For the locomotive, see Black Five

LMS Stanier Class 5 4-6-0

The London Midland and Scottish Railway's Class 5 4-6-0, almost universally known as the Black Five, is a class of steam locomotive. It was introduced by William Stanier in 1934 and 842 were built between then and 1951...

.

The term Black Fives refers to all-black basketball

Basketball

Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...

 teams that thrived in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 between 1904, when basketball was first introduced to African Americans on a large scale organized basis, and 1950, when the National Basketball Association

National Basketball Association

The National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...

 became racially integrated. The period is known as the "Black Fives Era" or "Early Black Basketball" or simply "Black Basketball".

Early basketball teams were often called "fives” in reference to the five starting players. All-black teams were known as colored quints, colored fives, Negro fives, or black fives.

Dozens of all-black teams emerged during the Black Fives Era, in New York City, Washington, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Cleveland, and other cities. They were sponsored by or affiliated with churches, athletic clubs, social clubs, businesses, newspapers, YMCA

YMCA

The Young Men's Christian Association is a worldwide organization of more than 45 million members from 125 national federations affiliated through the World Alliance of YMCAs...

 branches, and other organizations.

The terms "Black Fives" and "Black Fives Era" are trademarked phrases owned by Black Fives, Inc., whose founder and owner, Claude Johnson, coined the terms while researching and promoting the period's history.

Washington and New York origins

Edwin Henderson

Edwin Henderson

Edwin B. Henderson , widely recognized as the "Grandfather of Black Basketball," introduced basketball in Washington, D.C. in 1904 to African Americans on a wide scale, organized basis...

 introduced the game in Washington, D.C., beginning with physical education class at Howard University

Howard University

Howard University is a federally chartered, non-profit, private, coeducational, nonsectarian, historically black university located in Washington, D.C., United States...

 in 1904, thirteen years after basketball

Basketball

Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...

 was invented. He envisioned basketball not as an end in itself but as a public-health and civil-rights tool. Henderson believed that, by organizing black athletics, including basketball, it would be possible to send more outstanding black student athletes to excel at northern white colleges and debunk negative stereotypes of the race. He reasoned that in sports, unlike politics and business, the black race would get a fair chance to succeed. Henderson chose basketball as his marquee sport and he soon found that the game was a big hit on Washington’s segregated U Street. Almost simultaneously, black basketball was catching on quickly in New York, and these two cities served as the birthplace of the black game. In 1906, he founded the first league of all-black teams, the Interscholastic Athletic Association.

By 1907, inter-city games were being played along the East Coast between all-black teams. In 1908, the Smart Set Athletic Club in Brooklyn

Brooklyn

Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...

 was the first "Colored Basketball World's Champion", a title coined by African American sportswriters to honor the best all-black basketball team, by their informal consensus.

The New York All-Stars were formed in the fall of 1910, the creation of former St. Christopher star Major A. Hart. Hart wrote:

"That this game has taken a firm hold on our people has been demonstrated beyond a doubt. Now it is up to the players and their friends [to advance the black game] by not only forming a basketball league among the teams, but playing good, fast, clean games, eliminating therefrom all petty jealousies, quarrels and the little meannesses that have a tendency to disgust the people who assemble to witness these contests. We want to play the game as our white friends play it. That is, in the spirit of fairness and for the benefits that the exercise will give us and the enjoyment we can afford to our friends."

Hart clearly envisioned basketball as entertainment and therefore as an opportunity to create revenue—not just as physical education. Like Henderson and the 12th Street YMCA team, he recognized that a winning team of all-star performers would help further popularize the game among African-Americans in New York.

Early days

By the 1912-13 season, inter-city competition had become a staple of the black game. No longer did facing the best teams mean making a three-day trip to Washington or New York. Inter-city competition had grown in just four seasons into an expanding network of towns and cities that also included Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Newark, Baltimore and Atlantic City, and the college campuses of Howard

Howard University

Howard University is a federally chartered, non-profit, private, coeducational, nonsectarian, historically black university located in Washington, D.C., United States...

, Hampton

Hampton University

Hampton University is a historically black university located in Hampton, Virginia, United States. It was founded by black and white leaders of the American Missionary Association after the American Civil War to provide education to freedmen.-History:...

 and Lincoln

Lincoln University (Pennsylvania)

Lincoln University is the United States' first degree-granting historically black university. It is located near the town of Oxford in southern Chester County, Pennsylvania. The university also hosts a Center for Graduate Studies in the City of Philadelphia. Lincoln University provides...

