The Crispus Attucks Tigers, 1955
Near Indianapolis, Indiana
Crispus Attucks High School opened in nineteen twenty-seven as the only public high school in Indianapolis designated specifically for Black students. The school board had decided that Black children would not attend the other high schools in the city. The Indiana High School Athletic Association refused to recognize Attucks as a member school for years, which meant its teams could not compete in official state tournaments. The IHSAA did not classify Attucks as a public school. It excluded them until December of nineteen forty-one, a decision that required years of sustained pressure from the school's community.
On March nineteenth, nineteen fifty-five, Crispus Attucks beat Gary Roosevelt ninety-seven to sixty-four to win the Indiana state basketball championship. It was the first time in American history that an all-Black school had won a state championship. It was also the first time an Indianapolis school of any kind had won the title.
The team was led by a sixteen-year-old junior named Oscar Robertson. The next year, as a junior, Robertson averaged twenty-four points and led Attucks to a second consecutive championship, going thirty-one and nothing, the first undefeated season in Indiana high school history. In two years Robertson's teams won sixty-two of sixty-three games and set a state record forty-five-game winning streak. The state titled him Mister Basketball.
After the nineteen fifty-five championship, the city of Indianapolis held a celebration parade. The parade route was kept away from downtown. The team was celebrated in the Black neighborhoods of the near west side and then the motorcade dispersed. The downtown area, by custom and by pressure, remained a space where such celebrations were not expected to extend.
Oscar Robertson went on to the University of Cincinnati and then to a professional career in the National Basketball Association that placed him among the handful of players who transformed the game. He never forgot the route of that nineteen fifty-five parade.
