Temple of Geek’s Black History Month
Soul Power: The Legend of the American Basketball Association revolutionizes the game of both sports storytelling and the way we think about basketball. Directed by Kenan Kamwana Holley, two-time Emmy winner for sports coverage, and narrated by Common, this docuseries is an in-depth study of the history between and of the American Basketball Association (ABA) and the National Basketball Association (NBA).
From the cheap seats
I am probably one of the worst people to write a review for this series (apologies to Mr. Holley). The amount that I know about sports in general, much less basketball, is about the same as preschooler’s understanding of advanced trigonometry. I like watching a good game as much as anyone, but I only recently began to understand what a batting average was, and it took a poet to explain it to me. (We all have our strengths and weaknesses, okay?)
In the spirit of Black History Month, though, I think it is important to foray into topics with which we are unfamiliar.
Besides the media frenzies that any sport aficionado might expect between the buying and selling of teams, changing the hands of ownerships, scandals, etc., several legal battles define the backdrop of the NBA/ABA history.
Still in play
The ABA and the NBA have a pretty fraught history, and one that is as racially charged as its active years: 1967–1976.
The same year that Time Magazine‘s coverage of Connie Hawkins’s lawsuit against the NBA, (“Unjust Exile of a Superstar” by David Wolf), other articles detailed issues of academic freedom and reparations. “The Political University” and “A Black Manifesto” are just two examples.1
That these headlines could be in today’s paper stresses the need to emphasize Black history across disciplines.
Off the scoreboard
The ABA introduced the three-point shot and the slam-dunk contest to the basketball national stage. These innovations are important. However, and I would argue more importantly, equity in the ABA was unparalleled at the time in all major, primetime sports. As George Gervin puts it in the docuseries, “ABA was the first integrated workplace in America.” The connection between innovation in social justice and gameplay suggests a more real truth that is unfortunately not universally acknowledged: innovation relies on equity and diversity. If there were a thesis to this series, that might be it.
Theresa Runstedtler, author of Black Ball: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Spencer Haywood, and the Generation that Saved the Soul of the NBA (Bold Type Books, 2023), discusses the informal, racial quota in the NBA, calling it “unspoken . . . but very much a fact.” The idea was “we’ll let a *few* ballplayers in, but we’ll make sure that they’re the *right* type of Black ballplayer,” she relays of the sentiment.
We too often look to demographics of politicians, fortune-500 companies, or educational institutions to point towards inequity. But, Soul Power does the same kind of work for basketball that librarians do to keep Toni Morrison and Octavia Butler in public spaces. This is work we desperately need.
Full-court reckoning
In today’s difficult political climate, it is easy—and even healthy—to retreat into sports or other kinds of entertainment. Sports are fun! That’s something we can all agree on as Americans.
Right?
On the heels of Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime performance this year—not to mention Kendrick Lamar‘s clearly political statement last year—even the “I-only-watch-the-Super-Bowl-for-the-commercials” viewer should pay attention to how American leagues became what they are. As with far too many topics, that which is deemed unsavory for polite conversation actively denigrates a rich history.
Holley’s work reminds us that the erasure of Black history is not limited to the political arena. It is pervasive. And, despite legalities and politics from the “flower children” of the ’70s to the TikTokers of the early 21st-century, we are left with a truth that *is* universally acknowledged: “You can’t legislate people’s hearts.”2
Soul Power is a love poem to the ABA, and one I intend to spend more time with. It encourages us to keep our hearts, and our balls, ready to make good trouble.
Watch for it on Prime Video Sports on February 12.
Take action
What can you do, you ask?
Take a moment to check out the Dropping Dimes Foundation, which supports ABA players.
Buy Theresa Runstedtler’s Black Ball: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Spencer Haywood, and the Generation that Saved the Soul of the NBA or Nelson George’s Elevating the Game: Black Men and Basketball from wherever you support your favorite locally Black-owned bookstore.
About
Soul Power is the definitive story—and first docuseries—of the American Basketball Association. The series chronicles the 1967 launch of the enterprising league and explores how a collection of franchises—the majority of which relocated or folded—challenged the NBA on and off the court for nine riveting seasons, and examines the lasting impact of the ABA on the sport of basketball, including the introduction of the 3-point shot; the All-Star Game slam dunk competition; the addition of former ABA franchises like the Brooklyn Nets, Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers, and San Antonio Spurs to the NBA; empowering women to play a more substantial role in the business of sports; and the rise to fame of superstar players and pro hoops contributors like Julius Erving, Moses Malone, Spencer Haywood, George Gervin, Rick Barry, and George Karl. 2026 marks the 50th anniversary of the ABA’s merger with the NBA.
- 1 “A Black Manifesto” and “The Political University.” Time Magazine 93, no. 20 (1969): 54–59, 94.
- 2 Nelson George, interviewed in Soul Power: The Legend of the American Basketball Association. Dir. Kenan K. Holley, Prime Video Sports, February 2026. (PS: I think Jane Austen would be thrilled that her fiction is being used over 200 years later to describe a sport not yet invented.)
