Being ProSemitic: Sports

Founder, owner and earliest coach of the Harlem Globetrotters, Abe Saperstein

The internationally famous Harlem Globetrotters were founded in 1927 by Abe Saperstein, a 5’5” Jewish immigrant born in 1902 London, England, and raised on Chicago’s North Side. Discovering a small group of black basketball players, he created a team that traveled around the country playing games to attract fans who hadn’t seen black people before and were amazed at the freewheeling style the Globetrotters played the game. In the process the Globetrotters won their games at a record pace and their reputation and travel made them international stars during and after the 1950’s.

Saperstein was involved in the development and marketing for the Negro American League when major league baseball was an all-white enterprise. Then in later years he worked to get Satchel Paige, Luke Easter, Minnie Minoso and other high quality black players who integrated baseball.

At their peak the Harlem Globetrotters had visited 87 countries and logged more than 5 million miles. Abe Saperstein died at the age of 63, after promoting black players in basketball and baseball for his entire adult life.

Tom Sudow submittal from:
Norm King, Society for American Baseball Research.
https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/abe-saperstein/ and included in “Bittersweet Goodbye:
The Black Barons, the Grays, and the 1948 Negro League World Series” (SABR, 2017),
edited by Frederick C. Bush and Bill Nowlin.

FJMC Sports Affinity Group, 11/25/2024

“The original Harlem Globetrotters weren’t from Harlem, and they didn’t start out as globetrotters. The talented all-Black team, started by Jewish immigrant Abe Saperstein, was from Chicago’s South Side and toured the Midwest in Saperstein’s model-T. But with Saperstein’s savvy and the players’ skills, the Globetrotters would become a worldwide sensation. “Globetrotter: How Abe Saperstein Shook Up the World of Sports” is the fascinating biography of Saperstein, a five-foot-three promoter who made an amazing impact in a sport where height is at a premium: basketball. After Saperstein founded the team in the 1920s, they battled everything from blizzards to bigotry, steadily building…”

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Jerry Brodsky is the president of the International Region, the former chair of FJMC’s Inclusion Initiative, and a member of KIO+ Region.