BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY : AFRICAN AMERICAN " WILLIAM "POP" GATES " WAS A PROFESSION BASKET BALL PLAYER AND PLAYED FOR SEVERAL YEARS WITH THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE FROM 1938 -39 : GOES INTO THE "HALL OF BLACK GENIUS "

                             BLACK               SOCIAL              HISTORY                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      William "Pop" Gates (August 30, 1917 – December 1, 1999) was an American professional basketball player. He was born in Decatur, Alabama and attended high school in New York, New York. After playing college basketball at Clark Atlanta University, he continued his basketball career in New York City with the Harlem Renaissance, for several years beginning in 1938–39. He became one of the early black players in the NBL in 1946. Later he played for and coached the Harlem Globetrotters. Gates is one the few athletes who went directly from a high school championship team (Benjamin Franklin, New York, 1938) to a World Professional Champion (Rens, 1939).

Gates was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as a player in 1989.