. In a few more seasons, the network would extend into the Midwest and New England.

The black game also had begun to develop a deeper pool of talent. At Harlem's St. Christopher Club, where teams were said to have the luxury of practicing "two hours a day regularly", the seeds already had been sown for the next great New York team. At Hampton University in Virginia, another outstanding college team was in the making under the direction of physical educator Charles Holston Williams

Charles Holston Williams

Charles Holston Williams was the founder, organizer and first director of the . This company was the first national touring company composed of college students that was created by an American of any color...

. At the same time, a boom in the construction of YMCA

YMCA

The Young Men's Christian Association is a worldwide organization of more than 45 million members from 125 national federations affiliated through the World Alliance of YMCAs...

s for black men was under way, which would have a profound impact on the training of young players in cities throughout the country.

But in 1913, the black game's two best teams were the Howard Big Five and Pittsburgh's champion Monticello Athletic Association. The Howard University team clearly had more talent and greater cohesion, with most of its stars having played four seasons together. George Gilmore was the best center in the black game, Ed Gray was the best defender, and Hudson Oliver was probably the second-best player overall.

The title of best player overall belonged to Monticello's Cum Posey. According to some, Posey stood shoulder to shoulder with Paul Robeson

Paul Robeson

Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...

, John Henry Lloyd

John Henry Lloyd

John Henry "Pop" Lloyd was an American baseball player and manager in the Negro leagues. He is generally considered the greatest shortstop in Negro league history, and both Babe Ruth and Ted Harlow, a noted sportswriter, reportedly believed Lloyd to be the greatest baseball player ever.He was a...

, Oscar Charleston

Oscar Charleston

Oscar McKinley Charleston was an American center fielder and manager in baseball's Negro leagues from to ....

 and other great black baseball and football players as the finest athlete of his generation. "Giants crumpled and quit before the fragile-looking Posey", recalled W. Rollo Wilson of the Pittsburgh Courier

Pittsburgh Courier

The Pittsburgh Courier was an American newspaper published in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which was published from 1907 to 1965. Once the country's most widely circulated Black newspaper, the legacy and influence of the Pittsburgh Courier is unparalleled.A pillar of the Black Press, it rose...

in the late 1920s. "He was at once a ghost, a buzz saw, and a 'shooting fool'. The word 'quit' has never been translated for him."

The Professional Game

Black professional basketball in America, begun by Major Hart and the New York All Stars in 1910, began to grow and flourish in the 1920s. In 1922, the McMahon brothers established the Commonwealth Big 5 to play at their venue, the Commonwealth Casino on East 135th Street in Harlem. A year later, Robert Douglas

Bob Douglas

Robert L. "Bob" Douglas was the founder of the New York Renaissance basketball team. Nicknamed the "Father of Black Professional Basketball", Douglas owned and coached the Rens from 1923 to 1949, guiding them to a 2,318-381 record...

, a resident of New York City who had emigrated from the British West Indies

British West Indies

The British West Indies was a term used to describe the islands in and around the Caribbean that were part of the British Empire The term was sometimes used to include British Honduras and British Guiana, even though these territories are not geographically part of the Caribbean...

 in about 1902, founded the Rens-–the Renaissance Big Five. The Commonwealth Big 5 won most of the contests between the two teams, but did not draw large crowds, and the McMahons shut down the team after two years, leaving the Rens to become one of the sport’s top draws in white and black America alike.

The Rens were named after the Renaissance Casino and Ballroom in Harlem, where they played their first game on November 3, 1923, a 28-22 victory over a white team called the Collegiate Five. The ballroom was owned by Sarco Realty Company and William Roach, who allowed the dance floor to double as a basketball court to accommodate Douglas's team. It was far from an ideal site for basketball, preceding the era of the beautiful, tailor-made arenas of today's game. "It was rectangular, but more box-like," said former Rens star Pop Gates

Pop Gates

William "Pop" Gates was an American professional basketball player. He was born in Decatur, Alabama and attended high school in New York, New York. After playing college basketball at Clark Atlanta University, he continued his basketball career in New York City with the Harlem Renaissance, for...

, arguably the best player of his day and a Hall of Fame inductee.

