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Joe Louis
Joseph Louis Barrow, best known as Joe Louis was an American professional boxer who competed from 1934 to 1951. He reigned as the world heavyweight champion from 1937 to 1949,
and is considered to be one of the greatest heavyweight boxers of all time. Nicknamed the "Brown Bomber", Louis' championship reign lasted 140 consecutive months, during which he participated in 26 championship fights.
The 27th fight, against Ezzard Charles in 1950, was a challenge for Charles' heavyweight title and so is not included in Louis' reign. He was victorious in 25 title defenses, second only to Julio César Chávez with 27.
In 2005, Louis was ranked as the best heavyweight of all time by the International Boxing Research Organization, and was ranked number one on The Ring magazine's list of the "100 greatest punchers of all time".
Louis' cultural impact was felt well outside the ring. He is widely regarded as the first African American to achieve the status of a nationwide hero within the United States,
and was also a focal point of anti-Nazi sentiment leading up to and during World War II. He was instrumental in integrating the game of golf,
breaking the sport's color barrier in America by appearing under a sponsor's exemption in a PGA event in 1952. Detroit's Joe Louis Arena, former home of the Detroit Red Wings of the National Hockey League,
and the Forest Preserve District of Cook County's Joe Louis "The Champ" Golf Course, situated south of Chicago in Riverdale, Illinois, are named in his honor.
Early life
Born in rural Chambers County, Alabama, Louis was the seventh of eight children of Munroe Barrow and Lillie Barrow. He weighed 11 lb at birth. Both of his parents were children of former slaves,
alternating between sharecropping and rental farming. Munroe was predominantly African American, with some white ancestry, while Lillie was half Cherokee. Louis spent 12 years growing up in rural Alabama,
where little is known of his childhood. He suffered from a speech impediment and spoke very little until about the age of six. Munroe Barrow was committed to a mental institution in 1916 and, as a result,
Joe knew very little of his biological father. Around 1920, Louis's mother married Pat Brooks, a local construction contractor, having received word that Munroe Barrow had died while institutionalized. In 1926,
shaken by a gang of white men in the Ku Klux Klan, Louis's family moved to Detroit, Michigan, forming part of the post-World War I Great Migration. Joe's brother worked for Ford Motor Company
and the family settled into a home at 2700 Catherine Street in Detroit's Black Bottom neighborhood. Louis attended Bronson Vocational School for a time to learn cabinet-making.
Amateur career
The Great Depression hit the Barrow family hard, but as an alternative to gang activity, Joe began to spend time at a local youth recreation center at 637 Brewster Street in Detroit.
His mother attempted to get him interested in playing the violin. Legend has it that he tried to hide his pugilistic ambitions from his mother by carrying his boxing gloves inside his violin case.
Louis made his debut in early 1932 at the age of 17. Legend has it that before the fight, the barely literate Louis wrote his name so large that there was no room for his last name, and thus became known as "Joe Louis"
for the remainder of his boxing career. More likely, Louis simply omitted his last name to keep his boxing a secret from his mother.
After this debut—a loss to future Olympian Johnny Miler—Louis compiled numerous amateur victories, eventually winning the club championship of his Brewster Street recreation centre,
the home of many aspiring Golden Gloves fighters. In 1933, Louis won the Detroit-area Golden Gloves Novice Division championship against Joe Biskey for the light heavyweight classification.
He later lost in the Chicago Golden Gloves Tournament of Champions. The next year, competing in the Golden Gloves' Open Division, he won the light heavyweight classification,
this time also winning the Chicago Tournament of Champions. However, a hand injury forced Louis to miss the New York/Chicago Champions' cross-town bout for the ultimate Golden Gloves championship. In April 1934,
he followed up his Chicago performance by winning the United States Amateur Champion National AAU tournament in St. Louis, Missouri. By the end of his amateur career, Louis's record was 50–3, with 43 knockouts.
Professional career
Joe Louis had 69 professional fights with only three losses. He tallied 52 knockouts and held the championship from 1937 to 1949, the longest span of any heavyweight titleholder. After returning from retirement,
Louis failed to regain the championship in 1950, and his career ended after he was knocked out by Rocky Marciano in 1951. The man who had been called the Brown Bomber was finished.
