The Washington Bears were an all-black professional

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

team of the 1940s. Sponsored by movie theater owner Abe Lichtman, the Bears played their home games at Turner's Arena in

Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...

.Claude Johnson.
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. ''Black Fives''. February 15, 2008. Retrieved on January 29, 2009. Most of the team was composed of former

New York Renaissance The New York Renaissance, also known as the Renaissance Big R Five and as the Rens, were the first black-owned, all-black, fully-professional basketball team in history, established in October 1923, by Robert "Bob" Douglas. They were named after t ...

players, such as

Pop Gates William Penn "Pop" Gates (August 30, 1917 – December 1, 1999) was an American professional basketball player. Early life He was born in Decatur, Alabama and attended high school in New York, New York. During high school studies he earned All-Co ...

,David L. Porter. ''Basketball: A Biographical Dictionary''. Greenwood Publishing, 2005. 165. Tarzan Cooper, Jackie Bethards, and

John Isaacs John William Isaacs (September 15, 1915 – January 26, 2009) was a Panamanian-American professional basketball player. Born in Panama but raised in New York City,Claude Johnson.Harlem When. ''SLAM Magazine Online''. January 26, 2009. Retrieved on ...

. In 1943, the Bears achieved a 41-0 record and won the

World Professional Basketball Tournament The World Professional Basketball Tournament was an annual invitational tournament held in Chicago from 1939 to 1948 and sponsored by the ''Chicago Herald American''. Many teams came from the National Basketball League, but it also included the be ...

, defeating the

Oshkosh All-Stars The Oshkosh All-Stars were an American professional basketball team based in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Founded in 1929 by Lonnie Darling, the team was a member of the National Basketball League (United States), National Basketball League, a forerunner t ...

in the championship game.

References

{{reflist Defunct basketball teams in the United States 1940s establishments in Washington, D.C. 1940s disestablishments in Washington, D.C. Sports clubs established in the 1940s Basketball teams in Washington, D.C.