On America: Claude Johnson on The Black Fives with Laura Washington

African Americans were making moves in basketball generations before the rise of the NBA. Their pioneering efforts helped popularize the sport in big cities and small towns alike, shaping the game we know and love today. From the invention of the game in 1891 to the racial integration of all-white professional leagues in the 1950s, dozens of teams—then often called “fives”—of African American players were founded and flourished. This was a time of visionary players, managers, and impresarios who blazed a trail, battled discrimination and marginalization, and created rich, meaningful events that strengthened their communities in the face of Jim Crow oppression.

Despite national headlines in the “Negro” press, barnstorming tours throughout America, and domination of their white opponents, the Black Fives Era has been forgotten, overlooked, unacknowledged, and squashed. It is barely known today . . . until now.

The Black Fives by historian Claude Johnson is a landmark narrative history that braids together the stories of these pioneers. A fiercely committed advocate, Johnson has spent more than two decades researching, preserving, exhibiting, teaching, and honoring this important African American experience to unearth what might have remained buried. The Black Fives rewrites our understanding about the true history of the game.