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 Harlem Rens

Harlem Renaissance Big Five, one of the most successful all-black professional basketball teams in the 1920s and 1930s, the "Harlem Rens" added grace and style to the game of American basketball.  The Harlem Renaissance Big Five were created in 1922 by Robert L. Douglass, a native of the Caribbean island of St. Kitts and a former professional basketball player with the New York Spartans. The team gained their name from their playing venue — the Renaissance Casino ballroom in Harlem, New York — where they dazzled fans with their innovative style of play. The Rens, as they were called, were one of the few all-black, traveling professional basketball teams of that era. Formed five years before one of America's most famous all-black professional basketball teams, the Harlem Globetrotters, the Rens provided African American men with the opportunity to compete against white athletes on an equal footing.