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Black Fives
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 Black Fives Era produced notable NBA players who contributed to African American history. 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. History The year 1904 was the start of the Black Fives Era, which was marked by the formation of "Black Fives" teams as a result of African Americans' exclusion from mainstream leagues. The Black Five teams disbanded when the National Basketball Association became racially integrated in 1950. Early basketball teams were often called "fives” in reference ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 (approximately in diameter) through the defender's Basket (basketball), hoop (a basket in diameter mounted high to a Backboard (basketball), backboard at each end of the court), while preventing the opposing team from shooting through their own hoop. A Field goal (basketball), field goal is worth two points, unless made from behind the 3 point line, three-point line, when it is worth three. After a foul, timed play stops and the player fouled or designated to shoot a technical foul is given one, two or three one-point free throws. The team with the most points at the end of the game wins, but if regulation play expires with the score tied, an additional period of play (Overtime (sports), overtime) is mandated. Players advance the ball by boun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Holston Williams
Charles Holston Williams (January 25, 1886 – 1978) was an American choreographer and professor of physical education. He was the organizer and first director of the Hampton Institute Creative Dance Group, the first national touring company composed of college students. Williams was also an associate professor and supervisor of the Physical Education Department at the Hampton Institute—now known as Hampton University—in Hampton, Virginia. Early life Williams was born in Lexington, Kentucky, on January 25, 1886. In 1904, he attended high school at Berea College, but the following year Williams transferred to Hampton Institute because the state general assembly had passed the Day Law, stating that blacks and whites could no longer attend the same schools. At Hampton Institute, Williams resumed his high school education and continued on to further his college education. In college, Williams excelled in football, basketball, and baseball and gained the reputation of being an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American Jazz piano, jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous Big band, jazz orchestra from 1924 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Ellington was based in New York City from the mid-1920s and gained a national profile through his orchestra's appearances at the Cotton Club in Harlem. A master at writing miniatures for the three-minute 78 rpm recording format, Ellington wrote or collaborated on more than one thousand compositions; his extensive body of work is the largest recorded personal jazz legacy, and many of his pieces have become Standard (music), standards. He also recorded songs written by his bandsmen, such as Juan Tizol's "Caravan (1937 song), Caravan", which brought a Spanish tinge to big band jazz. At the end of the 1930s, Ellington began a nearly thirty five-year collaboration with composer-arranger-pianist Billy Strayhorn, whom he called his writ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Earl Hines
Earl Kenneth Hines, also known as Earl "Fatha" Hines (December 28, 1903 – April 22, 1983), was an American jazz pianist and bandleader. He was one of the most influential figures in the development of jazz piano and, according to one source, "one of a small number of pianists whose playing shaped the history of jazz". The trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie (a member of Hines's big band, along with Charlie Parker) wrote, The piano is the basis of modern harmony. This little guy came out of Chicago, Earl Hines. He changed the style of the piano. You can find the roots of Bud Powell, Herbie Hancock, all the guys who came after that. If it hadn't been for Earl Hines blazing the path for the next generation to come, it's no telling where or how they would be playing now. There were individual variations but the style of … the modern piano came from Earl Hines. The pianist Lennie Tristano said, "Earl Hines is the ''only'' one of us capable of creating real jazz and real swing when playi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pop Gates
William Penn "Pop" Gates (August 30, 1917 – December 1, 1999) was an American professional basketball player. Considered one of the top players of his day, he was the first African American player signed to the National Basketball League, which through merger became today's National Basketball Association. Early life He was born in Decatur, Alabama and attended high school in New York City. During high school studies he earned All-Conference honors in both 1937 and 1938 and made the All-City first team in 1938, as well as won three All-City titles with YMCA teams. Some later newspaper publications claimed that Gates graduated from Clark College (now Clark Atlanta University), but in fact his professional basketball career started right after graduating from Franklin High School. Basketball career Gates started his professional basketball career with the New York Renaissance, beginning in 1938–39. "Seven months before Jackie Robinson made his debut for the Brooklyn Do ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Renaissance Ballroom
