ABSTRACT
Although World War I had been depicted as a war for democracy and equality in the U.S. press, this was not true for the United States itself, where African Americans were still segregated and treated as inferiors. The inequality for and exploitation of African Americans in the United States, as Dr. Edwin Bancroft Henderson believed, would be achieved by successes in sports by African American athletes. Henderson was not only a journalist but united multiple identities, as he was also a “[s]ports historian, educator, administrator, coach, athlete, and civil rights activist” and “a pioneer promoter of African American involvement in sports and physical education.” With a BA from Howard University and an MA from Columbia University, he was eventually able to obtain a PhD from Central Chiropractic College in Kansas City, Missouri. When he got in contact with basketball, he introduced the new sport to African American communities in Washington, DC, New York, and elsewhere on the East Coast. Henderson would also serve as the “Director of the Department of Physical Education for the District of Columbia’s segregated black schools” and would consequently have quite an impact on physical education within the capital’s African American community.
