howard University’s first varsity basketball team began.
In 1922, the Commonwealth Five, the first all-black professional team was founded. The New York Renaissance was founded in 1923.
In 1939, the all-black New York Renaissance beat the all-white Oshkosh All-Stars in the World Pro Basketball Tournament.
The all-white National Basketball League began to racially integrate in 1942 with 10 black players joining two teams, the Toledo Jim White Chevrolets and the Chicago Studebakers. The NBA integrated in the 1950–51 season, with three black players each achieving a separate milestone in that process. In the draft held immediately prior to that season, Chuck Cooper became the first black player drafted by an NBA team. Shortly after the draft, Nat Clifton became the first black player to sign an NBA contract. Finally, Earl Lloyd became the first black player to appear in an NBA game, as his team started its season before either Cooper's or Clifton's.
Read more about this topic: History Of Basketball
Famous quotes containing the words african-americans in and/or basketball:
“There are those who would keep us slipping back into the darkness of division, into the snake pit of racial hatred, of racial antagonism and of support for symbols of the struggle to keep African-Americans in bondage.”
—Carol Moseley-Braun (b. 1947)
“Perhaps basketball and poetry have just a few things in common, but the most important is the possibility of transcendence. The opposite is labor. In writing, every writer knows when he or she is laboring to achieve an effect. You want to get from here to there, but find yourself willing it, forcing it. The equivalent in basketball is aiming your shot, a kind of strained and usually ineffective purposefulness. What you want is to be in some kind of flow, each next moment a discovery.”
—Stephen Dunn (b. 1939)