Edwin Bancroft Henderson (November 24, 1883 – February 3, 1977), was an American educator and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) pioneer. The "Father of Black Basketball", introduced basketball to African Americans in Washington, D.C., in 1904, and was Washington's first male African American physical education teacher (and possibly the first in the country). From 1926 until his retirement in 1954, Henderson served as director of health and physical education for Washington, D.C.'s black schools. An athlete and team player rather than a star, Henderson both taught physical education to African Americans and organized athletic activities in Washington, D.C., and Fairfax County, Virginia, where his grandmother lived and where he returned with his wife in 1910 to raise their family. A prolific letter writer both to newspapers in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area and Alabama (where he spent many of his last years), Henderson also helped organize the Fairfax County branch of the NAACP and twice served as President of the Virginia NAACP in the 1950s.

Henderson was born in southwest Washington, D.C., on November 24, 1883. His father, William Henderson, was a day laborer and his mother Louisa taught him to read at an early age. He often reminisced about Al Jolson having been one of his playmates, as well as how he watched racial segregation grow in Washington after the turn of the century, particularly during the Woodrow Wilson administration. His grandmother Eliza Thomas Henderson had a small store in Washington, but in 1882 (the year before his birth) had moved to Falls Church, Virginia and bought a house at 121 S. Washington Street. Henderson became familiar with that area too, spending summers there and sometimes assisting at that store. The family farm, bought about a decade later, had once been part of Camp Alger. Henderson graduated from Dunbar High School, then the Miner Normal School (now known as University of the District of Columbia) in 1904.

He earned a bachelor's degree from Howard University, a master's degree from Columbia University, and a PhD in athletic training from Central Chiropractic College in Kansas City, Missouri. Henderson became the first black man to receive a National Honor Fellowship in the American Association for Health, Physical Education and Recreation. Shortly before his retirement from the D.C. Schools at age 70, Henderson also received an Alumni Achievement Award from his alma mater, Howard University.

He married Mary Ellen (Nellie) Meriwether Henderson (1886–1976), also a teacher and civil rights advocate, as well as active with the Girl Scouts and League of Women Voters. They moved to Falls Church, Virginia in 1910 shortly after their marriage, and both helped at the Henderson family store. They lived at 307 South Maple Street (originally 307 W. Fairfax Street) for decades; Edwin Henderson also took the colored streetcar line across the Potomac River to his job with the D.C. Public Schools. They also had a summer home at Highland Beach on Chesapeake Bay near Annapolis, Maryland. The Hendersons remained married for 63 years until her death, almost a year before his demise.

Upon graduating as a teacher in 1904, Henderson taught (and later directed) physical education in the D.C. public schools for five decades. During his first three summer breaks, he attended summer sessions at Harvard University to study medicine or health and physical education. There, Henderson also learned the then-new game of basketball, which he introduced to other young black men at the 12th Street (Colored) YMCA upon returning to Washington, D.C. Soon, they were playing teams from Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York. His D.C. teams (Howard University adopted the 12th street team as its first varsity basketball team) won the national basketball championships in 1909 and 1910.

From those early years through the 1950s, Henderson also played and coached basketball, as well as refereed football and baseball contests and occasionally sparred in the boxing ring. He helped organize the first all-black amateur athletic association, the Interscholastic Athletic Association (1906), the Washington, D.C., Public School Athletic League (1906) and the Eastern Board of Officials (1905) (a training center that, for decades was the go-to pool for highly qualified African American referees). Henderson taught and influenced perhaps hundreds of thousands of Washington area schoolchildren in basketball, including Duke Ellington and Charles Drew.

From 1926 until 1954, Henderson directed physical education for African American children in the segregated Washington, D.C., school system. He used sports to combat truancy, as well as instill character, forming teams in each fifth and sixth grade classroom. In 1943 his contributions were recognized by his being named to the National Council on Physical Fitness and the subcommittee on colleges and schools of the National Committee on Physical Fitness. Henderson retired shortly after the Brown v. Board of Education decision made segregated schooling obsolete, so the position evaporated, but he was made a fellow of the American Association for Health, Physical Education and Recreation.

During World War II, Henderson helped train Army recruits. In the 1940s, Henderson also advocated for civil rights, including for interracial athletic competitions. Among the battles he fought in the 1940s was picketing the Uline Arena (originally a hockey venue and later called the "Washington Coliseum"), because the Uline would not allow African Americans and Whites to compete against each other. After hearing the AAU Golden Gloves Boxing competitions were to be held at the Uline, Henderson encouraged picketing until Eugene Meyer, publisher of The Washington Post, withdraw his support for holding the event there. Efforts by Henderson and Meyer ultimately led to the AAU allowing integrated boxing in the District of Columbia.