New York Rens

The New York Rens were the first Black-owned, all-Black, fully professional basketball team in history, formed in Harlem in October 1923. That year, basketball manager Robert “Bob” Douglas made a deal with Harlem real estate developer William Roach, the owner of the Renaissance Casino, a newly opened ballroom.

By 1924-25 the “Rens” had won the first of many Colored Basketball World Championships and thereafter proceeded to dominate not just Black basketball, but all of basketball for the next 25 years.

During that period, the Rens routinely beat championship-caliber White basketball teams such as the Original Celtics, the Philadelphia SPHAS, the Oshkosh All Stars, and the Indianapolis Kautskys. The irony is that the leagues in which these teams played did not allow African American players or teams to join.

In 1939, the New York Rens won the inaugural World Championship of Professional Basketball, an invitation-only tourney with a field made up of America’s twelve best pro hoops teams. The title game saw the Rens defeating the Oshkosh All Stars. Oshkosh had been the champion of the National Basketball League, a Whites-only league.

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.