Joe Louis
Introduction
Within the chapters of African-American history, there are those individuals who stand out not only for what they did to advance African-Americans in a nation which had a sad tradition of discrimination, but for what they did as a credit to their nation overall, despite the lack of mutual respect. This research will not only discuss the life and achievements of Joe Louis, one of the greatest American athletes of any race, but will also take a look at some of the larger issues surrounding this larger than life legend of sport and culture.
Early Life of a Future Champion
It has been said that life is a journey and not a destination; in other words, each experience and event in one’s life helps to shape life itself. With this in mind, an examination of the early life of Joe Louis helps to understand how he developed his fighting spirit.
The man who would later be known as simply Joe Louis was born on May 13, 1914 in an Alabama sharecropper shack as Joseph Louis Barrow, the seventh child of Monroe and Lily Barrow. Circumstances in young Joseph’s life undoubtedly shaped his future; one of the most devastating events of his young life occurred when his father, long plagued by psychological problems, suffered a complete mental breakdown and was committed to a Mobile, Alabama mental hospital, where he eventually died (Guide to the Julian Black Scrapbooks of Joe Louis). While something of this nature is of course a living nightmare for a young, poor boy like Joe Louis Barrow certainly was, it is fair to say, and will now be explained, how the death of Louis’ father played a pivotal role in the cycle of events that led to the fame and fortune that Louis would eventually achieve.
The Brown Bomber
Young Joe Louis Barrow would not remain fatherless for long; in 1924, when Joe was 10, his mother remarried, and the family relocated to Detroit, Michigan in order for his stepfather to escape the rampant racism of Alabama and find work in the burgeoning American automotive industry. Joe had very little interest in his studies at school, but beneath the surface, there was something inside of him that he longed to express in some way. From as long back as he could remember, his southern upbringing was full of the worst kinds of racism and discrimination that a prejudiced United States could muster, complete with segregated public places and transportation, schools and the like. Also, even as the 20th century dawned and the nation felt as a whole that the wounds of the Civil War were finally beginning to heal, groups like the Ku Klux Klan were still quite active in the Alabama of the early 1900s, and Joe certainly either witnessed beatings and lynching of African-Americans, or surely was in contact with people who had (Corbould). It was all of this, in combination with grinding poverty and the lack of a mentally stable father figure that made Joe want to truly fight back. While many of his peers were doing this through the acting out in illegal ways such as street violence and petty crime, whether by fate or sheer coincidence, young Joe was first exposed to boxing by his close boyhood friend Thurston McKinney, who himself took amateur boxing lessons at a local gymnasium. It seems that young Joe took an immediate liking to boxing, and wished to learn more about it by training at this gym, but there was one obstacle- the money that it would cost in order to belong to the gym and partake in the lessons. Ever the determined fighter, Joe convinced his mother to pay for violin lessons, when in reality; he was using the money to finance his early training in the ring, unwittingly setting himself on the path to an unbelievable future.
The transformation from Joe Louis Barrow to simply Joe Louis likewise came from the effort to conceal his fighting from his mother; in an effort to conceal his amateur boxing career and save his mother from worry, the “ring name” Joe Louis was created. In time, he would become known as “The Brown Bomber” because of his devastating punches and ability to virtually destroy his opponents (Guide to the Julian Black Scrapbooks of Joe Louis).
At this point, the career of Joe Louis deserves more discussion. Going back to the days of Louis’ amateur career, Joe eventually began working in the automotive plants of Detroit and training/fighting in his spare time. Admittedly, his early amateur fights resulted in few victories, but there was something in his ring presence that caught the attention of Jack Blackburn, a former African-American lightweight fighter and master boxing trainer. With Blackburn’s help, Louis was able to gain his first substantial boxing win, the 1934 National AAU light heavyweight championship in St. Louis. He ultimately finished his amateur career with 50 wins and only 4 losses, never having been knocked out.
