One of my favorite basketball teams of all-time is the Harlem Globetrotters. Don’t laugh out loud when I tell you that I thought they were actually a REAL team, too good to play in the league with the other teams because they always won.
The truth about the Globetrotters is that they were actually a professional team in their beginnings during a time in America when Black athletes had to exist within the separate and unequal parameters of this country’s fringe. Just like baseball’s Negro League barnstormers would have exhibitions against players from the majors, the Globetrotters would match up against NBA teams like the great Minneapolis Lakers and they would triumph more often than not.
Team owners and league officials realized that Black athletes were the perfect exotic draw to their flagging businesses so as white professional leagues pushed towards integration it meant that the pro teams and clubs that weren’t within their jurisdiction would end up going out of business. Not so much for the Harlem Globetrotters who incorporated entertainment elements within their athletic exhibitions. They mixed their basketball skills with a touch of Vaudeville.
Nike’s putting out some Dunk Lo’s for kids this summer they are calling the ‘Independence Day’. If I had a kid I would copp these kicks for him or her as a testament to the independent spirit of Abe Saperstein and all of the Harlem Globetrotters past and present.
As a kid I never knew the backstory of this team and what it meant to my dad to watch them play. I just thought they were good. And funny. And what else does a child need but to be happy? The realities of the world will find him soon enough.
My pops used to take me to The Forum to see them when they came to L.A.
I remember thinking the White kids in the front row were dumb for really thinking these men would throw water on them (word to Sweet Georgia Brown).
I saw them as a youngster, too. Thank-you for stirring the memory.
Dallas, I thought they were a real team too. Honestly, I never knew their history till reading this post.
globtrotters rule
the kicks….not so much
emphatically 14 15 across the board
solace might cop those….lol!!!
Globetrotters were the best basketball team in the world for a long while.
I’d cop the baby size for the rearview mirror…in salute to the Globetrotters, I’ve been seeing them perform since a youngin’ @ MSG & last year @ the Rose Garden.
I’ma hafta co-sign the 14-15 on these…way too Apollo Creed for me.
But I think everybody thought the Globetrotters were real, and just too funky for the NBA. Never caught them live, but definitely on Wide World of Sports and the cartoons.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIBGh1SLN9s&feature=related
‘Wide World Of Sports’…FTMFW!
“…the thrill of victory, & the agony of defeat.”
Vaudevillain-ry! Those are retartedly bop.
Not really effing with those, but:
http://www.nicekicks.com/2010/06/puma-dallas-summer-2010-collection/
Tell me you have at least two purr!
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