High-level dunks, incredible assists and unlikely plays: the Harlem Globetrotters celebrate their 100 years of life this year after having conquered the world, popularizing basketball outside the United States and contributing to the African-American cause, in a trajectory that is not without criticism.
Touring both in their home country and in several countries around the world, they will start March in the United Kingdom, before spending much of the month in cities in France and heading to Turkey at the beginning of April.
Although it was founded in Chicago in 1926, its owner and businessman —who was white— Abe Saperstein chose the name Harlem, a neighborhood in New York that was then the epicenter of black American culture, “because he wanted everyone to know that it was a team made up solely of African Americans”, explains Susan Rayl, from the State University of New York at Cortland.
The term “Globetrotters” came about because Saperstein, a visionary with a keen business sense, “predicted that one day they would be touring the world,” the academic expert added.
World tour
Before this global achievement, the team traveled across the United States to compete against teams made up only of whites, in an environment very different from the exhibitions and shows they hold today.
Far superior to their opponents, the Harlem Globetrotters began, in the late 1930s, to present the spectacle that brought them worldwide fame, largely due to their acrobatic basketball skills and plays that challenged the limits of the possible.
This approach did not please the owner and manager of the “Black Fives” team, also made up entirely of black players, at a time when they were prevented from participating in professional leagues due to segregation.
“He was originally from the British West Indies and disliked the antics of the Harlem Globetrotters, which he considered degrading. For him, they conveyed an image of illiterate and idiotic African descendants. Many African Americans shared this opinion”, explains Susan Rayl.
Pioneering players
The same criticisms were heard during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
Recently deceased pastor and activist Jesse Jackson defended them: “I think they have a positive influence. They don’t portray black people as stupid, but rather as superior.”
The team’s popularity in the late 1940s led them to face the Lakers in 1948 and 1949. The Lakers, then based in Minneapolis, were champions of the BAA (Basketball Association of America), one of the leagues at the time.
The objective was also commercial, but the two victories of the “Trotters” contributed to the integration of black players in professional leagues: in 1950, Nathaniel Clifton became the first African-American to join the newly formed NBA.
In the same year, Chuck Cooper was the first black player chosen in the draft, by the Boston Celtics, with the fourteenth pick.
From the 1950s onwards, the Harlem Globetrotters exported their talent abroad and became almost like rock stars, attracting a crowd of 75,000 to Berlin’s Olympic Stadium in 1951.
While the NBA remained confined to the country’s borders, the Harlem Globetrotters became the true ambassadors of American basketball to the world.
They were welcomed by Pope Pius XII in 1952 and traveled to the Soviet Union with Wilt Chamberlain, a future NBA star.
“In the 1950s, they were appointed goodwill ambassadors and sent abroad by the State Department to show the diversity and equality that the United States projected, even though that wasn’t actually the case,” explains Susan Rayl.
The current Harlem Globetrotters, acquired in 2013 by an amusement park company, claim to “continue this legacy, seeking to make a positive impact on the world”, according to “Wham” Middleton, one of the current members.
Acrobatics and stunts aside, their impact is undeniable, and with good reason: in 2002, they were inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts.
