During the 1910s, a Lower East Side basketball coach brought Jewish Americans and African Americans together in the sport for the first time. Who was he? What did he do? Was he Jewish?
The Original Nexus of Blacks and Jews in Basketball (Parts 6-7 of 9)
Edwin B. Henderson — a Black Fives Era pioneer who is known as the “Grandfather of Black Basketball” — has been elected into the Basketball Hall of Fame! He is “unsung” no more.
In 1904, Edwin B. Henderson attended Harvard University’s Summer School of Arts and Sciences to learn the game of basketball. The rest is history.
The roots of the black basketball trace back to the Hemenway Gymnasium on the campus of Harvard University.
In 1974, when Grandpa was inducted into the Black Athletes Hall of Fame in New York, in it’s inaugural class alongside the likes of Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, Joe Louis, and Bill Russell, I was so proud beyond compare.
I betchu I can connect any modern day athlete or event to vintage basketball star and African American sports pioneer Frank ‘Strangler’ Forbes.