Edwin B. Henderson II is the author of the book, The Grandfather of Black Basketball: The Life and Times of Dr. E. B. Henderson. Henderson is the grandson and namesake of Dr. E. B. Henderson who organized the first athletic league for Blacks, introduced basketball to Black people on a wide-scale, organized basis, and founded associations to train and organize Black officials and referees. He also wrote and co-edited the first Spalding publication that highlighted the exploits of African American participation in sports and authored The Negro in Sports. Outside of athletics, Henderson was instrumental in founding the first rural branch of the NAACP, advocated for school desegregation, and held executive board positions with multiple NAACP branches.

Overlooked for decades, Henderson and his wife, Nikki, began nominating Dr. E. B. Henderson to be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2005, and after eight years, EB was finally enshrined in 2013as a contributor. The Grandfather of Black Basketball gives long-overdue recognition to a sports pioneer, civil rights activist, author, educator, and pragmatic humanitarian who fought his entire life to improve opportunities for youth through athletics.

On this episode Mike & Ed discuss the extraordinary contributions of Dr. E.B. Henderson, a pioneering figure in the realm of basketball and a dedicated civil rights activist. We delve into the historical significance of his establishment of the first sanctioned athletic league for African Americans, which enabled equitable access to sports when existing white leagues refused participation. Through the lens of his grandson, Edwin B. Henderson II, we explore the impact of Dr. Henderson's initiatives, including the formation of the Eastern Board of Officials, which facilitated organized sports within the African American community. The discussion further highlights the long-overdue recognition of Dr. Henderson's legacy, culminating in his induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, an accolade that underscores his pivotal role in shaping the sport. Join us as we recount the life and times of a man whose relentless pursuit of equity and advancement in athletics has left an indelible mark on both sports and society at large.

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Get ready to listen and learn on this episode with Edwin B. Henderson II, author of the book, The Grandfather of Black Basketball: The Life and Times of Dr. E. B. Henderson.

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He started the first athletic league so the African Americans could have a sanctioned league that they could play in because the white leagues were not going to allow them to play in theirs.

They told him to go start his league and that's exactly what he did.

But he also started an officiating league, the Eastern Board of Officials, so the games would have referees, timekeepers, statisticians and those things ushering in an era of organized sports in the African American community.

Edwin B. Henderson II is the author of the book the Grandfather of Black Basketball the Life and times of Dr. E.B.

henderson Ed Henderson is the grandson and namesake of Dr. E.B.

henderson, who organized the first athletic league for blacks, introduced basketball to black people on a wide scale, organized basis, and founded associations to train and organize black officials and referees.

He also wrote and co edited the first Spalding publication that highlighted the exploits of African American participation in sports and authored the Negro in Sports.

Outside of Athletics, Henderson was instrumental in founding the first rural branch of the naacp, advocated for school desegregation and held executive board positions.

With multiple NAACP branches overlooked for decades, Henderson and his wife Nikki began nominating Dr. E.B.

The Grandfather of Black Basketball gives long overdue recognition to a sports pioneer, civil rights activist, author, educator and pragmatic humanitarian who fought his entire life to improve opportunities for youth through athletics.

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Get ready to listen and learn on this episode with Edwin B. Henderson ii, author of the book the Grandfather of Black Basketball the Life and times of Dr. E.B.

henderson.

Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast.

It's Mike Cleansing here tonight without my co host Jason Sunkel.

But I am pleased to welcome in Ed Henderson, author of the book the Grandfather of Black Basketball.

Can't wait to dive into the book with you.

Ed, welcome.

Thanks for having me.

Appreciate it.

Thrilled to have you on and really enjoyed getting an opportunity this week to read your book and become more educated on a chapter of basketball that in all honesty I can say that I didn't know hardly anything about.

And so the opportunity to read your book, learn more about for people out there who maybe haven't read the show notes yet, but Ed is The grandson of E.B.

henderson, the protagonist in our book, the Grandfather of Black Basketball.

And so Ed, we're going to start out by just allowing you to give people a quick overview of the book, tell them what it's all about and where they can get it, and then we'll dive into some of the specifics

biography about the man who introduced the game of basketball to the African American community for the first time on a wide scale organized basis.

After learning the game at a summer session at Harvard University where he went to earn his certification to teach the new subject of physical education, and upon learning the fundamentals of basketball, he brought it back to the segregated public schools of Washington, D.C. and he started small teams within the school.

He started intramural and extramural teams to play each other.

And that helped a couple of things.

Okay.

