On This Day in History: April 25
Chuck Cooper is drafted by the NBA
Despite being invented by a Canadian, basketball has a terribly racist history. Just kidding, Canadians can be some racist-ass motherfuckers too.
--On This Day in History Shit Went Down: April 25, 1950--
John McLendon, a Black man, was a student of James Naismith, the game’s inventor. Later becoming a high school and college coach, McLendon pioneered fast-break basketball and the full-court press, yet received little credit at the time because his accomplishments were at Black colleges during segregation.
In 1944, McLendon organized a secret game between his team of all-Black players at what is now named North Carolina Central University, and a team of white players formerly of Duke University. The match was run like an undercover operation, hiding it from the public and played on a Sunday morning while most were in church. There were no spectators.
Coach McLendon’s team won 88-44. Could you imagine a crowd of melanin-deficient North Carolina folks in 1944 watching their side getting destroyed by a team of Black players? There would have been fucking riots. Twenty years later President Johnson made a comment about how the “lowest white man” desires to consider himself “better than the best Black man.” And he was right.
A massive barrier for Black players was broken by Chuck Cooper six years after the secret game. Chuck was a high school basketball star in Pittsburgh and was drafted to serve in the U.S. Navy during World War II. After the war he attended Duquesne University where he was an All-American and set a school record with 990 points scored in four seasons.
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On April 25, 1950, Chuck Cooper was the first Black man to be drafted by the NBA. He played for the Boston Celtics, the Milwaukee Hawks, and the Fort Wayne Pistons. His NBA career totalled 409 games and 2,725 points.
A car crash ended his career and Cooper returned to school, attained a master’s in social work, and was tireless in his efforts to improve the lives of the people of Pittsburgh.
Today, 75% of NBA players are Black. Despite that, racism flourishes. One sad example is that in 2017, LeBron James, one of the greatest men to ever play the game, had his Los Angeles home defiled, with it being spray-painted with a racial slur.
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I love to hear about events like this! I went to UTEP, which was Texas Western University in 1966 when the first team of black players and white players-an integrated team-won the NCAA championship under the guidance of Coach Don Haskins, who received threats because he integrated his team. He went on to coach many TWU/UTEP teams before retiring.
People need to get over the racist bs. Stop calling themselves Christian while their at it.
Sounds like Mr. McLendon was a great man. I'm no sports fan, but it's my loss that I never knew him.
Lyndon Johnson was, and still is, right. We're still very far from Rev. Martin Luther King's dream.