Germantown Hornets
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Manager: Germantown Colored YWCA
Established: 1929
The first Colored Branch of the entire Young Women’s Christian Association was established in 1918 in Germantown, a racially diverse community on the North Side of Philadelphia.
In 1929, the branch formed an African American women’s basketball team known as the Germantown Hornets with a roster that included future Basketball Hall of Fame member Ora Washington.
She had just won her second of seven straight American Tennis Association (ATA) women’s singles titles and was still at the beginning of a sports career destined to make her one of the greatest female athletes of all time.
The following season, the Germantown squad compiled a 22-1 record and claimed the 1930-31 Colored Women’s National Championship title.
“The Hornets have shown,” one sportswriter explained, “that they are ready to make trouble for any girls team in the East.” Though their two biggest stars left for a rival team a year later and the Germantown Hornets began to fade, the team played a crucial role in the development of African American women in sports as well as in the city’s Black community overall, since countless girls (including Washington herself) learned how to play basketball and tennis, and how to swim, at the Germantown Women’s YMCA, which was built with 5 tennis courts and an indoor heated swimming pool.
Germantown Hornets™ is a trademark of the Black Fives Foundation. All rights reserved.