For one, it was a, it was a public health initiative because the crowded inner cities, unsanitary inner cities where a lot of black people were living in alleys and all kinds of other problems from people moving up from, you know, the south during the Great Migration, tuberculosis and other sedentary diseases were wreaking havoc on the African American population.

You know, so he felt that getting people moving, getting people.

And actually his teacher at.

At Harvard, Dr. Dudley Sargent, his motto was movement, Exercise is medicine.

Okay?

And so that's.

That was his.

He had to go three summers in order to get full certification.

But after going one summer, he was able to come back and become the physical.

The first African American male physical education teacher, not only in Washington, but in the whole United States.

And he introduced the sport, he advocated the sport.

He started the first athletic league so the African Americans could have a sanctioned league that they could play in because the white leagues were not going to allow them to play in theirs.

They told him to go start his league, and that's exactly what he did.

But he also started an officiating league, the Eastern Board of Officials, so the games would have referees, timekeepers, statisticians, and those things ushering in an era of organized sports in the African American community.

It's an excellent synopsis of the book, and there is obviously a ton more detail that we're going to dive into here as we go through and talk a little bit about the book.

But I want to start with a story that you include in your book about how this project sort of came to be and the moment when you and I believe your sister discovered a box of records, memorabilia, just documents, things in your grandfather's attic that inspired you to learn a little bit more about him and his life and kind of took you down this path of.

Of what eventually became this book.

So tell me a little bit about that discovery and how that then led you into this passion project of writing this book about your grandfather.

Inherited my grandfather's house in Falls Church, Virginia.

And upon further inspection, this box was the contents of his file cabinet.

And, you know, the light went on.

It was like in the.

In the.

Like in the.

The movie the Blues Brothers, you know, that we're on a mission from God here.

You know, it was my roadmap for.

And, you know, my inspiration to dig deep in much further.

Going to the National Archives, the Howard University Archives, the Library of Virginia Courthouse here in Fairfax, all these different places, because my background, I have a degree in history.

And now it had purpose.

You know, it had purpose.

And I'd say probably between, you know, things in life and procrastination took about 20 years to get down, down, down, dirty and do it.

But when I decided to do it, you know, made the commitment to do it.

Put it that way.

Looking at a book holistically, I think is.

Can be overwhelming.

But what I did was I broke it up into smaller chunks, chapters, and wrote the chapters.

And then at the end, you know, like one chapter, one turned into four chapters, and a couple of chapters got nixed all together, you know, and then back and forth with the editors and the publishers and stuff like that.

And within a couple of years, you know, the book was out.

How much time would you estimate that you spent doing the research in those various places that you mentioned, if you had to ballpark it?

Obviously, you don't have the exact numbers down to the minute, but if you had the ballpark, how much time you spent on the research portion?

20 years.

But I'd have to say that, you know, a lot of life went into that as well.

Probably a good year's worth of research.

And after that was done, you know, certain other people picked up on it, like the UD University, District of Columbia, who's built a statue of him that's a miniature of it right there.

And by that time, though, I was already into writing the book.

But, you know, it's always been about promoting my grandfather.

And what I'd like to say is that, you know, all of this is really about him.

It's not about me.

And my wife told me that on my gravestone, they're gonna.

They're gonna put the son of E.B.

henderson, and that's gonna be about it, you know, but it's.

It's.

It's.

It's taken.

It's taken a good portion of my life to try to get him, I think, what he.

What he's due, what he's due, and his rightful place in the history of sports and basketball.

How do you equate the book with the quest to get him enshrined in the Naismith Basketball hall of Fame?

How are those two intertwined?

And what was the timeline between the idea for the book, the research that you did that made you realize, hey, he should be recognized for his contributions to the game?

How did those two pieces fit together?

You know, I'd have to say that they both work hand in hand.

The book, I think, was a natural progression, because even Though he was in the Naismith Basketball hall of Fame, little attention is given to the early history of basketball.

Everyone is more interested in the day to day, season to season celebrities that are on the court and rightfully so.

And you know, it's a special fraternity of athletes where respect is given for the talents that one possesses and one rarely looks back at where it all began.

But I think in any story, the beginning is important.

And you know, last, during the playoff last year, something that caught my ire was that the, you know, the NBA was promoting the pioneers of the sport, but really they were highlighting the pioneers of the black pioneers of the NBA.

People like Earl Lloyd Sweetwater, Clifton, Chuck Cooper, and saying that they were the pioneers.

But yet there's a whole almost 50 year history before that eventuality.

And if the NBA is the vanguard of the sport, they need to, you know, recognize the pioneers of the whole Sport, which includes E.B.

henderson.

