Harry Lew facts for kids

Harry Haskell Lew (born January 4, 1884 – died October 1963) was an American basketball player. He is famous for being the first black professional basketball player.

About Harry Lew

Harry "Bucky" Lew was born in a part of Dracut, Massachusetts, called Pawtucketville. This area is now part of Lowell, Massachusetts. His parents were William and Isabell Lew.

Like many in his family, Bucky Lew was a talented musician. He played a violin solo at his graduation from Pawtucketville Grammar School. Later, in the late 1890s, he started working in his father's dry cleaning business in downtown Lowell. His daughter, Frances Johnson, still had his original violin in 1999. Harry had three daughters: Eleanor, Phyllis, and Frances.

His Family's History

Harry Lew came from an African-American family with a long history in Massachusetts. His great-great-grandfather, Barzillai Lew, was a free man. He fought in the American Revolution. Barzillai was a fifer, which is someone who plays a small flute. He served at the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775. A famous musician, Duke Ellington, even wrote a song called "Barzillai Lou" about him.

Harry's great-great-aunt, Lucy Lew, and her husband Thomas Dalton were important civil rights activists. His grandparents, Adrastus and Elizabeth Lew, had a home that was a station on the Underground Railroad. This was a secret network that helped enslaved people escape to freedom. Harry's father, William Lew, also worked for equal rights. He was a delegate at the 1891 Equal Rights Convention in Boston.

Basketball Career

Harry (Bucky) Lew with Haverhill in December 1904

In 1898, when he was 14, Harry joined the YMCA basketball team for young working boys. His team became state champions for all four years he played with them.

In 1902, at age 18, he was asked to join the Pawtucketville Athletic Club (P.A.C.) in Lowell. This team was part of the New England Professional Basketball League. His teammates thought he was one of the best "double dribblers" in the league. Back then, double dribbling was allowed!

The team manager was not sure about letting Lew play. But local newspapers pushed the team to give him a chance. He finally got to play after several other players got hurt.

Years later, in 1958, Bucky Lew talked about that first game. "I can almost see the faces of those Marlborough players when I got into that game," he said. He was 74 at the time. "Our Lowell team had been getting players from New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Some local papers demanded they give this little Negro from around the corner a chance to play."

He explained that injuries forced the manager to let him join the team for the Marlborough game. "I was the sixth player that night," he said. "The manager told me all I had to do was sit on the bench for my five bucks pay."

One of the Lowell players got hurt and had to leave the game. "At first, this manager refused to put me in," Lew remembered. "He let them play us five on four. But the fans got really mad and almost started a riot, screaming to let me play. That did it. I went in there."

Lew shared that he faced challenges similar to what Jackie Robinson experienced in baseball. "All those things you read about Jackie Robinson, the abuse, the name-calling, extra effort to put him down... they're all true," he said. "I got the same treatment and even worse. Basketball was a rough game then. I took the bumps, the elbows in the gut, knees here and everything else that went with it. But I gave it right back. It was rough but worth it. Once they knew I could take it, I had it made." He added that some of the players who were toughest on him later became his good friends.

Lew said, "The finest players in the country were in that league. I always ended up guarding our opponent's best shooter." He liked to shoot from far away but wasn't as good close to the basket.

He also described how different basketball was back then. "We had no backboards in those days," he explained. "Everything had to go in clean. Naturally, there was no rebounding. After a shot, there was a brawl to get the ball." There were no out-of-bounds lines either. "We had a fence around the court with nets hanging from the ceilings. The ball was always in play. You were guarded from the moment you touched it. Hardly had time to breathe, let alone think about what you were going to do with the ball."

The New England League changed its name to the New England Association and then stopped playing after the 1905 season. For the next 20 years, Lew traveled around New England with teams he put together. In 1926, he played his last game in St. John's, Vermont. He was 42 years old. This was 24 years before the Boston Celtics chose Charles Chuck Cooper, who was the first African American drafted into the NBA.

In 1928, Harry Lew moved his dry cleaning business to Springfield, Massachusetts. He lived there until he passed away in 1963.

Harry "Bucky" Lew was a very brave and determined man. His daughter said he didn't talk much about basketball. But sometimes, if his children were having a hard time, he would talk about his own tough experiences. He used his sports journey to teach them important lessons about life.

Even with his amazing career, Harry Lew has never been inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. His daughter, Phyllis Lew, has been trying to get her father recognized since the 1970s.

See also

• Lowell High School (Lowell, Massachusetts)
• List of museums focused on African Americans