Early years
Louis's amateur performances attracted the interest of professional promoters, and he was soon represented by a black Detroit-area bookmaker named John Roxborough. As Louis explained in his autobiography,
Roxborough convinced the young fighter that white managers would have no real interest in seeing a black boxer work his way up to title contention: [Roxborough] told me about the fate of most black fighters,
ones with white managers, who wound up burned-out and broke before they reached their prime. The white managers were not interested in the men they were handling, but in the money they could make from them.
They didn't take the proper time to see that their fighters had a proper training, that they lived comfortably, or ate well, or had some pocket change. Mr. Roxborough was talking about Black Power before it became popular.
Roxborough knew a Chicago area boxing promoter named Julian Black who already had a stable of mediocre boxers against which Louis could hone his craft, this time in the heavyweight division.
After becoming part of the management team, Black hired fellow Chicago native Jack "Chappy" Blackburn as Louis's trainer. Louis' initial professional fights were all in the Chicago area,
his professional debut coming on July 4, 1934, against Jack Kracken in the Bacon Casino on Chicago's south side. Louis earned $59 for knocking out Kracken in the first round.
$59.00 in 1934 is equivalent to 1,098.77 in 2016 dollars. Louis won all 12 of his professional fights that year, 10 by knockout. In September 1934, while promoting a Detroit-area "coming home"
bout for Louis against Canadian Alex Borchuk, Roxborough was pressured by members of the Michigan State Boxing Commission to have Louis sign with white management. Roxborough refused
and continued advancing Louis's career with bouts against heavyweight contenders Art Sykes and Stanley Poreda. When training for a fight against Lee Ramage,
Louis noticed a young female secretary for the black newspaper at the gym. After Ramage was defeated, the secretary, Marva Trotter, was invited to the celebration party at Chicago's Grand Hotel.
Trotter later became Louis's first wife in 1935. During this time, Louis also met Truman Gibson, the man who would become his personal lawyer. As a young associate at a law firm hired by Julian Black,
Gibson was charged with personally entertaining Louis during the pendency of business deals.
Title contention
Although Louis' management was finding him bouts against legitimate heavyweight contenders, no path to the title was forthcoming. While professional boxing was not officially segregated,
many white Americans had become wary of the prospect of another black champion in the wake of Jack Johnson's highly unpopular "reign" atop the heavyweight division. During an era of severe anti-black repression,
Jack Johnson's unrepentant masculinity and marriage to a white woman engendered an enormous backlash that greatly limited opportunities of black fighters in the heavyweight division.
Black boxers were denied championship bouts, and there were few heavyweight black contenders at the time, though there were African Americans who fought for titles in other weight divisions,
and a few notable black champions, such as Tiger Flowers. Louis and his handlers would counter the legacy of Johnson by emphasizing the Brown Bomber's modesty and sportsmanship.
Biographer Gerald Astor stated that "Joe Louis' early boxing career was stalked by the specter of Jack Johnson". If Louis were to rise to national prominence among such cultural attitudes,
a change in management would be necessary. In 1935, boxing promoter Mike Jacobs sought out Louis' handlers. After Louis' narrow defeat of Natie Brown on March 29, 1935, Jacobs and the Louis team met at the Frog Club,
a black nightclub, and negotiated a three-year exclusive boxing promotion deal. The contract, however, did not keep Roxborough and Black from attempting to cash in as Louis' managers; when Louis turned 21 on May 13, 1935,
Roxborough and Black each signed Louis to an onerous long-term contract that collectively dedicated half of Louis' future income to the pair. Black and Roxborough continued to carefully
and deliberately shape Louis' media image. Mindful of the tremendous public backlash Johnson had suffered for his unapologetic attitude and flamboyant lifestyle, they drafted "Seven Commandments"
for Louis' personal conduct. These included: As a result, Louis was generally portrayed in the white media as a modest, clean-living person, which facilitated his burgeoning celebrity status.