I'd like to read something from Arthur Ash's book, A Hard Road to Glory Basketball Version where he says this.

henderson began the first serious inner city competitions between New York city and Washington D.C. much credit is due to those pioneering teams.

Monticello, Leon de F, Big 5, the Savoy Big 5, the New York Grins, the Philadelphia Tribune girls team, the Harlem Globetrotters, Tennessee State, Winston Salem State College and all Corner A and M. Henderson himself cannot be thanked enough for his contributions.

In addition, coaches and officials like Cumberland Posey, Bob Douglas, Abe Saperstein, Rucker Holcomb, Holcomb, Rucker Rather, Big House Gaines, Johnny B. McClendon, Vivian Stringer, Dave Whitney, Bill Russell, John Thompson, Lenny Wilkins and Casey Jones have been outstanding.

Okay, but it starts with E.B.

henderson.

You know, when you look at blacks in basketball and when you look at the time period, there were only sparsely one or two players here or there when E.B.

henderson, when my grandfather started to teach the sport, start teams, leagues and organize the infrastructure for blacks to participate in the sport, the basketball was basically played in the YMCAs and at PWI, predominantly white institutions of which African Americans were not present.

So if you look at it, African Americans would be excluded from the sport where today they dominate the sport.

Talk to me a little bit about the way that the school system was set up in Washington D.C. at the time.

It's one of the things that as I was reading through the book and gaining an understanding of the difference between, again, you had what at that time was called the colored schools, and then you had the white schools within Washington D.C. and then later you get into.

We could talk about this too, when he came back to Falls Church and you had just again, where there was not funding for the African American schools and Falls Church and there was for the whites and there was some percentages in there where 97% of the budget in Falls Church was going to the.

The white schools versus the African American schools.

But it felt like, at least from the book, and tell me if I'm interpreting this correctly, that despite the fact that the D.C. schools were segregated at the time, that those schools were pretty well taken care of in terms of funding and providing a quality education for the African American students who are attending those schools.

And henceforth, your grandfather, it sounds strange now to say that he was the first male physical education teacher, because oftentimes.

Right.

First thing that pops into your head when you think about a physical education teacher today, oftentimes we think of males in that role, but clearly a different time when there were more females in teaching.

But just talk to me a little bit about the setup of.

The setup of the D.C. schools and how that in some ways facilitated your grandfather's ability to be able to.

To do what he did and introduce the game to a whole.

A whole generation of African American students.

After the Civil War, there was a senator from Massachusetts, Charles Sumner, who was beaten down on the floor of the Senate.

But he was a abolitionist.

He advocated for equal schools.

Actually, he advocated for fully integrated schools, but they weren't ready for that.

But he was able to get the funding to start segregated and fully funded schools.

Building of schools for black students in.

In the nation's capital.

And it started out, you know, very, very well, you know, where buildings were built.

However, the issue of with basketball was auditoriums, gymnasiums, and the school system.

At the time the EB Was there, you know, they weren't really that forthcoming with building gymnasiums for African American schools.

EB he actually went to the central ymca, the white ymca, and was kicked out.

He just went to watch a game after he had come back from Harvard.

I don't know if he had forgotten where he was and went in there thinking he was going to be treated and he was rudely, you know, dismissed and thrown out.

At that point, you know, he decided that he was going to retrofit.

And a lot of gymnasiums back in those days, particularly in the African American community, were retrofitted from ballrooms and.

Well, ballrooms, basically.

And I think the first real gymnasium and the D.C. colored Schools was Armstrong High School, which was a.

A vocational school next to the famous Dunbar High school in Washington, D.C. but the thing about education in Washington was that there were the teachers.

The people that were teaching these students were cops in their field that could not find jobs in industry or science, you know, in other places or what.

They came here and they taught.

Many of the teachers had PhDs, and a lot of the students were so well trained, educated, that they were accepted into Ivy League schools.

One of my great grandfathers, he graduated from University of Michigan Medical School.

There were schools, there was work, there was.

There was a hospital, Freedman's Hospital.

You know, in a lot of places in the countries, blacks did not have medical care, or if they did, they had substandard medical care.

And so Washington was a good place to live.

A lot of people associate, you know, Harlem with being, you know, the.

The mecca.

In Harlem are just magnificent homes.

But I'd say that the.

The row houses here in Washington, D.C. are pretty fabulous, too.

Absolutely.

There's no doubt about that.

Anybody who's been to D.C. and seen those and seen the architecture, for sure, they were special places, without question.

So what do you.

So here's something else that I learned in reading your book.

And I've actually gotten a chance to read three different books that are all related to this era of basketball from the times, the time Dr. James Naismith invents the game, up until.

Again, let's just talk.

