Brotha's Have Been Playin Ball Longer than You Think

The Days of the Rens

Everyone remembers baseball's Negro Leagues. Here's the story of the basketball counterpart.

BY MARTIN JOHNSON
Tuesday, March 21, 2006 12:01 a.m.

The story of the Negro Leagues of Baseball, a circuit of teams that provided a showcase for many of Black America's top athletes during the first half of the 20th century, is well known. But the story of the Black Fives, a parallel set of basketball teams, is just beginning to come to light.

The Black Fives typically refers to leagues that first thrived in the African-American communities of New York, Pittsburgh, Washington and Chicago in the teens and '20s but soon spread to the South and Los Angeles. "The Black Fives era was a particularly important and unique era in basketball," explained Matt Zeysing, a historian and archivist at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass. "Not unlike today, the early game of basketball had a far-reaching impact on everyone involved: those who played, those who watched, and those individuals or organizations that profited from it," he continued. "During the Black Fives era, the stakes were higher."

The game of basketball was invented by James Naismith in 1891, and it caught on quickly. Before the turn of the century, it was being played widely in YMCAs and various athletic clubs across the country. By 1898, the game was being played professionally in Trenton, N.J. Edwin Henderson, a Harvard-educated physical-education teacher, introduced basketball to black students in the public-school system in Washington in 1904, and he founded the first league of all-black teams, the Interscholastic Athletic Association, two years later.
News of Henderson's endeavors spread along the East Coast, and by 1907 inter-city games between all-black teams were played. In 1908, the Smart Set Athletic Club, a team based in Brooklyn, won the first Colored Basketball World Championship, which became an annual tournament.

The game of basketball was still in its infancy and much slower than today's game. The courts were smaller, the basket was still literally that, and referees had to retrieve the ball with a stick after each score. There was a jump ball after each hoop. However, many black teams were sponsored by ballrooms, which would include games as part of their evening entertainment.

"There would be a big band playing before the game and at halftime," explained Claude Johnson, a marketer and historian who has researched the era extensively. "After the game, the band would return and a dance would go on until after midnight." Mr. Johnson said that being part of an evening of fun led to Black Five teams developing a faster, more athletic and daring style of play. "The game wasn't just seen as an athletic science, but it was also entertainment."

The game of basketball was invented by James Naismith in 1891, and it caught on quickly. Before the turn of the century, it was being played widely in YMCAs and various athletic clubs across the country. By 1898, the game was being played professionally in Trenton, N.J. Edwin Henderson, a Harvard-educated physical-education teacher, introduced basketball to black students in the public-school system in Washington in 1904, and he founded the first league of all-black teams, the Interscholastic Athletic Association, two years later.
News of Henderson's endeavors spread along the East Coast, and by 1907 inter-city games between all-black teams were played. In 1908, the Smart Set Athletic Club, a team based in Brooklyn, won the first Colored Basketball World Championship, which became an annual tournament.

The game of basketball was still in its infancy and much slower than today's game. The courts were smaller, the basket was still literally that, and referees had to retrieve the ball with a stick after each score. There was a jump ball after each hoop. However, many black teams were sponsored by ballrooms, which would include games as part of their evening entertainment.
"There would be a big band playing before the game and at halftime," explained Claude Johnson, a marketer and historian who has researched the era extensively. "After the game, the band would return and a dance would go on until after midnight." Mr. Johnson said that being part of an evening of fun led to Black Five teams developing a faster, more athletic and daring style of play. "The game wasn't just seen as an athletic science, but it was also entertainment."


The Harlem Globetrotters, the internationally renowned team of highflying tricksters and acrobatic hoopsters emerged from a Black Fives league in Chicago. Powerhouse teams were sometimes made up of players who were on integrated collegiate teams and known for other endeavors, such as Paul Robeson, Jackie Robinson and Cumberland Posey, a Negro League baseball great recently inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Teams like the New York Rens won championships so often that they became institutions; the Rens often played all-white teams during barnstorming tours.

By the early '40s, two fledgling outfits, the Basketball Association of America and the National Basketball League, began featuring integrated teams; the NBL even invited the Rens to join the league, though the team was relocated to Dayton, Ohio. When the two leagues merged into the National Basketball Association in 1949, there was little resistance to integration. Teams drafted and signed black players from the outset, and there were few reports of racial tension among the early NBA players.

This episode of American athletic history faded from view, however. In 1996, Mr. Johnson took a job with the NBA in International Licensing, and began reading up on the league's history.
"The league had a book they put out to celebrate its 50th anniversary, but it listed only the Globetrotters and the Rens," said Mr. Johnson, who suspected there was more. He then read Arthur Ashe's "Hard Road to Glory: A History of the African-American Athlete" (Amistad), which listed several early all-black teams, and was intrigued.

Mr. Johnson began reading microfilm of black newspapers from the early part of the 20th century and discovered a mother lode of information about the circuit. He then began using census records to track down the descendants of the players from that era, and he compiled their stories. He also did what he calls "logo forensics" to help re-create team insignia from major Black Five teams. In 2003, Mr. Johnson launched an apparel line, Black Fives, which has been licensed by Nike for a future collection, as well as a foundation, the Sons and Daughters of the Black Fives Era, to support collegiate ambitions of those whose ancestors were players or team owners.

The apparel line met with some surprise competition last autumn when a line endorsed by NBA player Eric Williams debuted featuring logos of the "Black Basketball League." The logos pirated images from photographs by famed Harlem photographer James Van Der Zee, and offered information about a fictitious multicity league from the '30s. The clothing line was denounced by both Mr. Johnson and officials at the Hall of Fame, and a lawsuit is pending.

Meanwhile, participants of the Black Five era are beginning to get their due. John Isaacs is one of the finalists in the balloting for this year's group of inductees to the basketball Hall of Fame. Isaac was a standout player with the Rens in the late '30s, and he is credited with bringing the pick-and-roll play, a staple of nearly every basketball team's offensive maneuvers, to the pro game. Henderson was nominated, but did not make the finalists. The group of inductees will be announced April 3, during the NCAA Final Four weekend.

Mr. Johnson feels the impact of this episode of history coming to light will be immense. "There's a widespread perception, even in black communities today, that basketball is a game that African-Americans co-opted sometime in the '50s and '60s," he said. "In fact, we were on the Mayflower, in with basketball from almost the very beginning of the sport."

Mr. Johnson lives in New York and writes about music and basketball.