Joe Cephis Fortenberry (April 1, 1911 – June 3, 1993) was an American basketball player who competed in the 1936 Summer Olympics.

This was the team that won the AAU National Championship in 1936, prior to the Olympics.

[2] The game was held in appalling conditions, outdoors on a muddy clay court, that made dribbling almost impossible, in steady rain and with winds that "blew the ball around wildly".

[2] After he played in the Olympics, Fortenberry played five seasons with the Phillips 66ers, the perennial power in the AAU basketball league, the premier basketball league in the United States before the NBA.

He is credited with being one of the first to slam dunk the basketball; this appeared in a New York Times article by Pulitzer Prize winning sports reporter, Arthur Daley, in 1936.