The Harlem Globetrotters are known as a
comedy act now, but it wasn't always that way.
The team was founded in 1926 when the NBA was "whites only." None of them were really from Harlem, that's just a place that African Americans
identify with. Basketball wasn't popular back then,
so they added some humor to attract an audience. Whenever they played against actual NBA
teams they always won. After 1950 the NBA
allowed people of different races to join. The Globetrotters lived up to their name by showing basketball to other countries, & at home
had all comedy games, inventing a team called the
Washington Generals to be their "straight man."
