Major Accomplishments Since Organizing in 2013


Grinding it out, one possession at a time, in only our second year and with your help, we’ve achieved some amazing successes considering our size and the newness of our genre! We have even more exciting and meaningful programs and goals planned for 2015!


The Barclays Center permanently installed our compilation of six mural-sized vintage Brooklyn-related African American basketball images in its arena concourse, with cumulative exposure in front of over 5,000,000 spectators to date;

Barclays Center Concourse

Celebrating the unveiling of its Black Fives Murals, the Barclays Center invited more than 40 descendants of Black Fives Era pioneers who appeared in the original photographic images to a ceremony at center court during halftime of an NBA game between the Brooklyn Nets and the visiting San Antonio Spurs.

Descendants of Brooklyn's Black Fives Era pioneers being introduced at Barclays Center

Descendants of Brooklyn’s Black Fives Era pioneers being introduced at Barclays Center, with David Berliner, Billy King, Claude Johnson, John Rhea, and Brooklynettes. (Getty Images)


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The New York City Mayor’s Office proclaimed February 10, 2013 as “Black Fives Day” for the City of New York;

 
We conducted numerous presentations with schools and youth basketball programs, limited only by our bandwidth and planning capacity;  


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As a result of our original initiative and ongoing support, early African American basketball pioneer Edwin Bancroft Henderson was enshrined into the Basketball Hall of Fame;

 
We provided archival photographic images and wrote scripts for Fox Sports Net’s campaign of television vignettes in which 35 NBA players each honor a different Black Fives Era pioneer with their own shout out, which have since been seen by millions of viewers in FSN broadcast markets and on YouTube;

 

The New-York Historical Society staged the first ever Black Fives museum exhibition in their Civil Rights Gallery, a four-month display of over 200 rare artifacts from our historical archive, which we guest-curated;  

Since organizing as a foundation in 2013, our website has received nearly 215,000 pageviews from over 66,000 unique visitors in 172 countries averaging more than 2.5 pages per session with average session durations of over 2 minutes;


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We achieved unprecedented high level visibility with media outlets including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Root, New York Daily News, New York Newsday, NPR, NBC, Sports Illustrated for Kids, Jay-Z’s Life+Times, Barclays Center TV, the BBC, and many others;

Helping validate our long held belief that pre-NBA vintage African American basketball history represents not only a cultural but also a commercial opportunity, we recently established a multi-year licensing partnership with the popular youth-focused lifestyle apparel company Forty Seven Brand, which has their first collection of Black Fives team and branded merchandise scheduled to hit retailers in May 2015;

An adjustable cap style by 47 Brand.

An adjustable cap, one of the styles of headwear from a collection of licensed merchandise planned for release in 2015 by sports-inspired lifestyle apparel company 47 Brand.

We initiated collaborative discussions with NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, who expresses interest in exploring ways the league can embrace this history, as well as with several NBA teams.


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For more information on any of these accomplishments please explore this website further or feel free to contact us directly.

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Forrest Garrett
9 years ago

As a direct decedent of a Black Five Player (Bennie Garrett, NY Rens 1930-1940), Thank you for keeping this era alive for the future decedents
of these great players.