Talk to the NBA era of the game.

And one is the author who connected us, Chris Buet, who wrote about Harry Bucky Lou.

And then today, I talked to two authors who wrote a book about A.J.

debonsta, who's currently playing at Brigham Young University, and they wrote about his journey to Brigham Young.

But also they wrote about the connection between the Mormon church and the game of basketball going again all the way back to Dr. James Naismith.

And one of the phrases that was in all three books, which I had never heard before, was the phrase muscular Christianity.

And prior to reading Chris's book, I had never heard that phrase.

And then you share that in your book.

And then the authors of the book about AJ debonsta shared in their book the same, that same concept.

So talk a little bit about the, the muscular Christianity.

I don't know if you call it a movement idea where that came from and how that played into the role that.

Well, basketball.

Your grandfather and helping his students.

The YMCA movement.

Okay.

It was one of the mottos of the YMCA.

Uh, and you know, here in Washington D.C. the 12th Street YMCA was the first.

Well, it was segregated, of course.

Blacks could use some of the YMCAs up north.

But the, the YMCA here in Washington, the 12th Street YMCA was the first full service YMCA for African Americans.

And it was.

And funded by two giants.

It was funded initially by John D. Rockefeller, gave $25,000 and actually my grandfather's team, their play helped to raise money to help build the ymca.

And but even at the end they got a Grant from another $25,000 grant from Julius Rosenwald of the Rosenwald schools.

He also helped to build colored YMCAs throughout the country as well.

A lot of people don't know about that part of Julius Rosenwald's legacy.

The building wasn't even finished yet.

But they, they were, they were playing under the auspices of the 12th Street YMCA, you know.

And so, and that just goes to show you the character of, you know, these individuals that were playing at that time because they felt that they really boohooed professionalism.

Yeah.

Even today, right when we look at the way that the game has changed, it's interesting to kind of compare and contrast.

And that was the conversation that I had with, with the authors today about BYU and talking about the, the compare and contrast with sort of the mission of the church to use basketball in the way that you just described.

It's an amateur sport.

It's to build up a person's moral character and these kinds of things.

And, and yet now we look at the way that college basketball, which used to be a theoretical bastion of amateurism and now the way that it's sort of becoming more and more professionalized as we move into this nil era of, of college basketball.

It's certainly just interesting to think back and read these stories of how the game started, what maybe the original purpose of it was, how people looked at it, and the impact that it had on society and the impact that the people who got it started and were trying to help it to spread the influence that they hoped it had on the people that they introduced the game to.

So it's certainly a period of history that even if you have followed basketball, even if you're a basketball fan, it's certainly something that I don't think a lot of people are aware of.

But you know, it's, it certainly is interesting just to, to follow the arc of, of the game and, and your grandfather's contributions to, to being able to contribute that to his students.

And, and like I said, I, I learned a ton about just the history of Washington D.C. and how that was set up and the school system and all the things that, the details that you include there.

So I don't know if you want to pick up anything from that before

I move on to the next piece of just about basketball.

It's a biography, okay.

And so it talks about his work in civil rights in rural Virginia as well as in Washington D.C. it talks about the day to day struggles of African Americans between the Civil War and civil rights and then his sunset years and Tuskegee, Alabama, where I grew up.

His wife, my grandmother, her sister married Booker T. Washington's son.

But my father was the director of the George Washington Carver Research Foundation.

And so moving to Tuskegee was, was a way to, you know, move to a slower pace environment in their older years and being around, doting on their grand, on their grandchildren, you know, and I remember when my, when I was born, I don't remember, but the story goes, when I was born, my grandparents drove down from Washington to Tuskegee and when they got there, they told my Grandfather.

They were going to name me Dave Meriwether Henderson.

Upon hearing that, he went upstairs.

It was a long drive.

I'm sure he was tired.

But the next day he lingered in bed.

And the next day after that also.

And they got worried.

They called the doctor to come to the house.

Back then, they used to have doctors used to make house calls.

And they said, we don't know what's wrong with him, but he seems to be quite ill. And so my parents got together and my mother told my father, jimmy, maybe we should name him for your grant, for your father.

And so they went up and they told him that.

And he threw back the covers, came down and got something, and he was perfectly fine.

So I'm his namesake.

And I knew him for 21 years, you know.

And when he passed, I was.

He was in the hospital in Tuskegee.

And for three weeks, he had been having a constant yodeling sound.

It was.

He was trying.

Like he was trying to say something, but it was illegible, you know.

And a voice came to me.

I was hanging out with friends, and voice came to me and said, you need to go see your grandfather.

And so I went to the hospital.

