5 Questions with Milton Katz, author of John B. McLendon Jr., Basketball Legend and Civil Rights Pioneer

1. What, specifically, inspired you to write this book?
As an idealistic student of the 1960s, I have chosen to focus my scholarship on peace and justice movements in American history. As a social historian, it is impossible to ignore the fact that sports have been one of the primary mediums for breaking down racial barriers in American society. For almost a century, African American leaders around the country have looked to sports as one path toward black advancement and racial reconciliation. Although most people recognize the pioneering role of Jackie Robinson in the integration of American sports, there was a diminutive, dignified, African American coach named John B. McLendon Jr. who played an equally significant role in this endeavor. A legendary basketball coach, McLendon was also a pioneer, supreme innovator, teacher, and consummate gentleman who waged a successful fight to break down barriers in college and professional athletics.

2. What was your relationship to Coach McLendon?
I first met John B. McLendon in 1980 when I was conducting research on the integration of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) basketball tournament, which had taken place in the 1950s. Although I had attended every NAIA tournament since my family and I had moved to Kansas City in 1974, I had never before been introduced to the man who was affectionately known as the “father of black basketball,” and the individual who was primarily responsible for integrating college basketball in Kansas City and around the nation. What I was unaware of at the time, was that McLendon broke through the color line in many areas of athletics and social endeavors as well.
We spent many days and evenings together watching basketball and talking about his life, the obstacles he had to overcome, and the remarkable success he had over the years in doing so. He began to call me “little brother,” and although I knew he treated everyone as if they were members of his family, I took immense satisfaction knowing that he and I were becoming close friends. We authored a booklet together, Breaking Through: The NAIA and the Integration of Intercollegiate Athletics in Post World War II America, in 1988, and the following year were the headliners at an International Conference on the role of sports in American popular culture at the North American Culture Annual Conference in Toronto, Canada. Based on extensive interviews conducted between 1987 and 1990, I authored an article “Coach John B. McLendon Jr. and the Integration of Intercollegiate and Professional Athletics in Post World War II America,” which was published by the Journal of American Culture in December 1990.

3. What impressed you most about the man you chose to write about?
As I spent several days interviewing him, I came to understand the historic role he played in the modern civil rights movement. From integrating the swimming pool when he was a student at the University of Kansas to becoming the first black coach inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, this unassuming, gentle, soft-spoken man was a giant in the struggle for equal rights in American society. More than that, he was a writer, poet, historian, archivist, and teacher. I soon discovered that he was a unique type of individual who, acting out of faith, courage, and compassion, enhanced America’s potential for integrity and justice. His faith in humankind and ability to consistently do the right thing gave him superior judgement and the confidence to pursue a wise course of action in bringing about significant social change. John McLendon radiated a kind of fundamental decency that everyone admired and respected.

4. Is there any relationship to the inspiring story of Texas Western’s upset of the University of Kentucky in the 1966 NCAA basketball championship final told in the movie Glory Road?
Although the film tells the story of a significant event in American social history, it leaves out the salient fact that this glory road was paved over with grit and determination a decade earlier by the trailblazing efforts of John McLendon and the other founders of the National Athletic Steering Committee. Twenty-two years before the all-black starting five fromTexas Western captured the NCAA championship from the all-white University of Kentucky, McLendon’s black college squad from North Carolina College played an illegal secret game against all-white team from Duke University Medical School. And nine years before Texas Western’s triumph, McLendon’s all-black Tennessee A&I State University Tigers defeated more than a dozen white teams from throughout the United States, including the South, to capture three consecutive NAIA national championships, 1957-1959. Of course, there was no national television audience for these socially significant events, and currently there is no movie to celebrate these groundbreaking victories. Therefore, the equally glorious road of McLendon and his players remains largely unknown, and yet, he and superlative players, five of whom later played in the NBA, helped us get where we are today.

5. What would you like people to take from reading your book?
Perhaps a deeper understanding and appreciation that movements for social change are made by countless numbers of ordinary individuals whose struggle for equality and justice alter the course of human history. We often forget that history is actually made by people much like ourselves who commit their minds, their energies, and their lives to obtaining freedom and dignity for all. John B. McLendon Jr. was much more than just a highly successful basketball coach. He was one of those individuals whose remarkable courage, unswerving determination, and moral strength in the pursuit of human rights and social justice brought democracy in America a step closer to reality.

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