This 14" x 22" basketball display presents the storied Harlem Renaissance Big Five - (a.k.a. "The Rens") - the first all-black professional traveling team, pre-dating the Globetrotters by five years. They were not just a great barnstorming team, but instead a veritable sociology class on wheels, bringing black hoops and culture to a hundred Midwestern towns that had seen neither. The Rens essentially transformed Naismith's stodgy, wearisome game (still often played in chicken-wire cages) into an orchestration of speed and dazzling skill. Showcased on this poster is center Dolly King, a three-sport star athlete of the era who led the post-war Rens while rostered as an outfielder with the Negro League Homestead Grays. He also had the distinction of breaking pro basketball's color line, when he and "Pop" Gates joined the Rochester Royals for the 1946-47 NBL season - the first two black players to play a full season in what evolved to become the NBA. This cardboard broadside announces a 1946 game between the Harlem Rens (noted as "World's Colored Champions") vs. the New Britain Pros. Printed on cardboard, it displays a mild/moderate crease running the vertical length, and modest edge softness to render its condition about GD/VG. Yet, as our image confirms, it utterly captures the eye.