This Wednesday, February 1 begins on Black History Month, annual commemoration of the history of the African diaspora. In our own way, we wanted to join this celebration with TrashTalk. This month, we will therefore offer you a series of portraits of African-American people in connection with the orange ball who have contributed to this rich history.
If the doctor James Naismith invented basketball in 1891, African Americans were not its first target.
Worse still, it can be said that having been totally sidelined in a segregated society, they did not practice it en masse until more than a decade later, under the impetus of the Black Fives – ethnic teams only made up only of African Americans – in New York, as well as the leadership of Edwin B. Henderson in Washington.
A democratization of the orange ball which will give rise to Clean et Globetrottersbefore seeing pioneers land in the NBA in 1950.
A slow, complicated opening, but one that shapes a League that wants to be the most progressive in the world today. And whose actors – mostly African-American – no longer hesitate to speak up and express themselves on social issues, as some elders were able to do decades earlier, like Bill Russell or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Without forgetting either the girls who, in the WNBA, also lead their fight.
However, it’s not just the NBA and professional basketball in life.
And some members of this community have also moved the lines for the recognition of African Americans, whether at school and then university level. Just like in the street, this fertile ground provides many talents and above all a style of play, a creative freedom which is now displayed on all the grounds of the world.
It is therefore this journey that TrashTalk offers you during this Black History Month, by introducing you to personalities who have contributed to writing the history of their community, their sport, their country.
To be found on TrashTalk.co in February:
- LeBron James
- Edwin B. Henderson
- Maya Moore
- Harry “Bucky” Lew
- Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf
- Ora Washington
- Holcombe Rucker
- Will Madden
- Bill Russell
- John McLendon
- Allen Iverson
- Chuck Cooper
- Laurel J. Richie
- Oscar Robertson
- Robert Douglas
- Jaylen Brown
- Nathaniel Clifton
- Don Barksdale
- Elgin Baylor
- Earl Lloyd
- John Thompson
- Spencer Haywood
- Craig Hodges
- Robert Johnson
- Clarence “Big House” Gaines
- Cleo Hill
- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar