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PROPOSED RESOLUTION
HONORING AND COMMENDING THE HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS AND SALUTING THE CENTENNIAL LEGACY OF THE SAVOY BIG FIVE, WHOSE ORIGINS FOREVER SHAPED CHICAGO AND THE WORLD OF BASKETBALL
WHEREAS, the Harlem Globetrotters are celebrating the year 2026 as their 100th Anniversary, a milestone tracing its origins to the founding of the Savoy Big Five in 1926, an elite African American basketball team whose emergence in Chicago during an era of racial segregation marked the beginning of what would ultimately become one of the most influential sports organizations in history; and
WHEREAS, while the Harlem Globetrotters name would come later, it is the Savoy Big Five whose history officially reaches the century mark in 2026, and whose foundational role as a pillar of Chicago's African American athletic and cultural heritage warrants recognition and celebration in the City of Chicago and Cook County; and
WHEREAS, the Savoy Big Five helped establish and energize Chicago's vibrant African American basketball scene in 1926, during a period when Black athletes were routinely excluded from professional leagues and mainstream athletic opportunities, yet persevered through discipline, excellence, and community support; and
WHEREAS, the original members of the Savoy Big Five, Walter "Toots" Wright, Byron "Fat" Long, William "Kid" Oliver, Al "Runt" Pullins, and Inman "Big Jack" Jackson, all hailed from Wendell Phillips High School in the historic Bronzeville neighborhood, an institution celebrated for cultivating generations of African American leadership, scholarship, and athletic distinction; and
WHEREAS, the Savoy Big Five played their early games on the South Side of Chicago at the Savoy Ballroom, originally as a means of increasing attendance at community dances-and at the Giles American Legion Post #87, where they were widely respected for their serious, high-level basketball prowess rather than comedic performance; and
WHEREAS, it was from this foundation...
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