The University of the District of Columbia will rename its sports facility in honor of Dr. E.B. Henderson

In February 2021, the University of the District of Columbia (UDC) announced it will rename its sports complex after Dr. E.B. Henderson, the acknowledged "Father of Black Basketball." This is part of a memorial project UDC launched in 2021 to remember his legacy. His grandson, Edwin. B. Henderson, II, said "Edwin B. Henderson set the tone and created the infrastructure for African American participation in athletics by creating leagues and associations for black athletes and referees when no such thing previously existed.”

Dr. Henderson graduated in 1904 from Miner Teachers College which later became the University of the District of Columbia. He studied physical education at Harvard University and was the first African American in the United States to be certified to teach it. While at Harvard, he was introduced to basketball, and in turn, introduced the sport to African Americans in Washington, DC. Dr. Henderson was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013.

Edwin B. Henderson, center front, 1910 basketball team, 12th Street YMCA, Wash., DC. Photo: The Black Fives Foundation