On this date, April 16, 1947, the master of the “sky-hook” was born, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.  The basketball star grew up in the Inwood neighborhood in Manhattan, New York City, the son of Cora Lillian, a department store price checker, and Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor, Sr., a police officer and jazz musician. College took him to Los Angeles, and he returned there for 14 seasons in the NBA after six seasons with the Milwaukee Bucks. In recent years Kareem has become a best selling author writing such epics as;

• Black Profiles in Courage: A Legacy of African-American Achievement, with Alan Steinberg (1996) ISBN 0-688-13097-6
• A Season on the Reservation: My Sojourn with the White Mountain Apaches, with Stephen Singular (2000) ISBN 0-688-17077-3
• Brothers in Arms: The Epic Story of the 761st Tank Battalion, WWII’s Forgotten Heroes with Anthony Walton (2005) ISBN 978-0767909136
• On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance with Raymond Obstfeld (2007) ISBN 978-1416534884

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