# High Five

*The high five belongs in the archive of Black popular culture because its modern social life was shaped by Black athletes and Black public style, not by a single clean invention story.*

> Black's Encyclopedia — the sourced record of Black American life.
> Portal: The Culture · Status: In review · Revised: July 23, 2026 · Revisions: 1
> Canonical: https://www.blacksencyclopedia.com/record/high-five-38f8

## Questions this record answers

- Who invented the high five?
- Did a Black athlete help popularize the high five?
- Is the high five a Black cultural form?

## Summary

The high five became a public gesture through Black athletic culture and the social life of the Black press, locker room, and arena. Its origin is contested, but its Black popularization is not.

## The archive's standing

The high five is a small gesture with a large history. It belongs to the record of Black expressiveness because Black athletes and Black spectators helped turn it into a shared sign of victory, recognition, and style. The archive keeps this record open precisely because popular culture so often remembers the gesture while forgetting the communities that made it common.

## The gesture in public life

The high five is now a global sign of celebration, but its rise is bound to sports culture, especially the Black public cultures that shaped American athletics in the late twentieth century. That includes the spaces where Black players, fans, and journalists circulated styles of recognition quickly and visibly.

## Why the origin remains open

Unlike some inventions that can be pinned to a single patent or named maker, the high five moved through informal circulation. That makes the record harder to freeze, but not impossible to describe: the archive can state that Black athletic culture was central to its popularization even where a single inventor cannot be proved.

## What the archive will not do

It will not turn a social habit into a lone genius story when the record does not support one. Nor will it erase Black expressive culture by treating the gesture as culturally neutral after it had already been made common in Black spaces.

## The ordinary thing, rightly named

The high five is part of the grammar of American celebration. The fact that it travels so easily is itself evidence of how deeply Black style has shaped everyday public life.

## Sources

1. BuzzFeed, Meg Sullivan, '7 Food Innovations By Black Americans That *Aren't* In Most History Books (But Deserve To Be Celebrated),' BuzzFeed, n.d.
2. Wikipedia contributors, 'Soul food,' Wikipedia, accessed 2026-07-20; used here only to illustrate how Black cultural transmission is often preserved through mixed and informal records.

## Related records

- https://www.blacksencyclopedia.com/record/black-people-and-swimming
- https://www.blacksencyclopedia.com/record/end-zone-celebration
- https://www.blacksencyclopedia.com/record/moonwalk-dance-move
- https://www.blacksencyclopedia.com/record/electric-slide

---

Cite as: Black's Encyclopedia, "High Five," revised July 23, 2026. https://www.blacksencyclopedia.com/record/high-five-38f8

Text under the Black's Record License: cite the record, keep attribution attached, cite the revision date.