The Grandfather of Black Basketball
eBook - PDF

The Grandfather of Black Basketball

The Life and Times of Dr. E. B. Henderson

  1. 301 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

The Grandfather of Black Basketball

The Life and Times of Dr. E. B. Henderson

About this book

The first contemporary biography of the man credited with introducing basketball to African Americans on a wide-scale, organized basis.

Dr. Edwin Bancroft Henderson was the son of working-class parents born in slavery. A driven, intelligent, and charismatic young man, Henderson attended Harvard University's Dudley Sargent School of Physical Training. There he met the leaders in the new field of physical education and recognized athletics—and basketball, especially—as a public health initiative and a way that young Blacks could gain college scholarships and debunk the idea of racial inferiority.

In The Grandfather of Black Basketball: The Life and Times of Dr. E. B. Henderson, Edwin Bancroft Henderson II—Dr. Henderson's grandson—provides unprecedented detail and fascinating insight into this influential figure in Black history. Henderson organized the first athletic league for Blacks, introduced basketball to Black people on a wide-scale, organized basis, and founded associations to train and organize Black officials and referees. He also wrote and co-edited the first Spalding publication that highlighted the exploits of African American participation in sports and authored The Negro in Sports. Outside of athletics, Henderson was instrumental in founding the first rural branch of the NAACP, advocated for school desegregation, and held executive board positions with multiple NAACP branches.

Overlooked for decades, Henderson was finally enshrined in the National Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013 as a contributor. The Grandfather of Black Basketball gives long-overdue recognition to a sports pioneer, civil rights activist, author, educator, and pragmatic humanitarian who fought his entire life to improve opportunities for youth through athletics.

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Yes, you can access The Grandfather of Black Basketball by Edwin Bancroft Henderson II in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & Social Science Biographies. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Contents
  3. Illustrations
  4. Acknowledgments
  5. Foreword
  6. Introduction
  7. Sunrise
  8. The “Black Mecca”
  9. Pittsburgh
  10. Back Home to Washington
  11. M Street High School
  12. Miner Teacher’s College, Normal School No. 2
  13. Ned and Nell’s Courtship
  14. Harvard University’s Dudley Sargent School of Physical Training
  15. Building the Infrastructure
  16. Building the Framework for Organized Athletics
  17. Eastern Board of Officials (EBO)
  18. Basketball Games Begin in Washington (1907)
  19. Bringing Home the Title
  20. E. B. Henderson’s Early Published Works
  21. The Hendersons Move to Falls Church, Virginia
  22. Protest in Virginia
  23. Protest in the Nation’s Capital
  24. The Rise of Professional Sports in Washington, DC
  25. Articles, Letters, and The Negro in Sports
  26. Highland Beach, Maryland
  27. Sunset
  28. Epilogue
  29. Notes
  30. References
  31. Index
  32. About the Author