Akron, Ohio’s all-black American Legion Post No. 272 basketball team was a wartime squad that won the Akron city championship for the 1944-45 season.
Akron, Ohio’s 1940s American Legion Basketball Team Helped Fight City’s Long History of Black Under-Education
The Naval Ammunition Depot in Hastings, Nebraska — the Navy’s largest W.W. II inland munitions plant — had an all-black contingent that represented the base in the “Colored Servicemen’s Basketball Championship Tournament of Nebraska” around 1944.
Another unidentified all-black W.W. II basketball team whose players are as-yet unknown.
The identity of these W.W. II era soldiers and their vintage basketball team is unknown; if you believe you know anything about them or their team, please let us know.
During World War II the Bronson Field Bombers, an all-black U.S. Navy basketball team stationed at Bronson Field in Pensacola, Florida, won the Naval Air Training Bases basketball championships.
After World War I, some veterans from Company E of the 372nd Colored Infantry Regiment, 93rd Division, formed a basketball team.
All-black military basketball teams go as far back as racial segregation in the Armed Services. One such team played in the early 1910s: the 10th Cavalry “Buffalo Soldiers” Five, from Fort Ethan Allen in Vermont.