Getting Open: The Unknown Story of Bill Garrett and the Integration of College Basketball

In 1947, the same year Jackie Robinson broke the color line in Major League Baseball, Bill Garrett integrated college basketball. By joining the basketball program at Indiana University, he broke the gentlemen’s agreement that had barred black players from the Big Ten, college basketball’s most important conference. While enduring taunts from opponents and pervasive segregation at home and on the road, Garrett became the best player Indiana had ever had, an all-American, and in 1951, the third African American drafted in the NBA. Within a year of his graduation from IU, there were six African American basketball players on Big Ten teams. Soon tens, then hundreds, and finally thousands walked through the door Garrett had opened.