Jeannine Kayembe Oro is combining her two passions to launch the Black Women’s Basketball Museum

If only a few of Jeannine Kayembe Oro’s former coaches could see her now.

The California native loved various sports growing up, but developed a special affinity for basketball that a few of her early coaches believed clashed with her first love: art.

On Wednesday at the Alan Horwitz “Sixth Man” Center, Oro’s passions will collide when her vast collection of Black women’s basketball history, which includes autographed memorabilia, photography, and historical artifacts, will be launched as the Black Women’s Basketball Museum.

“I could just laugh in my coach’s face right now,” Oro, 35, said during a phone interview. “He told me, ‘No way. Those two worlds will never intersect.’”

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Wednesday’s event, which begins at 5 p.m., is billed as a National Girls & Women in Sports Day and a Black History Month event.

It also is a collaboration between Philadelphia Youth Basketball, where Oro is a mentor and coach, and Watch Party PHL.

The evening includes a women in sports panel with Philadelphia legend Yolanda Laney, for whom a street in West Philly recently was dedicated, former Temple star and current assistant coach Shenita Landry, and Lillian Penn, a standout at Cheyney University and current Parkway Center City coach. According to a press release, the panel will discuss how each has navigated a “male-dominated industry” and helped to elevate the women’s game.

Following the panel discussion, food will be provided, basketball will be played, and Watch Party PHL will host a night of watching women’s college basketball, featuring Southern California against Wisconsin, among other games.

“It’s really a chance to open the door to the Sixth Man Center for some women-specific programming,” Oro said.

The museum will feature pieces ranging from autographed Dawn Staley items, signed jerseys, pieces from historic basketball courts, vintage pins, photographs, research, and more.

Oro began collecting around 11 years old, when former Los Angeles Sparks WNBA champion Mwadi Mabika, who also is Congolese, gave Oro a game-worn jersey, a practice shirt, and a Beanie Baby.

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Oro played her high school ball just outside Los Angeles, but says early coaches told her she’d eventually have to choose between basketball and art.

She needed art like she needed air, Oro explained, so the choice was simple.

But her passion for basketball remained as she developed her artistry, which includes poetry, painting, photography, writing, and music.

Philadelphia’s poetry scene drew her to the East Coast in her 20s. Following a trip New Orleans, where she visited an urban farm once owned by Nat Turner, Oro returned to Philly and cofounded Life Do Grow Urban Farm, which farmed land in North Philadelphia between York and Dauphin streets.

She still plays basketball in leagues across the city, but Oro also remains passionate about coaching, learning, and collecting the history of Black women’s basketball.

That includes research on the Philadelphia Tribune Girls, an all-Black team that played during the 1930s and 1940s. It also includes the current culture of women’s basketball at various levels.

“When I saw the trend becoming more inclusive of more masculine, queen Black women,” she said, “I was like, ‘Oh, there’s something here, and who is tracking this history of ours?’ I’m down to keep this history, because I just love it so much and it’s a part of my history as well.”