And when I got into the room, shortly after that, he took his last breath and passed away.

And there are very few people I cried for when I was at their funeral, but he was definitely one of them.

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How many of the stories from the book, how close was your relationship with him in terms of him talking about his past?

Was it something that he would sit down and talk with you about at all?

Or was all of the information that you gathered about sort of your family history that is woven through this story?

Was most of that attained through research or how much of it was attained through your first hand conversations with.

I didn't know.

Grandparents about his role and your parents in basketball.

I really didn't.

He showed me once or twice a little gold basketball that he had gotten for winning, you know, the championship.

And most of his writings and in most of his talks, he always said that if he's remembered for anything, it would be writing the Negro in sports.

And that's the, you know, the first scholarly book on black athletes.

But he also wrote four volumes of the official handbook for the Interscholastic Athletic association of Middle Atlantic States, his league.

And technically, among many historians, they credit that with being the first chronicling of African American participation in athletics, period.

Okay.

There were, you know, and back in those days, they didn't have sports sections.

They used to have a sports page.

And he used to write for those sports pages.

And most of them, you know, like, were part of, you know, in the Negro press, things like the Afro American, the Pittsburgh Courier.

He was a stringer.

He was.

He would write and put articles in those newspapers.

He was also a writer.

He had a regular column and

a.

Philip Randolph's magazine, the messenger, which was a vanguard of the Harlem Renaissance.

And he had a article on sports and athletics.

So he was a very prolific writer.

And he wrote over 3,000 letters to the editor here in Washington, D.C. the Post, the Evening Star, and the.

The Washington Afro American.

So.

And the Wizards have a essay contest that honors him every year as well, that gives away $30,000 to high school seniors towards their college education.

And at that time, I'm sure it wasn't easy to be able to get those works published.

And the other thing that he wrote, I know a lot, and you mentioned it several times in the book, is in his role as an advocate for civil rights that he wrote numerous, numerous letters to the editor of various publications to advocate for lots of different things.

But talk a little bit about those letters to the editor that he wrote and kind of how that played a role in his life.

He was instrumental in starting the first rural branch of the NAACP right here in Falls Church, Virginia.

But he didn't stop there.

He started a branch in Leesburg.

He started a branch in Arlington.

He started a branch in Alexandria, and he would write about those things.

He was the state president of the state.

He's president of the state naacp.

And he was tasked with the job of making sure that Brown vs. Board of Education was implemented and here in Virginia that was a hard task.

The governor and the senators had swore something called massive resistance to desegregating the public schools.

And my grandfather worked with Spotswoods Robinson and a number of other.

Oliver Hill and of course the big guy, The, the Supreme Court justice.

How can I forget his name?

He lived just a few miles away.

Once he was, he became judge Advocate for the United States.

Thurgood Marshall.

Okay.

And he worked with all of these people and he knew, you know, a lot of these people in the naacp.

He had letters between he and James Weldon Johnson, who was the executive secretary.

He had have a letter from Mary White Ovington, one of the founders.

And of course he wrote for and had conversations with WB Du Bois.

So he knew a lot of people and he was so well respected while he was alive.

And so it was a hard sell.

And we had to do a re education of my grandfather's contributions in order to get him into the Basketball hall of Fame.

But the one thing that we did was the first year we did 138 page booklet.

And after talking with the curator at the hall of Fame, nobody knew who he was.

I don't think anybody opened the booklet at all.

So my wife and I, we thought outside the box.

We made a seven minute video, burned 28 DVDs and set that up as our nomination packet.

And then the year after that, we bought some footage from the Today show when Arthur Ashe was talking about my grandfather included that in there along with a segment and interview with Sheila Johnson in order to get him into the Basketball hall of Fame.

When you first reach out to the hall of Fame, who do you reach out to?

Who is the contact or who's the committee?

What's the process for even getting that started?

How did you know who to send all that stuff to to sort of get the process started and educate the hall of Fame?

Well, my wife is a museum professional and so she knew the person to contact would be the curator.

Okay, but there's a process.

There's a process by which you go about nominating a person to the hall of Fame.

Usually they're done by.

A sponsor that's usually a, a professional player.

But somebody has to do the work, you know, and put it forth.

There's a process.

And after meeting John Dileva, who is the president of the hall of Fame.

He was.

He was a good ally and advocate.

But I'd have to say that another person who I give a lot of credit to, who helped push the needle forward is the person who wrote the forward to my book, David Aldrich.

David Aldrich has been a.

A real ally and a good friend, and I appreciate everything that he's done for me.

But we also met along the way, people like Dave Bing, Earl Lloyd, and so many others.

Very good people that upon hearing the story, were willing to help.

