The first visit of the "No-Do blacks" to Barcelona turns 75 years

BarcelonaOn July 9, 1951, 75 years ago, the Harlem Globetrotters visited Catalonia for the first time with a game that gathered 12,000 spectators at the Pavelló de l’Esport on Llançà street in Barcelona. A sign of the event's significance was the presence in the box seats of José Ibáñez Martín, Minister of National Education, and Felipe Acedo Colunga, civil governor.“Rarely will we be able to see glimpses of their hilarious exhibition again, a basketball as perfect as the one Abe Saperstein’s negroes offered us,” explained the article that Mundo Deportivo published two days later, on July 11. A few weeks earlier, the sports newspaper had advertised the Harlem Globetrotters as “the negroes of the No-Do”.The invited opponent of the day was the Boston Wirlwinds, who lost to the Harlem Globetrotters (47-44). Before this exhibition, another friendly match was played in which the Catalan team lost to Sewanee University (46-40).

As recalled by journalist Joan Manuel Surroca, the event had a distinguished visitor. Jesse Owens, the athlete who won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, defying Hitler's Nazi Germany, performed a popular demonstration. "The most formidable athlete of all time will give a public lesson to Catalan athletes at Montjuïc stadium," announced La Vanguardia. "Jesse Owens, the hero of the Berlin Olympic Games, has come expressly from America to take care of the physical fitness of the Harlem Globetrotters. Furthermore, the fastest runner in the world is willing to give a lesson in athletics," wrote Carles Prado in Mundo Deportivo. The sports journalist, a well-known person of the time, was one of the promoters of the event.

The United States used Owens as a sports ambassador at a time of great international geopolitical tension. The main objective of the tour was Berlin, where on September 3, 1951, the Harlem Globetrotters and Owens gathered 75,000 people. That day Owens met the wife and son of Luz Long, the German athlete who helped him at the 1936 Olympic Games. Catalonia, usual setting

The Tívoli hosted in 1954 in Barcelona the presentation of Ebony Champions, a black and white film that told the story of the legendary Harlem Globetrotters. When Alfonso Sánchez, a prestigious film critic of the time, presented the film on TVE, he spoke of basketball as "a prison yard sport".

The Harlem Globetrotters are celebrating their 100th anniversary with a world tour. In May, their show reached the Palau Olímpic in Badalona, and it continues to combine basketball, humor, and impossible plays that have conquered entire generations.