The Man Who Brought Basketball to Black America In 1904, Edwin Bancroft Henderson learned basketball at a Harvard summer course when the game was only 13 years old. He returned to Washington D.C. with a vision: basketball could be more than a sport—it could be a tool for Black empowerment during Jim Crow. When the Central YMCA turned him away from watching a game because of his race, Henderson didn't give up. He built his own courts and became the first person to introduce basketball to African