© 2024 91.9 KVCR

KVCR is a service of the San Bernardino Community College District.

San Bernardino Community College District does not discriminate on the basis of age, color, creed, religion, disability, marital status, veteran status, national origin, race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.

701 S Mt Vernon Avenue, San Bernardino CA 92410
909-384-4444
Where you learn something new every day.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

The Harlem Renaissance, On and Off the Court

The Harlem Renaissance wasn't just a literary movement. It was also the name of a famous ballroom in New York City's Harlem neighborhood: the Renaissance Casino and Ballroom.

The venue boasted a huge dance floor that played host to parties and a famous basketball team: the Harlem Rens, the first all-black basketball team to win a world championship.

"That was a special aspect of what the Renaissance Casino and Ballroom was all about. They had basketball, sports and music all at the same time," says Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

The legendary basketball player is the author of a new book, On the Shoulder of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance, which takes a look back at the storied history and lasting impact of the Harlem Renaissance Ballroom.

Abdul-Jabbar discusses how ethnic rivalry was used to promote sports, and the differences between the Rens and the other well-known all-black basketball team of the time, the Harlem Globetrotters.

The Globetrotters always clowned around, Abdul-Jabbar says. The club's owner thought white Americans would be more comfortable if his team provided "entertainment" and conformed to negative racial stereotypes that many whites had "because he did not want to go head to head against racial attitudes in this country."

Abdul-Jabbar associates the Globetrotters with Harlem's most famous club, the segregated Cotton Club.

The Rens' approach to the game, on the other hand, was all business.

"They wanted to make everybody respect them as sportsmen," Abdul-Jabbar says.

The team's attitude reflected those of the Harlem Renaissance — the social movement and the black-owned-and-operated club with the same name.

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Prior to his retirement, Robert Siegel was the senior host of NPR's award-winning evening newsmagazine All Things Considered. With 40 years of experience working in radio news, Siegel hosted the country's most-listened-to, afternoon-drive-time news radio program and reported on stories and happenings all over the globe, and reported from a variety of locations across Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia. He signed off in his final broadcast of All Things Considered on January 5, 2018.