This is a long time coming!
The Tennessee A&I Tigers of Tennessee Agricultural & Industrial State University made history in 1957 as the first HBCU team to win a national championship, Essence reports. They followed up that impressive victory with two more back-to-back national titles, making history as the first college team to win three national championships in a row. Still, they didn’t get their due recognition. They faced the oppression and racism of the Jim Crow South, which prevented the players from receiving the flowers they deserved.
Still, nine members of the Tennessee A&I Tigers championship team went on to play professional basketball, The New York Times reports. And while their accomplishments were overlooked in the South, one of those players, Dick Barnett, made it his mission for the team to never be forgotten. As a result of Barnett’s work over the last decade, the Tigers were inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2019. Their journey was also publicized during a year-long successful public relations campaign covered in the PBS documentary “The Dream Whisperer.”
This past January, Congressional Rep. Gregory W. Meeks (D-NY) rallied more than 50 members of Congress to sign a letter requesting that President Biden invite the surviving members of the 1957-1959 Tennessee A&I Tigers Men’s Basketball Team to the White House. This was not just a visit but a significant recognition of their historic achievements. Recently, that request was honored, with VP Kamala Harris welcoming the team for a “long overdue commemoration to honor their historic accomplishments.”
Now 67 years after their first championship win, George Finley, Ernest Jones, Mr. Barnett, Henry Carlton, Robert Clark, and Ron Hamilton all attended a private ceremony hosted by the vice president in the White House’s Roosevelt Room. The team received a tour of the White House and gave VP Harris a custom Tennessee A&I Tigers jersey.
“Finally,” said Barnett as they greeted VP Harris.
“This is the greatest day of my life. I thought this would never take place,” added Finley.
Only eight members of the championship team and one assistant coach are still alive. The Tigers coach, John McLendon, passed away in 1999. Finley said he would be ecstatic and called McLendon “one of the greatest coaches that ever existed.”
“There’s so much that we have accomplished as a nation because of the heroes like those that I’m looking at right now. I, like so many of us, stand on your broad shoulders, each one of you,” Harris told the team.
Barnett has also made strides to teach students at Tennessee A&I, now known as Tennessee State University, about the team’s barrier-breaking story. Barnett went on to play for the New York Knicks as a member of the only two championship teams the franchise has ever had in the ‘70s. During the most recent Men’s Final Four tournament in Phoenix, it was announced that Barnett will also be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Check out the Tennessee A&I Tigers’ heartfelt visit to the White House below.
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Cover photo: Championship HBCU Basketball Team Finally Visits the White House More Than 6 Decades After Their Win/Henry Carlton stands outside the White House with Tennesse A&I Tigers Championship teammates (l to r) Robert Clark, Ernest Jones, George Finley, Ron Hamilton and Dick Barnett/Photo Credit: Michael A. McCoy/ The New York Times