"They set up a basketball post on each end of the floor. The floor was very slippery and they outlined the sidelines and foul lines. It wasn't a big floor. It was far from being a regular basketball floor. Other than high schools or armories, they had very few places to play at, except the Negro college. It was a well-decorated area – chandeliers, a bandstand. All the big [dance bands] played the Renaissance – Fatha Hines

Earl Hines

Earl Kenneth Hines, universally known as Earl "Fatha" Hines, was an American jazz pianist. Hines was one of the most influential figures in the development of modern jazz piano and, according to one source, is "one of a small number of pianists whose playing shaped the history of jazz".-Early...

, Duke Ellington

Duke Ellington

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...

, Count Basie

Count Basie

William "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...

, Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...

, Chick Webb

Chick Webb

William Henry Webb, usually known as Chick Webb was an American jazz and swing music drummer as well as a band leader.-Biography:...

's band. They had the dancing before the ball game. People would pay and [dance] prior to the game, at halftime, and after the game."

Because the basketball games were, essentially, part of an evening of entertainment and fun, that led to Black Fives Era teams having to develop a faster-paced more entertaining game that involved more athletic and daring styles of play. Flashiness was considered an essential part of the game, not the self-glorifying aberration it was considered in the white game.

Dance halls lost their popularity in the late 1920s and early 1930s when the Depression strangled the economy and deprived people of spare cash. According to Susan J. Rayl, lagging attendance convinced Douglas to send his team on the road in 1928 in the northeast; by the 1930 season the Rens were playing games throughout the Midwest. In 1933, they began barnstorming the South. Beginning in 1931, he had assembled a team so skilled that it was nicknamed the Magnificent Seven because of the excellence of its key players: Charles "Tarzan" Cooper

Tarzan Cooper

Charles "Tarzan" Cooper was an American professional basketball player. He is mostly known for his time with the New York Renaissance ....

, Clarence "Fat" Jenkins

Fats Jenkins

Clarence Reginald "Fats" Jenkins was an African American professional baseball and basketball player from about 1920 to 1940 when both professional sports were racially segregated...

, John "Casey" Holt, James "Pappy" Ricks, Eyre "Bruiser" Saitch, William "Wee Willie" Smith

Wee Willie Smith

William T. "Wee Willie" Smith was an American professional basketball player.The 6'5" Smith was one of the first great African American basketball players. He played for several amateur leagues in the Cleveland area before being signed by the New York Renaissance, an all-black professional team,...

 and Bill Yancey.

The highlight of the Rens' long history was an 88-game winning streak from January 1, 1933, through a game on March 27, 1933, when they lost to the Original Celtics. From 1932 to 1936, the Rens had a remarkable 497-58 record. "Our basketball heroes were the New York Rens and I used to see them play," Gates said. "I'd sneak in or get 50 cents to watch them play." He also had seen them practice because the Harlem YMCA, where Gates played ball as a youngster, was a practice site for the Rens.

The Rens would leave New York for months at a time, traveling thousands of miles and playing every night and twice on Sundays. Sometimes they slept on their bus because they couldn't find a place to stay under the prevailing Jim Crow laws

Jim Crow laws

The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1965. They mandated de jure racial segregation in all public facilities, with a supposedly "separate but equal" status for black Americans...

. Once, an Indiana restaurant owner put a tall screen around the team's table to segregate the Rens from other customers. John Isaacs

John Isaacs

John Isaacs was an early African-American professional basketball player. Born in Panama but raised in New York City, he was a member of the New York Renaissance, the Washington Bears, and various other teams....

, a standout player for the Rens in the 1930s credited with bringing the pick-and-roll play to the professional game, walked out. He sat in the bus and made a meal of salami on Ritz crackers.

On the court, the Rens faced hostile crowds, ruthless name calling and overtly biased referees. Their motto on the road was "Get 10," meaning that they wanted to come out and grab a quick 10-point lead. "That was the 10 the officials were going to take away from you," Isaacs recalls. In 1939, the Rens went 112-7, swept into Chicago and beat a top white pro team, the Oshkosh All-Stars, to win the first ever world championship tournament.

Latter days

In the 1940s, when the National Basketball Association

National Basketball Association

The National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...

's predecessor leagues were not much of a fan draw, the leagues stayed alive by staging doubleheaders with the Harlem Globetrotters

Harlem Globetrotters

The Harlem Globetrotters are an exhibition basketball team that combines athleticism, theater and comedy. The executive offices for the team are currently in downtown Phoenix, Arizona; the team is owned by Shamrock Holdings, which oversees the various investments of the Roy E. Disney family.Over...

