Black Fives is a trademarked term, federally registered in the United States Patent & Trademark Office, that refers to the all-Black basketball teams that existed in the United States between 1904, when the game was first introduced to African Americans on a wide-scale organized basis, and 1950, when the NBA signed its first Black players.
The term "Black Fives" represents the historic significance of these pioneering teams, which played a crucial role in breaking down racial barriers in American sports during the early 20th century.
[6] In 1906, Henderson co-founded (along with Garnet Wilkinson of the M Street High School and W. A. Joiner of Howard University, as well as W. A. Decatur and Robert Mattingly of Armstrong Technical High School) the Inter-Scholastic Athletic Association of Middle Atlantic States, an amateur sports organization designed to encourage competition among intercollegiate and interscholastic athletes, in track and field as well as in basketball.
[7] Subsequently, several all-black basketball teams made up of players from public schools, athletic clubs, churches, colleges, and Colored YMCAs began to emerge in the Washington, D.C., area.
[8] Simultaneously, basketball was catching on among African Americans in New York City, and these two urban centers served as the early incubators of the black game.
[8] The first independent African American basketball team in the history of the sport was the Smart Set Athletic Club of Brooklyn, which was organized in 1907.
Fans, business owners, and community leaders often provided financial assistance to help cover expenses such as equipment, uniforms, travel costs, and venue rentals.
Founded in the early 1923 in Harlem, New York City, the team quickly gained recognition for their exceptional skill, athleticism, and unique style of play.
At Hampton University in Virginia, another outstanding college team was in the making under the direction of physical educator Charles Holston Williams.
At the same time, a boom in the construction of YMCAs for black men was under way, which would have a profound impact on the training of young players in cities throughout the country.
A year later, Robert Douglas, a resident of New York City who had emigrated from the British West Indies in about 1902, founded the Rens-–the Renaissance Big Five.
[13] 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.
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.
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, Clarence "Fat" Jenkins, John "Casey" Holt, James "Pappy" Ricks, Eyre "Bruiser" Saitch, William "Wee Willie" Smith and Bill Yancey.
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.
As more African American players joined integrated professional leagues like the NBA, interest in Black Fives teams began to decrease.
Black Fives teams faced significant financial challenges, including limited resources, lack of sponsorship opportunities, and difficulties in securing venues for games.
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.
[17] The Black Fives Foundation (founded in January 2013)[18] is an independent 501(c)3 nonprofit organization whose mission is to research, preserve, showcase, teach, and honor the pre-NBA history of African Americans in basketball.
Its founder and executive director is Claude Johnson, historian and author of “The Black Fives: The Epic Story of Basketball's Forgotten Era" (Abrams Press, May 2022).