With the backing of major promotion, Louis fought thirteen times in 1935. The bout that helped put him in the media spotlight occurred on June 25, when Louis knocked out 6'6",
265-pound former world heavyweight champion Primo Carnera in six rounds. Foreshadowing the Louis–Schmeling rivalry to come, the Carnera bout featured a political dimension. Louis' victory over Carnera,
who symbolized Benito Mussolini's regime in the popular eye, was seen as a victory for the international community, particularly among African Americans, who were sympathetic to Ethiopia,
which was attempting to maintain its independence by fending off an invasion by fascist Italy. America's white press began promoting Louis' image in the context of the era's racism;
nicknames they created included the "Mahogany Mauler", "Chocolate Chopper", "Coffee-Colored KO King", "Safari Sandman", and one that stuck: "The Brown Bomber".
Helping the white press to overcome its reluctance to feature a black contender was the fact that in the mid-1930s boxing desperately needed a marketable hero. Since the retirement of Jack Dempsey in 1929,
the sport had devolved into a sordid mixture of poor athletes, gambling, fixed fights, thrown matches, and control of the sport by organized crime. New York Times Columnist Edward Van Ness wrote,
"Louis.is a boon to boxing. Just as Dempsey led the sport out of the doldrums.so is Louis leading the boxing game out of a slump." Likewise,
biographer Bill Libby asserted that "The sports world was hungry for a great champion when Louis arrived in New York in 1935." 	 	 While the mainstream press was beginning to embrace Louis,
many still opposed the prospect of another black heavyweight champion. In September 1935, on the eve of Louis' fight with former titleholder Max Baer,
Washington Post sportswriter Shirley Povich wrote about some Americans' hopes for the white contender,
"They say Baer will surpass himself in the knowledge that he is the lone white hope for the defense of Nordic superiority in the prize ring." However, the hopes of white suprematists would soon be dashed.
Although Baer had been knocked down only once before in his professional career, Louis dominated the former champion, knocking him out in the fourth round. Unknowingly,
Baer suffered from a unique disadvantage in the fight; earlier that evening, Louis had married Marva Trotter at a friend's apartment and was eager to end the fight in order to consummate the relationship. Later that year,
Louis also knocked out Paolino Uzcudun, who had never been knocked down before.
Louis vs. Schmeling I
 [^]  By this time, Louis was ranked as the No. 1 contender in the heavyweight division and had won the Associated Press' "Athlete of the Year" award for 1935.
What was considered to be a final tune-up bout before an eventual title shot was scheduled for June 1936 against Max Schmeling. Although a former world heavyweight champion, Schmeling was not considered a threat to Louis,
then with a professional record of 27–0. Schmeling had won his title on a technicality when Jack Sharkey was disqualified after giving Schmeling a low blow in 1930.
Schmeling was also 30 years old at the time of the Louis bout and allegedly past his prime. Louis' training retreat was located at Lakewood, New Jersey, where he was first able to practice the game of golf,
which would later become a lifelong passion. Noted entertainer Ed Sullivan had initially sparked Louis' interest in the sport by giving an instructional book to Joe's wife Marva.
Louis spent significant time on the golf course rather than training for the match. Conversely, Schmeling prepared intently for the bout. He had thoroughly studied Louis's style and believed he had found a weakness.
By exploiting Louis's habit of dropping his left hand low after a jab, Schmeling handed Louis his first professional loss by knocking him out in round 12 at Yankee Stadium on June 19, 1936.
World championship
After defeating Louis, Schmeling expected a title shot against James J. Braddock, who had unexpectedly defeated Max Baer for the heavyweight title the previous June.
Madison Square Garden had a contract with Braddock for the title defense and also sought a Braddock–Schmeling title bout. But Jacobs and Braddock's manager Joe Gould had been planning a Braddock–Louis matchup for months.
 [^]  Schmeling's victory gave Gould tremendous leverage, however. If he were to offer Schmeling the title chance instead of Louis,
there was a very real possibility that Nazi authorities would never allow Louis a shot at the title. Gould's demands were therefore onerous: Jacobs would have to pay 10% of all future boxing promotion profits for ten years.
