In 1944, deep within the segregated South, John B. McLendon and his North Carolina College Eagles hosted Duke University students for the first interracial college basketball game in U.S. History. At a time when Jim Crow laws were strictly enforced by the full power of the state, the two most dominant college teams in North Carolina (one white and one black) risked it all to test themselves against the best. In the interest of his players’ safety, McLendon ensured that the game was carried out in complete secrecy. It would be decades before its significance would be revealed.
This documentary tells the story of coach John B. McLendon, the father of the fast break and the last and only black protege of basketball’s inventor Dr. James Naismith. In his first college coaching role, at what would later become North Carolina Central University, McLendon decimated racial barriers and radically transformed the game of basketball.
We hear from historians, and follow modern day basketball coaches as they reenact this historic game on its 80th anniversary. What might that game have looked like? And how impactful would it have been for those involved? Decades before the civil rights era, these brave athletes got a glimpse of a new kind of game and a new kind of America.