The Renaissance Ballroom & Casino was an entertainment complex at 2341–2349 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard (Seventh Avenue) in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. When opened in 1921, it included a casino, ballroom, 900-seat theater, six retail stores, and a basketball arena. It spanned the entire eastern frontage of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard between 137th and 138th Streets. History The Renaissance Theatre Building, as it was originally named, opened January 1921. It was built and owned, until 1931, by African Americans. It was known as the "Rennie" (also spelled "Renny") and was an upscale reception hall. The "Renny" held prize fights, dance marathons, film screenings, concerts, and stage acts. It was also a meeting place for social clubs and political organizations in Harlem. They gathered to dance the popular dances at the time, the Charleston, Lindy Hop, and Black Bottom, to live music performed by well known jazz musicians. Jazz artists ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 the Renaissance Casino and Ballroom through an agreement with its owner, in return for the use of that facility as their home court. The Casino and Ballroom at 138th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem was an entertainment complex that included a ballroom, which served as the Rens' home court. The team eventually had its own house orchestra and games were often followed by a dance. Their subsequent financial success shifted the focus of black basketball from amateurism to professionalism. Initially, the Rens played mostly in Harlem, but Douglas soon realized they could book more games on the road, in larger-capacity venues, and took up barnstorming across the country for more lucrative payouts. The Renaissance are also the topic of the 20 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British West Indies
The British West Indies (BWI) were the territories in the West Indies under British Empire, British rule, including Anguilla, the Cayman Islands, the Turks and Caicos Islands, Montserrat, the British Virgin Islands, Bermuda, Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, British Honduras, British Guiana and Trinidad and Tobago. The Kingdom of England first English overseas possessions, established colonies in the region during the 17th century. Financed by valuable extractive commodities such as sugar production, the colonies were also at the centre of the Atlantic slave trade, with around 2.3 million slaves being brought to the British West Indies. The colonies also served as bases to project the power of the British Empire through the Royal Navy and Britain's Merchant Marine, and to expand and protect British overseas trade. Before the decolonization of the Americas in the later ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bob Douglas
Robert L. Douglas (b. (St. Kitts) November 4, 1882 – d. (unknown) July 16, 1979) was the founder of the New York Renaissance basketball team, the first fully all-black professional black-owned basketball team. Career 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 (.859). The Rens barnstormed throughout the United States, mostly in the Midwest, and played any team that would schedule them, black or white. Traveling as far as 200 miles for a game, they often slept on the bus and ate cold meals; they were barred from many hotels and restaurants by Jim Crow laws and norms of racial discrimination which prevailed in the northern United States at the time. The Rens soon became a dominant team, winning as many as 88 consecutive games during the 1932–33 season. In the twenties and early thirties, their matches with the Original Celtics were basketball's greatest gate attraction. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jess McMahon
Roderick James "Jess" McMahon Sr. (October 29, 1882 – November 21, 1954) was an American professional wrestling and professional boxing promoter, and patriarch of the McMahon family, founders of Capitol Wrestling Corporation, precursor to the present-day WWE. Early life Roderick James McMahon was born October 29, 1882, in Manhattan, New York, to hotel owner Roderick McMahon (1846–1922) and Elizabeth McMahon (1848–1911), from County Galway. His parents had recently moved from Ireland to New York City. He and his older siblings Lauretta (born 1876), Catharine (born 1878) and Edward (born 1880) attended Manhattan College. McMahon graduated with a commercial diploma at the age of 17. The McMahon brothers showed a higher interest in sports than in a banking career. Career By 1909, the McMahon brothers were managing partners of the Olympic Athletic Club and bookers at the Empire Athletic Club and St. Nicholas Athletic Club, located in or near Harlem. Because of a loss of pu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pittsburgh Courier
The ''Pittsburgh Courier'' was an African American weekly newspaper published in Pittsburgh from 1907 until October 22, 1966. By the 1930s, the ''Courier'' was one of the leading black newspapers in the United States. It was acquired in 1965 by John H. Sengstacke, a major black publisher and owner of the '' Chicago Defender''. He re-opened the paper in 1967 as the '' New Pittsburgh Courier'', making it one of his four newspapers for the African American audience. Creation and incorporation The paper was founded by Edwin Nathaniel Harleston, who worked as a guard at the H. J. Heinz Company food packing plant in Pittsburgh. Harleston, a self-published poet, began printing the paper at his own expense in 1907. Generally about two pages, it was primarily a vehicle for Harleston's work. He printed around ten copies, which he sold for five cents apiece.Buni, p. 42. In 1909, Edward Penman, Hepburn Carter, Scott Wood Jr., and Harvey Tanner joined Harleston to run the paper, althoug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oscar Charleston
Oscar McKinley Charleston (October 14, 1896 – October 5, 1954) was an American center fielder, first baseman and manager in Negro league baseball and the Cuban League. Over his 43-year baseball career, Charleston played or managed with more than a dozen teams, including the Homestead Grays and the Pittsburgh Crawfords, Negro league baseball's leading teams in the 1930s. He also played nine winter seasons in Cuba and in numerous exhibition games against white major leaguers. He was posthumously inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1976. One of the Negro leagues' early stars, Charleston was by 1920 generally considered "the greatest center fielder and one of the most reliable sluggers in black baseball." He and Josh Gibson share the record for Negro league batting titles with three. He was the second player to win consecutive Triple Crowns in either batting or pitching (after Grover Cleveland Alexander), a feat matched just one time by a batter. He is now credited ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
