Black Fives Era Birthdays This Week Present Contrasting Hall Of Fame Enshrinement Cases


Some Black Fives Era birthdays this week:

Bucky Lew

Harry "Bucky" Lew.

Harry “Bucky” Lew

Harry “Bucky” Lew, the first African American professional basketball player, was born in Lowell, Massachusetts on January 4, 1884.

Lew played basketball at the Lowell (Ma.) Y.M.C.A. before jumping to the professional New England League in 1902 during its inaugural season.

Lew’s family has been lobbying for years to have him enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame.

My guess is that this will not happen soon.  That’s because his playing career was obscure and the impact of his solitary pioneering contribution doesn’t appear to have been far reaching.

For example, his breaking of the color barrier in the white pro hoops circuit was not widely reported outside of western Massachusetts and apparently didn’t open up many doors for other African Americans.

The idea of having him enshrined seems like it would have to be more of an honorary nod.

The Basketball Hall of Fame officially recognizes Harry Lew as the first African American basketball professional.

This is documented in a 1978 letter to one of Lew’s living descendants in which then executive director Lee Williams wrote, “It will be our position that pending further documented information (if any), we will consider Mr. Lew the first Negro to play professional basketball.”

Is that enough?

The Lew family has been at it for quite some time.

Despite the “official” recognition of the Hall of Fame, and despite the fact that Lew’s ancestry traces back to the American Revolution — Barzillai Lew, a fifer and drummer, played the fife at the Battle of Bunker Hill — I wonder if there are some traces of doubt about his “black authenticity” factoring into the decision making. That’s just my own speculation.

Clarence Fats Jenkins

Clarence "Fats" Jenkins.

Clarence “Fats” Jenkins

Clarence “Fats” Jenkins, who’s basketball career playing with the St. Christopher Club, the New York Incorporators, the Loendi Big Five, the Commonwealth Big Five, the New York Rens, and the Chicago Crusaders, was born in New York City on January 10, 1898.

His career was perhaps the most visible and his impact perhaps the most far reaching of any basketball player — black or white — during the 1920s and 1930s.

I’ve written before about his very strong case for enshrinement in the Basketball Hall of Fame (and others, here).

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Keith Ellis
15 years ago

Happy New Year, Claude — & congratulations on recording that Fat Jenkins played for the Chicago Crusaders. Your comment marks the first time I’ve ever read such mention outside of the old newspapers.

After famously “retiring” when the Rens won the inaugural World’s Pro Tourney in 1939, Fats became player-coach for the Crusaders aka Savoys, whose Big Five included fellow former Rens Al Johnson & Dave DeJernett as well as legendary sharpshooters Agis Bray & Hillery Brown, both future Globies. Something happened in late January 1940 that upset Fats, & he & BrickTop Wright (another future Ren) quit the Crusaders in a huff. It appears Agis Bray wasn’t receiving enough playing time, in some folks’ minds.

At any rate, soon afterward newspapers reported that the Crusaders were being “sidestepped” from the second Chicago Pro Tourney despite beating the OshKosh AllStars & other top teams of their day. One wonders how much the loss of Fat Jenkins hurt the club’s prestige. The GlobeTrotters went on to sign Agis Bray that March, but the Tourney promoters wouldn’t allow the “ringer” to play for Abe. The Trotters won the tournament anyway, & the following fall bought the Crusaders aka Savoy Big Five & made the team for the first time their second travelling unit.

The Chicago Crusaders have an interesting & barely-known history. They preceded Abe’s version of the GlobeTtrotters & competed in Chicago, the MidWest & back East when the Globies were out in the Western prairies. Some might say the Crusaders were a Trotter “farm team” but that calls into question why so many Renaissance-connected players — Specs Moten, first “clown prince” Jackie Bethards, DeJernett, Johnson, Zack Clayton, to name a few — played for the CCS. My hunch is that Dick Hudson, who created the Savoy Big Five, had a cozy relationship w/ Bob Douglass that was convenient for both in the face of Saperstein’s growing designs for empire.