Former Tennessee A&I Tiger basketball players made a triumphant visit to the White House after 60 years.
George Finley, one of the players, told CBS that meeting Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House was “the greatest day of my life.”
Finley was joined in the Roosevelt Room of the White House by his colleagues, most of whom were in their seventies, including Henry Carlton, Robert Clark, Ron Hamilton, Ernie Jones, and Dick Barnett. The vice president had invited everyone, including their closest friends and family.
Harris stated, “I look at each of you and the path and journey that you’ve been on, and your willingness to tell the story in such an active way is so important.” There are forces now that would try to ignore or reject our history. But I believe that the only way for us to continue to strengthen ourselves and make progress as a country is to remember where we’ve come from and use it to guide where we want to go.
“I thought this would never happen,” Finley said, thinking on the decades it took to witness the moment. “[Winning] the championship was big, but it wasn’t as big as being here with [Vice President] Harris today.”
Despite being selected by the NBA’s Detroit Pistons after playing for the 1959 championship team, Finley chose to play in the American Basketball League.
In 1957, the Tennessee A&I Tigers men’s basketball team became the first historically black college basketball team to win a national title. They were also the first college team to win three straight national championships, from 1957 to 1959.
Throughout segregation and the Civil Rights Movement, Black collegiate athletes were regularly denied respect and the opportunity to compete at the highest levels. Tennessee A&I (now Tennessee State University) is a public HBCU.
According to CBS, the squad endured various challenges both on and off the court en route to the White House visit. The squad received a bomb threat during their journey home from Kansas City after winning the 1957 NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics) championship. Later, team members participated in a sit-in against segregation policies at a Nashville lunch restaurant.
Following decades of waiting, the Tigers were eventually recognized for their historic triumphs and entered to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2019. However, they had yet to celebrate their championship victory at the White House, which has long been a tradition in America. Over 50 members of Congress signed a letter in January requesting a White House invitation for a “proper celebration.”
Before leaving the White House on Friday, the players presented Harris, an HBCU alumni, with a bespoke jersey.