Founded in 1904, the Smart Set Athletic Club is credited with assembling the first formal fully independent African-American basketball team.[2] The team debuted in 1907. The Smart Set Athletic Club team was also a founding member of the Olympian Athletic League, along with the Alpha Physical Culture Club, the Marathon Athletic Club of Manhattan, and the St. Christopher Club.[2]
Smart Set members came from a background of well-educated, affluent African Americans who resided in what at the time was a predominantly white Stuyvesant Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn.[2]
