Joe Louis was not only one of the greatest boxing champions in history and a hero who broke social boundaries. After his resignation, his life was less happy.
His legend is still larger than life, his fist alone measures 7 by 7 meters and weighs over 2000 tons.
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“The Fist,” the monument commemorating boxing icon Joe Louis, has stood in downtown Detroit since 1986 and has long since become a memorable landmark in the city where the former heavyweight world champion grew up.
Louis – who would have turned 100 this year – reigned as heavyweight world champion for twelve years, and he also achieved monumental stature as an African-American symbolic and heroic figure of politically turbulent times, both nationally and internationally.
73 years ago today, Louis’ great career ended with a painfully clear defeat against another legend. Even more painful was the social decline that befell the sports idol before his rather early death.
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Joe Louis came from a desperately poor background
Joseph Louis Barrow, as his real name was, was born on May 13, 1914 in Alabama in the southern United States, into extremely poor and difficult circumstances, at a time when racism was still official state policy in the area.
Louis’ grandparents were still slaves, his parents were propertyless farmers. Joe’s father Munroe had mental problems and was committed to a mental institution when Joe was two (and died in 1938, unaware of his son’s fame – mother Lillie married another man because she was misinformed that Munroe had a lot would have died earlier).
As part of the “Great Migration” after the First World War, the family moved north to Detroit – because of the professional opportunities in the industrialized “Motor City” (Joe worked for a while in the local Ford factory) and because of a violent gang in Alabama the Ku Klux Klan threatened the family.
The young Joe – who only learned to read and write late – also experienced many hardships in Detroit as a result of the “Great Depression”, the great economic crisis resulting from the famous stock market crash of 1929. The opportunity for advancement came through his boxing talent, which he discovered early on.
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Louis was marketed to please the white majority
Joe Louis (he probably gave up his actual last name in order to initially hide his boxing career from his mother) attracted attention as a talented amateur in the early thirties, and made his professional debut in 1934.
Louis was discovered by black promoter duo John Roxborough and Julian Black, who convinced the young Louis that they had a sustainable career plan for him. “The white managers were not really interested in their black charges, only in the quick money they could make from them,” Louis wrote in his autobiography.
Roxborough and Black knew that Louis’ career path at that time did not only depend on sporting criteria, but that he also had to earn the social acceptance of the white majority.
Louis was prescribed a modest demeanor; he was never supposed to be the showman who mocked his opponents – like Muhammad Ali a few decades later. The racist dimension of the self-imposed rules of conduct was also expressed in the ban on being photographed with white women. Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion in 1908, enraged the audience of the era with his self-confident, dazzling appearance and his marriage to a white woman – something that, according to widespread opinion at the time, a black man was not entitled to.
Max Schmeling‘s lesson
The marketing of Louis as a counter-model to Johnson worked; the “Brown Bomber,” as he was half-reverently, half-disrespectfully called by the predominantly white press, gained the expected acceptance. The fact that boxing America had been thirsting for a new, great champion since Jack Dempsey’s retirement in 1929 also helped significantly.
In 1935, Louis came closer to his intended title fight with victories over former champions Primo Carnera and Max Baer. And the sensational defeat in the fight against the German icon Max Schmeling ultimately didn’t set Louis back.
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The politically charged defeat against the man from Hitler’s Germany (even though he was distant from the Nazi regime) shortly before the Second World War was instructive for Louis: the veteran Schmeling had found and exploited a weak point in Louis’s life – his tendency to make the left follow his Dropping jabs and thereby neglecting cover. Louis had also developed a bit of laziness in training, which saved him from the embarrassment against Schmeling.
Louis’ World Cup win was a historic big bang
Despite the defeat, Louis got a title fight in 1937 against the undisputed world champion at the time – before the era of divided associations – James J. Braddock. The eight-round knockout with which Louis Braddock defeated Madison Square Garden in New York was a sporting and social big bang, the historical significance of which cannot be overestimated.
Joe Louis became the first widely recognized black sports idol in American history – and an absolute folk hero of the African-American community.
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Louis reigned as champion for an incredible twelve years, defending the title 25 times – both records that remain unmatched to this day. And that wasn’t the only thing that cemented his status as a heroic figure who overcame social barriers.
A folk hero beyond sport
In 1938, Louis clearly won the long-awaited rematch against conqueror Schmeling at Yankee Stadium and thus also won a propaganda battle a year before the Second World War, which US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, among others, personally swore at him. Similar to Jesse Owens’ triumph at the Olympics in Berlin two years earlier, Louis’ revenge was also a symbolic victory over racial ideology – not just that of Hitler’s Germany.
A few weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which brought the USA into the war, Louis enrolled in the US Army (where racial segregation was still in force), thereby raising troop morale and respect for himself and other African-American soldiers – which was a factor in boosting the civil rights movement after the war. Incidentally, hobby golfer Louis also helped the racist “color line” to fall in this sport through his presence.
Louis’ sporting star fell after the war. At the end of 1947, only a controversial referee decision saved him from the impending loss of the title against challenger “Jersey” Joe Walcott. Louis won the rematch more clearly, but it was obvious that the now 34-year-old was no longer his old self. He resigned in 1949.
Horrific tax debts forced a comeback
The aging hero’s retirement didn’t last long, Louis came back – not voluntarily: Because Louis had placed his financial affairs in the wrong hands, the tax office discovered massive evasion and a horrendous tax debt of $500,000 during a tax audit.
At the time, it was ruinous for Louis: his comeback was part of a deal with the US IRS, which took all the profits. Louis was no longer able to build on the golden times: a world championship fight against the new champion Ezzard Charles was clearly lost, as was the last fight against the up-and-coming phenomenon Rocky Marciano on October 26, 1951. (Rocky Marciano: His historic triumph and his tragic death crash)
Louis’ farewell tour did not help him get out of tax debts, which, among other things, led to the authorities confiscating his late mother’s inheritance. After finally retiring, Louis had to look for other sources of money: He took jobs as a wrestler (and when that was no longer possible: as a wrestling referee), and at times he even worked as a tourist attraction for a hotel in Las Vegas, greeting passers-by.
Schmeling shows his heart
What saved Louis from an even deeper fall was his continued popularity and people who meant well for him – including other ex-boxing greats such as Sonny Liston and ex-rival Schmeling, with whom Louis developed an unlikely friendship. Schmeling helped Louis, who was married four times, several times when he was in need of money.
In the last years of his life, Louis’ health declined, partly as a result of drug problems. He suffered psychological problems, heart failure and strokes. On April 12, 1981 – a few hours after watching the world championship fight between Larry Holmes and Trevor Berbick as a spectator, Louis died of a heart attack at the age of 66.
US President Ronald Reagan ordered a hero’s funeral for Louis at Arlington Military Cemetery. Schmeling paid part of the funeral costs and served as a pallbearer for one of the greatest boxers and athletes in history.