The other person who I need to thank immensely is Manny Jackson, who was the owner of the Harlem Globetrotters.

He revamped it after Abe Saperstein.

He bought the theme and redid it.

And he was the chairman of the board of the hall of Fame at one time.

And he put forth an effort to create a African American Pioneers special, that category.

And it was under that category that E.B.

henderson became enshrined.

But the first year that they did it, somebody that really shouldn't have needed to be get in under that category was Goose Tatum.

Now, Goose Tatum, people knew around the world knew Goose Tatum better than they knew Bill Russell.

Because of the Harlem Globetrotter.

Absolutely.

But yet, and still, for some reason, it wasn't until this special Ed category came along that he was inducted.

It's a very selective process.

It can be very political.

But as my friend David Aldridge says, you know, like, the real success came about because my wife and I, we wouldn't give up.

We were persistent, tenacious, and continued to believe that he belonged.

And therefore we kept.

Kept pushing.

How did you get the new.

How did you get the news that when it finally happened, how did that news come to you?

Well, it wasn't from the hall of Fame.

I got it through a text message from David Aldrich congratulating the Henderson family on the induction of E.B.

henderson.

That's how I found out.

Okay.

And then eventually, you know, it was.

It was news and I got it.

I got a notice from the hall of Fame, you know, but I appreciated it from David probably much more.

When you then get an opportunity to represent your grandfather.

And I know in the book there's a picture at the.

At the induction ceremony that took place where he was able to.

To be enshrined.

What was that experience like for you and your family?

Oh, man.

I mean, you know, walking amongst, amongst the trees, you know, I got a picture with Larry Bird and all of these great people, and they were very gracious.

You know, it was a first class event.

I Don't know that I was as ready for it then as I would be now if I had to do it all over again.

You know, I look back and say, oh, I should have said this.

I should have done that.

But it was done, you know, and I appreciate the hall of Fame and everything that they've done for me since that time.

It's really cool to be able to, I'm sure, walk into the hall of Fame and be able to see your grandfather's name and just his accomplishments be a part of the history of the game where for so long those contributions were forgotten.

And in all likelihood, had you not stumbled upon that box of file cabinet material way back when and, and turned this into, as you said, a passion project, highly unlike.

Highly likely that his contributions could have at some point been lost forever.

And now that, again, being in the hall of Fame obviously enables him to be remembered in his rightful place in the history of the game.

And I'm sure that whenever you.

Well, how many times have you walked into the hall of Fame since the induction ceremony?

Have you been back just to walk through it as a.

As a regular guy just going to the hall of Fame and.

And senior.

Senior grandfather's name in there a couple of times.

Okay.

And.

And they invited me up for a book signing at one point as well.

And they've totally revamped the hall of Fame.

It's much more electronic, much more interactive now, but it's still, you know, like a great place to take a kid and learn about the game.

Yeah, it definitely is.

I've been there.

I was there In, I think, 19, maybe 97, and then I was back, I don't know, probably five, six years ago.

When I was last there.

And yeah, it's.

It's definitely much more.

Much more of an interactive experience the second time than it was the first time that I went.

But it is, when you think about the history of the game and going back to that era, that, again, I think was underrepresented right from.

From Dr. James Naismith until you talked about just the.

The start of the NBA as a couple of pro leagues kind of merged together and figured out what that was going to look like and which teams were going to be a part of it.

And I know at some point that we.

You mentioned the New York Rens a little earlier that again, when you think about the history of African American basketball, it's hard to.

It's hard to write that without the Rens, and yet they kind of disappeared right as the leagues merged together and figured out which franchises were going to continue on.

What.

What struck me about the Rens from your book, the fact that really jumped out at me, and I don't have it directly in front of me, but I know that the.

The franchise record for the Rens was something like 2,700 wins and 500 losses in the history of.

Of the franchise.

And that was a statistic from your book that really jumped out at me, like, oh, holy cow.

I mean, I had heard of the New York Rens and knew probably a little tiny bit that you could fit, you know, maybe on my finger or in my palm.

I certainly didn't know a whole lot about them, but that was something that struck me about, you know, about that.

They got a raw deal when they created the NBA.

You know, they were asked to leave the room, and then they were told that they weren't going to be chosen as one of the teams.

They were given a team in a place where they really were not welcomed.

And their.

Where was it?

The Detroit Vagabond Kings, I think was the name of the team.

And they placed them in somewhere in Indiana.

And at that time, you know, black people weren't really that welcome for certain parts of Indiana.

And so, you know, their crowd was dismal and.

But, you know, the Wrens were a barnstorming team.

They realized.

