HISTORY OF THE HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS

The Savoy Big Five team.

            The Harlem Globetrotters were formed in 1926 at Wendell Phillips High School in Chicago. They played during the Black Fives era—when the sport was segregated and independent teams of Black players were sponsored by athletic and social clubs, businesses, churches and newspapers—as the Giles Post American Legion Five under manager Dick Hudson. The team became popular, which caused some friction between them and their home in the George L. Giles Post of the American Legion. In 1927, Hudson would make a deal with the then-new Savoy Ballroom to serve as their home court and rename the team the Savoy Big Five in order to draw patronage to the venue.

Abe Saperstein and the new Harlem Globetrotters.

            Different sources offer differing timelines and accounts of the events that followed. What they all have in common is that several members of the team ended up leaving over pay disputes with the Savoy management. They would go on to form a new team that ended up under the control of Abe Saperstein; a Jewish man hired to be their promoter, booking agent and general manager who would continue on in those functions and provide several more over the years. In 1929, Saperstein renamed the team the New York Harlem Globetrotters. The name was in reference to the Harlem neighborhood of New York City, then considered to be the center of Black culture, and Saperstein felt that having an out-of-town name gave them team an air of mystique (the Globetrotters wouldn’t play in Harlem until 1968).              

Poster for the 1951 film The Harlem Globetrotters.

From the outset, the Globetrotters were a standard team of highly-talented individuals; gradually becoming one of the best teams in the country. Comedic antics began working their way into the Globetrotters’ games; both as a means of keeping fans entertained during dull matches against weaker opponents and as a way to give the players a much-needed break. These would ramp up at the beginning of the 1940s, credited to an initiative spearheaded by player Reece “Goose” Tatum. These bits would go on to showcase their tremendous skill and coordination as they dealt with one or multiple balls at once.  

This ended up being the team’s saving grace. They began to be eclipsed by the rising National Basketball Association (NBA) after the league started recruiting Black players in the 1950s. Especially when players of the Globetrotters were lured away by the better pay being offered. Becoming an exhibition team, they’ve played more than 26,000 games in 124 countries; often against other exhibition teams created to be their straight men opponents. Brother Bones’ whistled version of “Sweet Georgia Brown” had become the team’s signature song; played during their exhibitions and advertisements.

In 1951, the team took their first leap off the court in the movie The Harlem Globetrotters; a drama about young Bill Townsend (Billy Brown) dropping out of college to join the team and finding love along the way. It was followed up in 1954 with the sequel, Go,Man, Go!. On television, twelve members of the team were featured on What’s My Line? in 1956. Then, in 1970, the Globetrotters came to Saturday mornings…