Mirroring Louis’ amateur career, his professional career started off slowly, but eventually became spectacular. For example, Louis’ professional boxing debut against a fighter names Jack Kracken resulted in a purse of a mere $50. Eventually, however, his growing popularity and skill resulted in net earnings of $300,000 in his first 2 years of professional fighting, going against the advice of his friends who felt that because of his success as an amateur, he should have remained an amateur and continued to work in the automotive plants as a means of guaranteeing a steady paycheck. Louis, however, had bigger dreams and followed them. By 1935, Louis had married Marva Trotter; the year 1935 was also pivotal for him, as it was in September of that year that he knocked out Max Baer, representing a huge win in a career that was on the rise to be sure.
The 1930s saw the rise of Adolf Hitler and his avocation of racial purity, one of the most extreme forms of racism that the world had ever seen. This seems to have stirred up some painful memories for Joe Louis, and in 1936, he agreed to fight German champion Max Schmelling. The fight, if Louis could win it, would not only dispel the myth of white supremacy, but would also deal a crushing blow to Hitler’s fanatical plans. Unfortunately, Louis lost to Schmelling, leaving within him the feeling that he had let down his fellow Americans. However, Louis never got anywhere by staying down for the count, and he soon was able to reclaim his pride and once again serve his nation and his race (Corbould).
By the end of 1941, the United States was mired in World War II on two fronts. Ever the fighter, Joe Louis enlisted in the US Army in 1942, eventually becoming an athletic training and using his unique fighting abilities to serve his nation. In this capacity, Louis was able to achieve several ends: first, he was able to fulfill his patriotic duty to serve his nation in a time of war; second, he brought entertainment to millions of enlisted men who needed an escape from the daily deprivations of war; also, Louis used his fame and connections within the Army to help many African-Americans to advance in the military ranks, overcoming the prejudice that was present even in the face of national crisis (Miller, et al). This seems to be a proud pattern in Louis’ professional career- he used his abilities not only to reach the highest levels of professional boxing, but he also used that status to fight racism, advance the cause of African-American equality, and help others whenever he could.
In 1945, his military career behind him, Joe Louis was able to retire as heavyweight champion and enjoy the bragging rights of a fabulous career. Over the course of Louis’ career, he won 69 of 72 fights: 54 by knockout 13 by decision, and 1 disqualification (Miller, et al). In the end, Louis, bankrupt and suffering from many of the mental infirmities that haunted his father, died of a heart attack on April 12, 1982 (Starling). Today, decades after Louis’ death and many more decades after his professional career, there is a proud legacy that deserves more explanation.
Throughout this research, the recurring theme has been Louis’ role as a sort of superhero for African-Americans, and this is quite a true statement. With each punch Louis delivered to his opponents, he was scoring a win for the cause of racial equality and an attempt to knock out discrimination once and for all. Joe Louis had always done this, from his days as a poor sharecropper’s son to the days as heavyweight champion and war hero.
Conclusion
In conclusion, after the research, it is accurate to say that not only was Joe Louis a great athlete from any viewpoint, but is also a hero of the African-American tradition. He gave freely of his talents to advance the cause of his nation as well as his race. In the end, while he laid claim to very few worldly goods, he will forever be able to hold claim on a chapter in the history of sport as well as the history of America and the history of triumph over the hatred and prejudice that haunted him.
Works Cited
Corbould, C. (2007). Streets, Sounds and Identity in Interwar Harlem. Journal of Social History, 40(4), 859+.
Guide to the Julian Black Scrapbooks of Joe Louis. Retrieved November 14, 2008 from the World Wide Web: http://americanhistory.si.edu/archives/d9002c.htm
Miller, P. B. & Wiggins, D. K. (Eds.). (2004). Sport and the Color Line: Black Athletes and Race Relations in Twentieth-Century America. New York: Routledge.
Starling, K. (1998, May). Why $Tars Go Broke. Ebony, 53, 58+.
Van Deburg, W. L. (1997). Black Camelot: African-American Culture Heroes in Their Times, 1960-1980. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