Bob.

Bob Douglas realized that he could make more money traveling around the country playing many more games than being stuck in, you know, the Renaissance Ballroom in Harlem.

And he had a.

A reo Steam wagon wagon, you know, big bus.

The Blue goose.

So they all jumped ship and came here to Washington D.C. for a team that was started by Hal Jackson, radio personality, the Washington Bears.

And they went 42 and, oh, undefeated, claiming the professional basketball championship out of Chicago that year.

And so there's a lot of little stories like that in the book as well, you know.

But one thing I'd like to also share is this new book here by Kadir Nelson, a great illustrator.

And I don't know if you'll notice, but this is E.B.

henderson on the COVID holding the ball above his head.

This is a great honor.

You know, I really.

I know that this is going to be best.

I learned about it the New York Times Book Review.

So I'm sure it's going to be, you know, number one bestseller.

But I'd also like to talk about this new series on prime that's out right now about the aba.

Absolutely, man.

It is so well done.

And you have to understand, you know, they're talking about some serious history there where basketball was stale, it was dying, and they revived it and brought in the three point shot.

The All Star Game had the slam dunk contest.

Spencer Haywood came in as.

I mean, before him you had to have graduated four years in college before you could be considered for the NBA.

And the owners were very serious about that restriction, you know, but.

And Spencer Haywood would change all that.

You know, the ABA really helped to keep basketball alive.

And I forget the name of it.

Soul of the Game or something like that.

I know it has soul in it, but interviews with Dr. J and A number of other people are just riveting.

So if you haven't seen it yet, I suggest, you know, if you have prime, check it out.

I have to say that my first love as a basketball player was Dr. J.

And whenever I hear stories about the ABA, I don't know.

Have you ever read the book Loose Balls by Terry Pluto?

He's a sports writer from here in the Cleveland area that books probably was written who.

It's probably 25 or 30 years old now, but it has all the sort of crazy stories from the ABA about players and about team owners and travel and just again, all the, all the shenanigans that went on with the, with, with the ABA back in the day.

And I'm definitely.

I have not started watching the documentary, but is it is on my short list of things that I want to watch.

I believe it's called Soul Power, if I'm not mistaken.

I think that.

Yeah, yeah, I believe that's what it's called.

And, and so definitely something that I want to watch and, and again to, to speak to your book.

I think some of the stories that you tell and the way that you share them, it always, as I'm reading the history of the game and I think I do this with history outside of basketball too.

And then clearly when you talk about the history of African American basketball.

And you throw in all the civil rights and the segregation and all the challenges, to put it lightly, that someone like your grandfather had to face just in his ordinary everyday life to.

To go about and raise a family and do all the things that he had to do just to.

To be sort of a fly on the wall and see what those experiences were like.

And I think that one of the things that I really loved about your book is it brought a lot of those stories to life and sparked my imagination to try to again, get those pictures in my head of what that would have looked and sounded and.

And felt like to be around the game during that time.

And I think that's a credit to you as an author to be able to bring that, you know, bring all that to life.

And again, it's, you know, when you think about just the fact that your grandfather's story was one that very, very, very few people knew the story of his life, and for you to be able to bring that out so that people can understand better about who he was, what his contributions to the game were, and again, just the legacy that he left behind, not only with basketball, but just with his family and all the other stories that you weave into the book, I just think it was extremely well done in painting a picture of who your grandfather was.

Well, as a historian or as a.

An educator, I.

A US History teacher, mind you, I know or I believe that context is important.

And anytime that you talk about something without drawing the picture of the environment in which it took place, then you.

You really leave something out.

And there was enough there.

There for me to make it interesting, I think, at least I hope.

Oh.

So to go along with that, who was the most interesting or surprising person that you talked to, researched somebody maybe that you didn't know a lot about or somebody that you talked to that relayed stories, who was the most interesting person that you got a chance to interact with as a result of you doing the research to write this book?

Wow.

Well, one, I would have to say is Earl Lloyd.

Earl Lloyd is from Virginia.

He's from Alexandria.

And my wife and I, we.

We tracked him down.

He was the grand marshal of the George Washington President's Day Parade in Alexandria.

And we talked our way into this African American gentleman's club, and he was the most gracious guy, broke away.

He gave us some time, and he.

He helped us to.

To navigate some of the pitfalls as far as the hall of Fame.

And so I really appreciate him.

And then he came here we did a program with the Smithsonian at Howard University, and he came and he brought Dave Bing with him and a few others.

And so he was a great ally.

I miss him.

He's no longer with us, but there were so many people that we came along the way.

