Cheesy Grits: Granddad Ralston at P.S. 89

When last we looked in on Granddad Ralston, he was juggling a new family and the positions of "physical director" at the Boys' Welfare Assocation, basketball coach of the P.S. 89 Buffaloes, all while still competing in the occasional track meet for St. Christopher Club.

But of all these careers—besides his family of course—the one he was apparently most invested in was coaching basketball at P.S. 89. And, as I mentioned earlier, it was as a basketball coach that he became most well-known and respected during this period.

As it turns out, one of the players on his earliest teams would go on to considerable accomplishment and recognition, first in basketball and then as a social services and local government worker. His name is George Gregory.
If you're a real NCAA basketball geek, you'll likely recognize the name George Gregory. Playing for Columbia University, he was the first black college basketball player to be named an All-American, which honor came his way in 1931. After graduating from Columbia, Gregory started working in youth services programs in Harlem and the Bronx, and attending law school at night at St. John's. He went on to a fine career in youth social services and subsequently with the planning board in the office of the Manhattan Borough President. And it all started with playing basketball under Granddad Ralston.

The 24 January 1950 issue of the New York Post newspaper carried a feature about Gregory which led off with an anecdote telling how he got his start in basketball. The anecdote was unattributed, but surely came from Gregory himself.

"The gawky kid stood at the end of the line in Public School 89 because, at 13, he was 5 feet 11 and stood head and shoulders above anyone else in his class. It was by chance that George Ralston, P.S. 89 basketball coach, happened along. It was also by chance that he needed a center and plucked the lad off the line and launched him on what was to become a fabulous basketball career...."

Here is a snip of the lead paragraphs of the article:

What also needs to be noted here is the social setting surrounding that first championship team. World War I was just over, and in New York City, Harlem's Fighting 369th/"Harlem Hellfighters" Brigade, which had been recognized for its valor on the battlefield, was given a heroes parade down 5th Avenue to welcome them home.

These soldiers might have been good enough to have fought in the "war to end all wars" and been highly decorated, e.g., Croix de Guerre for an entire unit of the Fighting 369th, but in the end, they were still black and Jim Crow/white supremacy was still very much in force. So-called "race riots" broke out across the country, but what they really were was white mobs hunting down and beating and killing black folks. The single worst instance was almost exactly a century ago in rural Arkansas, where black sharecroppers were attempting to band together to promote their common interests in a united way. White "planters" saw these meetings as a profound threat and started hunting down sharecroppers, eventually killing between at least 100 and probably more than 200.

These mob murders and lynchings were a powerful force in galvanizing the political/activist side of the Harlem Renaissance after 1919. Aside from making an initial contribution to Cyril Briggs's Crusader magazine and the appearance of Mrs. George Ralston on the cover of the May, 1919 issue, Granddad Ralston kept his focus on what he knew to be his strength: coaching. By 1922, he had won three consecutive city championships, leading the New York Age to refer to him as "the best basketball coach in the city."

But P.S. 89 was crowded—so crowded that classes had to be split between day and evening, with many students able to attend only half-time. Harlem needed another school.