Braddock and Gould would eventually receive more than $150,000 from this arrangement. Well before the actual fight, Jacobs and Gould publicly announced that their fighters would fight for the heavyweight title on June 22,
1937. Figuring that the New York State Athletic Commission would not sanction the fight in deference to MSG and Schmeling, Jacobs scheduled the fight for Chicago.
Each of the parties involved worked to facilitate the controversial Braddock–Louis matchup. Louis did his part by knocking out former champion Jack Sharkey on August 18, 1936. Meanwhile,
Gould trumped up anti-Nazi sentiment against Schmeling, and Jacobs defended a lawsuit by MSG to halt the Braddock–Louis fight. A federal court in Newark, New Jersey,
eventually ruled that Braddock's contractual obligation to stage his title defense at MSG was unenforceable for lack of mutual consideration. The stage was set for Louis's title shot. On the night of the fight, June 22,
1937, Braddock was able to knock Louis down in round one, but afterward could accomplish little. After inflicting constant punishment, Louis defeated Braddock in round eight,
knocking him out cold with a strong right hand that busted James' teeth through his gum shield and lip and sent him to the ground for a few minutes. It was the first and only time that Braddock was knocked out.
Louis's ascent to the world heavyweight championship was complete. Louis's victory was a seminal moment in African American history. Thousands of African Americans stayed up all night across the country in celebration.
Noted author and member of the Harlem Renaissance Langston Hughes described Louis's effect in these terms: Each time Joe Louis won a fight in those depression years, even before he became champion,
thousands of black Americans on relief or W.P.A., and poor, would throng out into the streets all across the land to march and cheer and yell and cry, because of Joe's one-man triumphs.
No one else in the United States has ever had such an effect on Negro emotions—or on mine. I marched and cheered and yelled and cried, too.
Initial title defenses
Despite his championship, Louis was haunted by the earlier defeat to Schmeling. Shortly after winning the title, he was quoted as saying, "I don't want to be called champ until I whip Max Schmeling."
Louis's manager Mike Jacobs attempted to arrange a rematch in 1937, but negotiations broke down when Schmeling demanded 30% of the gate.
When Schmeling instead attempted to arrange for a fight against British Empire champion Tommy Farr,
known as the "Tonypandy Terror",—ostensibly for a world championship to rival the claims of American boxing authorities—Jacobs outmaneuvered him, offering Farr a guaranteed $60,000 to fight Louis instead.
The offer was too lucrative for Farr to turn down. On August 30, 1937, after a postponement of four days due to rain, Louis
and Farr finally touched gloves at New York's Yankee Stadium before a crowd of approximately 32,000. Louis fought one of the hardest battles of his life. The bout was closely contested and went the entire 15 rounds,
with Louis being unable to knock Farr down. Referee Arthur Donovan was even seen shaking Farr's hand after the bout, in apparent congratulation. Nevertheless, after the score was announced,
Louis had won a controversial unanimous decision. Time described the scene thus: "After collecting the judges' votes, referee Arthur Donovan announced that Louis had won the fight on points.
The crowd of 50,000.amazed that Farr had not been knocked out or even knocked down, booed the decision." It seems the crowd believed that referee Arthur Donovan, Sr. had raised Farr's glove in victory. Seven years later,
in his published account of the fight, Donovan spoke of the "mistake" that may have led to this confusion. He wrote: As Tommy walked back to his corner after shaking Louis' hand, I followed him and seized his glove.
"Tommy, a wonderful perform—" I began. Then I dropped his hand like a red-hot coal! He had started to raise his arm. He thought I had given him the fight and the world championship! I literally ran away, shaking my head
and shouting. "No! No! No!" realising how I had raised his hopes for a few seconds only to dash them to the ground.
That's the last time my emotions will get the better of me in a prize fight! There was much booing at the announced result, but, as I say it, it was all emotional. I gave Tommy two rounds
and one even—and both his winning rounds were close. Speaking over the radio after the fight, Louis admitted that he had been hurt twice. In preparation for the inevitable rematch with Schmeling,
Louis tuned up with bouts against Nathan Mann and Harry Thomas.
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