Washington 12 Streeters

The Washington 12 Streeters were one of America’s earliest all-Black basketball teams, playing a critical role in the development of the sport among African Americans.

After learning basketball in a 1904 summer class at Harvard University, Black gym teacher Edwin B. Henderson became the first to introduce the game to African Americans on a widespread basis when he taught the sport to students in Washington, DC’s segregated colored public school system.

In 1909 Henderson used his former students to create a new team, sponsored by the local Twelfth Street Colored Y.M.C.A.

The “12 Streeters” featured former Amherst College All-American football halfback Edward Gray, Hudson Oliver, formerly with the Smart Set Athletic Club of Brooklyn, and Henderson himself. They won the 1909-10 Colored Basketball World Championship title with an undefeated season.

Henderson, known as the “Grandfather of Black Basketball,” would dedicate his life to physical education and civil rights causes, and was inducted in 1974 as a charter member of the Black Athletes Hall of Fame alongside Joe Louis, Leroy “Satchel” Paige, Bill Russell, Hank Aaron, and Muhammad Ali. In 2013, he was enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

A portion of net proceeds from the sales of our Black Fives assortment will benefit the The Black Fives Foundation, which works to inspire excellence by preserving, teaching, and honoring the pre-NBA history of African Americans in basketball.