Скачать или смотреть PAHA webinar series: Webinar with Kent Washington

Webinar with Kent Washington

The guest of this PAHA webinar was Kent Washington, an American basketball player from New Rochelle, New York, and the first American to play professionally on the other side of the Iron Curtain. Between 1979 and 1983, he played in the Polish basketball league, mainly in Lublin. He is also the author of the memoir Kentomania: A Black Basketball Virtuoso in Communist Poland. The conversation was led, among others, by Neal Pease, president of PAHA; Anna Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann, historian and former president of PAHA; and Sheldon Anderson, historian and former basketball player who also played in Poland in the 1980s. The webinar was conducted in the form of an interview.

Washington recounted how, after unsuccessful attempts in the NBA, he ended up in Poland thanks to a student tour. In the realities of communist Poland, he became a star of the league, won the MVP title, and impressed audiences with a spectacular style of play based on dribbling and creativity. His performance sparked a phenomenon dubbed “Kentomania” by the press. A key theme of the discussion was his observations of everyday life in Poland in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Washington lived with an elderly Polish woman—a “grandmother”—which allowed him to experience daily life “from the inside” rather than just as a privileged athlete or outsider. He noted various aspects of life at that time, including shortages of goods, street trading and the informal ways people “got things done,” housing and sports conditions, and the hard work of women, particularly of the older generation.

Reflections on martial law were particularly significant. Washington admitted that it was only then that he truly understood what life under communism was like and what the real limitations on freedom were. This experience deepened his integration into Polish society and changed his view of the country.

Washington emphasized that he did not experience overt racism in Poland. Poles were generally curious rather than hostile. Only in hindsight did he realize that for many people he was the first black American they had ever met, and in that sense, he unknowingly served as a cultural ambassador for the United States and African Americans.

What can this webinar contribute to research on Polish-American relations and the history of the Polish diaspora? Sport emerges as an alternative and highly effective channel for cultural exchange. Washington’s story shows that Polish-American contacts during the Cold War were not limited to politics or emigration but also included grassroots cultural relations, including sport. There is a notable reversal of the usual narrative: this time, it is an American in Poland rather than members of the Polish diaspora in the U.S. Instead of examining the fate of Poles in America, we have the story of an American immersed in the realities of the Polish People’s Republic, which provides valuable insight into mutual perceptions and stereotypes. Washington’s memoirs are also a useful source for the social history of the PRL, offering material for research on everyday life in late communism, the functioning of sport within the state system, and race relations in an almost ethnically homogeneous society.

Abstract by Marek Czarnecki, UG