Game CHANGER

A century ago, Black Americans fell in love with bridge. Excluded from whites-only leagues, they made the game their own, and for a few exhilarating decades it played a starring role in the social and political lives of the burgeoning African-American middle and upper classes. Can its legacy survive in the modern age?

- TANISHA C. FORD

Dr. Joseph L. Henry looked down at his hand: a queen of hearts, a six of clubs, and an eight of diamonds. Not promising. But the Howard University professor of dentistry hadn't become a renowned bridge player without knowing how to handle a few bad cards. He glanced at the three other players at his table, took a sip of ice water, and waited for his turn. Surrounding Henry's table were 189 other tables, each seating four people divided into teams of two, all playing in quiet concentration. Twenty teenage waiters moved silently around the cavernous room, filling glasses, emptying ashtrays, and occasionally pausing to watch Larry Edwards, who, at 15, was the youngest player in the room and who was already being lauded as "the future of bridge."

Henry and approximately 750 of the world's best African-American bridge players were gathered in Detroit's Sheraton-Cadillac Hotel to test their mettle at the 1962 American Bridge Association (ABA) annual national tournament. Over the course of eight days the competitors would play at least two games each per day, use 750 decks of cards, mark up 100,000 score cards, smoke approximately 300 packs of cigarettes, and drink 3,200 pitchers of water, 100 gallons of coffee, and 1,000 bottles of Coca-Cola.

Then, after the last hand was played and all the entry fees were tallied, the ABA's leaders would announce they were donating $3,000 ($28,000 in today's dollars) to "national organizations that are devoted to civil rights, employment, and educational opportunities for minority groups."