And the thing about something I realized is that if you believe in something, the universe will send people to help you to do what you want, what you're trying to do.

You're not alone.

If you believe and you do the work, it'll happen.

And there were times when I thought it wouldn't, but, you know, you can feel down for a little while, but then put your feelings aside and get back to work.

What did the work look like to write the book?

Did you sit down?

Did you have a specific time of day that you would write?

Did you try to do the.

I'm gonna write for an hour a day.

I'm gonna Try to write 500 words or a thousand words or.

What was your process for.

Because obviously you had a ton of.

Of raw information through your research and the stories that you were able to figure out and learn about.

But how did.

What was the actual process for sitting down and putting pen to paper or putting fingers to fingers to keyboard as you.

As you actually wrote the book?

You know, something.

I had to work, you know, but I was able to choose my own schedule.

So I had this schedule where I was on a day off a day, and there were times when inspiration hit, and I would.

I mean, like 12 o' clock at night, and I would get up and go to my computer and just start writing, you know, because one thing about inspiration is that when it hits you, you have to run with it because it may not come back.

You know, a thought, a thought pattern, you know, if you.

If it comes to you, you got to deal with it then.

And the other thing was that a day on, a day off, and a lot of times in the midst of writing, I would realize that I needed to do more research, and I would have to spend the day doing that research and hopefully by the end of the day, get it on paper.

But getting it done and then getting it to the editors and having them telling me, you know, you need to change this.

And you didn't change that.

I said, give it back to me.

Let me redo the whole thing, you know?

And so it took longer than they may have wanted it to be, but.

And then even when I was finished, I told them, I don't think it's ready.

I had to do some more work.

And they told me an author never thinks that their book is finished.

I said, okay, let's go with it.

And then they gave me the best task of indexing, which is a tedious thing, but they made it easy for me.

So that was my process.

That was my process.

And the other was.

The thing was write the chapters, then put it together.

Was there a coherent story right from the beginning in terms of the organization?

Did you have a good idea of how it was going to flow right from the beginning, or did you have kind of just a.

A hodgepodge of I got this, I got this, I got this, I got to figure out the thread that weaves it all together, or did you kind of have that from the beginning?

No, there was some of that as well.

You know, I had an idea.

When it was all said and done, though, I think it didn't quite look like I had imagined in the beginning, but it made sense, you know, so you have an idea, but you start with that, you work with it, and then at the end, you put it all together, and hopefully it works.

All right, before we finish up, I just want to ask you if there's anything that I missed in terms of a major point, an idea, something that you want to say to kind of summarize what we talked about today about the book, something that you want our audience to know about this book and about your grandfather.

Anything that we missed, or anything that you want to kind of come up with as a.

As a summary statement for.

For what we talked about?

Yeah, I think.

I think I kind of nailed it all.

A lot of it in the very beginning, you know.

But I just like to say that my grandfather deserves a place in the conversation.

And I'm just the messenger that's trying to change the narrative to have him

included one more time before we wrap up, share how people can find out more about the book, get in touch with you, whatever you want to share, email, a website, whatever you feel comfortable with.

And then after you do that, I'll jump back in and wrap things up.

I have a website, Grandfather Black Basketball.

Okay, get rid of the grandfather Black basketball dot com.

And what I've done there is that I have several galleries of photographs, letters, documents, and other things that may be of interest.

I can be reached@eb henderson22mail.com and if anyone would like for me to come somewhere and do a book signing or.

Or some kind of a presentation, I'm always pretty much available.

I'm retired, make my own schedule when family allows, and, you know, I'm busier now than I've ever been in my life and I'm loving every minute.

That's fantastic.

Ed, I cannot thank you enough for a writing the book and bringing your grandfather's story to light and b for being willing to take the time out of your schedule to jump on and talk with us about your grandfather.

About the book.

It was so much fun to read it.

I feel like I came away from it more educated about the history of basketball, but also the history of Washington, D.C. and the history of Falls Church, Virginia and a lot of different things that you relay through the stories in the book.

It is extremely well done.

I enjoyed it.

For anyone out there who loves the game of basketball, who loves history, the intersection of those two in this book is extremely well done.

You will love the book.

You will educate yourself on a chapter of the history of basketball that not many people are aware of.

I'm sure I'm not the only person out there who considers himself to be a basketball fan and someone who knows at least a halfway decent amount about the game that did not know about the contributions of E.B.

henderson.

So please run out and pick up a copy.

Check out Ed's website, look at all the things that he has there and if you do, I know you will enjoy the book.

So again Ed, thank you for your time tonight.

Really appreciate it and to everyone out there, thanks for listening and we will catch you on our next episode.

Thanks.

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