Efforts to save the Harlem’s historic Renaissance Ballroom, a cultural shrine, have failed. It was demolished by its new owners. Here is how this happened.
Requiem for a Demolished Harlem Shrine
Historically black colleges and universities (“HBCU’s”) were intimately involved in the history of the Black Fives Era of basketball.
Who knew these treasures existed? Dozens of African American basketball teams from the early 1900s, lost in the sands of time. Buried for years beneath the publicity and hype of first the N.C.A.A., then the Harlem Globetrotters, then the N.B.A. I’m using the buried treasure analogy because on this day, November 26, 1922, American archaeologist… Read more »
The Commonwealth Big Five, an all-black basketball team, debuted on this date in 1922, becoming the first fully-professional African American basketball team.
In 1922 the white-owned all-black Commonwealth Big Five basketball team made its debut in Harlem. The “Commons” were the first fully professional African American basketball team.