You may think that the Harlem Globetrotters are a “joke” team — a team that turns the sport of basketball into a Broadway show, with funny spins and clownish faces and a treat for young children who may be too small to experience the full fury of an NBA game. But you could not be more wrong. In fact, if players like LeBron James, the late Kobe Bryant, and Michael Jordan can command millions — and billions — of dollars in salaries and endorsements, it’s because the Harlem Globetrotters laid the groundwork to make it so. In 1926, basketball — like the rest of the United States — was segregated, and Black players were not allowed to join the NBA. From that terrible time in American history, though, came basketball teams like the Black Fives and what was then known as the Savoy Big Five. Born on the South Side of Chicago, Tommy Brookins — according to WTTW — led a series of players to walk off from the Savoy Big Five in the midst of a dispute in 1928. They then formed a team of their...