Magic Johnson. Sheryl Swoopes. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Brittney Griner. LeBron James. Angel Reese.
These Black icons of pro basketball and countless others might not be known today if it weren’t for the pioneering efforts of one man: Edwin Bancroft Henderson.
Born in Washington, D.C., in 1883, and later a longtime resident of Falls Church, Henderson is often called the “father” or “grandfather” of Black basketball, having made lasting impacts on the sport as an educator, coach, writer and activist.
After he graduated from Miner Teachers College (which later became the University of the District of Columbia) in 1904, Henderson enrolled in Harvard University’s Dudley Sargent School of Physical Training, where he learned to play the sport, invented just 13 years earlier and up to that point played only by White people.
With this training, Henderson became the nation’s first certified Black instructor of physical education. He brought basketball to predominantly Black neighborhoods and then-segregated schools of the nation’s capital, where it quickly caught fire. He built leagues and staged tournaments.
One team he coached (and played for) won the Colored Basketball World Championships in the 1909-10 season. Among his many students was a young Charles Drew, an Arlington resident and later a prominent Black surgeon. 
In 1939, Henderson wrote a book called The Negro in Sports, which he updated around 1950. He later helped found the first rural branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People—the Tinner Hill NAACP.
By the time of his passing in 1977, however, Henderson had fallen into obscurity. His legacy might have remained unknown if his grandson and namesake, Edwin B. Henderson II, hadn’t made it a mission to gain recognition for his groundbreaking relative.
After moving into his grandparents’ Falls Church bungalow on South Maple Avenue in the early 1990s, the younger Henderson discovered a box of his grandfather’s papers, photos and mementos. He used this treasure trove to build a nomination for his grandfather’s induction into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts—an honor that was finally bestowed in 2013.
Today, a statue of Henderson stands at the University of the District of Columbia and two historical markers are installed in front of the Henderson home.
In February 2024, Edwin Henderson II authored The Grandfather of Black Basketball: The Life and Times of Dr. E. B. Henderson (Rowman & Littlefield). “The book basically has taken 20, almost 30 years to come to fruition,” he says. “What my grandfather did was foundational to the game of basketball.”