Hot Potato: How Washington and New York Gave Birth to Black Basketball and Changed America's Game Forever

Edwin Henderson, a Harvard-educated physical education teacher, introduced basketball to students in Washington, D.C., in 1907, as a public-health and civil-rights tool; he believed organizing black athletics would make it possible to send more outstanding black student athletes to Northern white colleges, debunking negative racial stereotypes. The game was a big hit on Washington's segregated U Street, and it caught on at almost the same time in New York. Kuska, an NIH science writer, chronicles the early years of black amateur basketball and the rise of professional ball in America. He places particular emphasis on the New York Renaissance, a team as important in the development of black basketball as the Harlem Globetrotters. Annotation c2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Bob Kuska, who spent a decade researching this book, is a science writer for the National Institutes of Health.