Zack Clayton, one of the greatest basketball players of the Black Fives Era as a star for the New York Renaissance and other teams, was born on May 4, 1910 in Philadelphia.
Zack Clayton, All-Time Harlem Rens Player, Born On This Date (1910)
Today is the anniversary (1939) of the all-black New York Renaissance (a.k.a. “Harlem Rens”) winning the first World Championship of Pro Basketball.
The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame announced Friday a new Early African-American Pioneers of the Game Committee, which has the clout to induct with a direct vote.
For fans like me, the amazing basketball events of last week — beautifully staged by Nike and the Basketball Hall of Fame, from Harlem to Springfield and back — might as well have been called the “World Basketball Orgy.”
Ellen Jenkins Harris, entrepreneur and daughter of New York Rens star Clarence ‘Fats’ Jenkins, joins Black Fives, Inc. as its newest Advisory Board member.
Duquesne honors Chuck Cooper, among first blacks in NBA, by staging inaugural Chuck Cooper Classic, a hoops doubleheader featuring HBCU teams. How cool is that?
Did one devastating punch thrown by a future Basketball Hall of Fame player in an unrelated game threaten to derail Jackie Robinson’s baseball debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers?
April birthdays related to the Black Fives Era of basketball include Don Barksdale, Bill Yancey, John McLendon, Paul Robeson, and Charles Scottron.
The fact that some of the Hall of Fame’s Class of 2009 finalists are black does not stir up any controversy whatsoever. But that wasn’t always the case.
Part I of a multi-part series on George Crowe, the last living Harlem Rens player, covers his Indiana schoolboy basketball career.