More than a decade after fans and historians first moved to get Cumberland “Cum” Posey into the Basketball Hall of Fame, the effort has finally paid off.
The official announcement of his election to the hall was made at a press conference at Duquesne University April 4.
Posey, recognized as the university’s first Black athlete, played at Duquesne from 1916-18, and is the first Duke to achieve basketball’s highest honor.
The Pittsburgh native, who later gained fame as a player and owner of the vaunted Homestead Grays baseball team of the old Negro Leagues, led the Dukes in scoring for three seasons and is considered to have been instrumental in introducing basketball to the African American community in the early 1900s.
“Today, we honor a man who could be called Pittsburgh’s forgotten champion,” said Duquesne president Charles Dougherty.
And according to Black Fives Foundation founder Claude Johnson, he could have been forgotten even at Duquesne because he enrolled and played there under the name Charles Cumbert.
There are two main reasons why he could have done that, said Johnson. Some think it was so he could “pass for white’” and play against other colleges that at the time were anything but integrated.
But Johnson told the New Pittsburgh Courier two years ago as he was preparing a museum exhibit on Posey and other Black players of the time, that’s not the reason. At the time he was a star athlete at Duquesne, captain of its baseball, basketball and golf teams.
“It wasn’t because he was Black, the Holy Ghost fathers integrated the school well before 1900,” he said. “It was because he was playing for these professional teams—Monticello, the Loendi Big Five, The Monarch Elks Five—making money playing against White clubs in barnstorming exhibitions. It was because he was a ‘ringer.’”
Rob Ruck, who wrote “Sandlot Seasons,” which first introduced Posey’s sports legacy to Johnson and a host of others, also attended the press announcement. He said Posey, now the only person inducted into both the National Baseball and Basketball Halls of Fame should be celebrated as a Pittsburgh Sports hero.
““His teams beat all comers, White and Black. They did so with athletic skill, with intelligence and dignity,” said Ruck. “Pittsburgh became ‘Titletown, USA.’ And nobody was more integral to that story than Cum Posey. His teams won more championships in two different sports than the Steelers and Pirates combined.”
Posey’s great nephew, UPMC Pathologist Dr. Evan Baker had been following the effort to draft Posey into the Basketball Hall of Fame said he was elated to see it happen.
“For me to go through this a second time is beyond words,” he said.
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