, which had emerged from the Black Five league in Chicago. The Rens and other barnstormers helped nurture and popularize the game that is now an international, multi-billion dollar industry. John Isaacs, who played with the Rens from 1936 to 1940, earned $150 a month plus $3 a day meal money after signing with the Rens out of high school. "We enjoyed it and played it as a sport," Isaacs said. Today, pro basketball "is about money."

In the 1940s, the Globetrotters emerged as a team that was as dominant as the Rens were. However the Globetrotters never agreed to play the Rens after losing to them in their only meeting.

The Black Fives era ended in the late 1940s with the gradual integration of white professional basketball leagues, led by the National Basketball League

National Basketball League (United States)

Founded in 1937, the National Basketball League, often abbreviated to NBL, was a professional men's basketball league in the United States. The league would later merge with the Basketball Association of America  to form the National Basketball Association  in 1949.- League history :The...

. When the NBL merged with the all-white and racially segregated Basketball Association of America in 1949, they formed the National Basketball Association

National Basketball Association

The National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...

 (NBA). In 1950 the NBA signed its first African American players. Early black players in the NBA experienced continual racism and racial tension from fans, teammates, opposing players, coaches, referees, and owners. However, they persevered and the situation gradually became easier as the league drafted more and more African Americans.

Nonetheless, even those who made the NBA after integration began were forced to be role players, concentrating on rebounding and defense. Black pros did not get a chance to showcase their talents in the league until the arrival of Bill Russell

Bill Russell

William Felton "Bill" Russell is a retired American professional basketball player who played center for the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association...

 and Wilt Chamberlain

Wilt Chamberlain

Wilton Norman "Wilt" Chamberlain was an American professional NBA basketball player for the Philadelphia/San Francisco Warriors, the Philadelphia 76ers and the Los Angeles Lakers; he also played for the Harlem Globetrotters prior to playing in the NBA...

.

In 1963, the 1933 version of the Rens team was collectively named to the Basketball Hall of Fame

Basketball Hall of Fame

The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, located in Springfield, Massachusetts, United States, honors exceptional basketball players, coaches, referees, executives, and other major contributors to the game of basketball worldwide...

. Only their arch-rivals, the Original Celtics, and the Buffalo Germans received the same honor. The Rens' selection was well-deserved, for despite traveling and playing throughout America when the harsh effect of segregation was common and often legal, they compiled a 2318-381 record before the team folded in 1949.

In 2005, the 109th United States Congress

United States Congress

The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....

 passed a joint resolution

Joint resolution

In the United States Congress, a joint resolution is a legislative measure that requires approval by the Senate and the House and is presented to the President for his/her approval or disapproval, in exactly the same case as a bill....

 that "recognizes the teams and players of the barnstorming African-American basketball teams for their achievement, dedication, sacrifices, and contribution to basketball and to the nation prior to the integration of the white professional leagues."

Colored Basketball World's Champions

The title "Colored Basketball World Champion" was coined by Lester Walton of the New York Age

New York Age

The New York Age was a black newspaper from 1887 to 1953, and was one of the most influential black newspapers of its time.The paper had it origins as the weekly New York Globe , an African-American newspaper, that was published weekly from at least 1880 to November 8, 1884...

newspaper, subsequently adopted by African American sportswriters, and conferred informally to honor the best all-black basketball team. A single listing represents consensus.

• Smart Set Athletic Club of Brooklyn—1907-08
• Smart Set Athletic Club of Brooklyn—1908-09
• Washington 12th Street Colored YMCA—1909-10
• Howard University—1910-11
• Monticello Athletic Association—1911-12
• Alpha Physical Culture Club/Howard University—1912-13
• St. Christopher Club—1913-14
• New York Incorporators—1914-15
• Hampton Institute—1915-16
• New York Incorporators/St. Christopher Club—1916-17
• St. Christopher Club/New York Incorporators—1917-18
• St. Christopher Club—1918-19
• Loendi Big Five—1919-20
• Loendi Big Five—1920-21
• Loendi Big Five—1921-22
• Loendi Big Five—1922-23
• Commonwealth Five/Eighth Regiment Five of Chicago—1923-24
• Harlem Renaissance Big Five—1924-25