Traces Cummings, and One of President Roosevelt’S Sons

John Muhs Hometown Hero?: Te Detroit Reaction to Joe Louis

When heavyweight boxers Joe Louis and Max Schmeling squared of in Yankee Stadium on the evening of June 22, 1938, the stakes were high. New York had become a mecca for boxing enthusiasts, and 70,000 fans packed Yankee Stadium to make the fght the frst million- dollar gate since Louis defeated Max Baer in 1935. In attendance were former boxing champs Jack Johnson, Gene Tunney, Jack Dempsey, and James J. Braddock. Also in the stadium that night were celebrities like Louis Armstrong, Gary Cooper, Duke Ellington, Clark Gable, Gregory Peck, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, United States Attorney General Homertraces Cummings, and one of President Roosevelt’s sons. Despite the presence of the glitterati, the crowd was a smorgasbord of race and class. Te lower classes, including most of the 20,000 blacks in attendance, occupied the bleachers and upper-level seats, while the big shots and well-to-do appeared closer in. Hundreds more who couldn’t get a ticket sat atop roofops beyond centerfeld. Across the country, an estimated seventy million listeners, almost as many as those who listened to President Roosevelt’s formal speeches, gathered around radios to listen to the broadcast. Te rest of the world had its eyes and ears on Yankee 86 John Muhs

Stadium as well. Foreign press gathered to write newspaper reports and to announce radio broadcasts in English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and French. At around 10:00 p.m., just before the fnal introductions and opening bell, Ed Torgersen, radio announcer for NBC, simply said, “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Te two principals in the greatest bout in a generation are in the ring.”1 Te German Schmeling, considered by many to be the best heavyweight in the world afer knocking out the “Brown Bomber” from Detroit in their initial bout two years prior, had his sights set on Louis’s title belt, while Louis was determined to avenge what was at the time his only professional defeat. Te Louis-Schmeling personal rivalry was ferce and had deepened since their last encounter. Te defeated Louis, not the victorious Schmeling, was controversially given the opportunity to fght an aging and arthritic James J. Braddock for the heavyweight title in 1937, mostly due to his greater star power and ticket-selling ability. Schmeling and the rest of Germany, including future Schmeling admirer and associate Adolf Hitler, cried foul and accused the United States of corruption and greed. Louis went on to defeat the “Cinderella Man” Braddock to become the frst black champion since Jack Johnson lost his crown in 1915. However, he was not unanimously crowned the best prizefghter in the world, with his loss to Schmeling still fresh in people’s minds. Tus when Louis and Schmeling met in 1938, both fghters had something to prove. Yet the fght was far more than just a championship sporting event with palpable personal and racial drama. It was an international event with strong political overtones as well. Both prizefghters had become national standard-bearers. In the context of pre-World War II developments, it was a battle between fascism and democracy. On fght night, Schmeling was a lightning rod for anti-German sentiment in the United States. Walking out of the dugout to the ring, he was pelted by ashtrays, banana peels, and cigarette butts, despite an escort of twenty-fve policemen.2 Boxing historians have studied in depth the phenomenon of Louis’s rise to superstardom. Lewis Erenberg’s Te Greatest Fight of Our Generation

1 Lewis Erenberg, The Greatest Fight of Our Generation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 136; David Margolick, Beyond Glory (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 287-289. 2 Margolick, 293. 87 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

ofers a vivid portrait of Joe Louis, Max Schmeling, their careers, and their two epic fghts, shedding light on what these fghters represented to their nations and why their second bout took on such international importance. David Margolick also has written a comprehensive historical report of the Louis-Schmeling rivalry in Beyond Glory. Erenberg and Margolick both show how Louis went from being a hero of his race to being the frst black champion embraced by all Americans, an important step in United States race relations. Boxing historian Jefrey T. Sammonshas has given this phenomenon a regional fair in his essay “Boxing as a Refection of Society: Te Southern Reaction to Joe Louis.” But the extant research has paid little attention to Detroit citizens’ reaction to Louis at three key points in his career—the 1936 bout with Schmeling, the 1937 title fght against Braddock, and the 1938 Schmeling rematch. A city of immigrants with a complex racial history that keenly felt both the economic boom of the 1920s and the Depression of the 1930s, Detroit is a bellwether city for historical events of early twentieth century America. With large mainstream newspapers and a black press of its own, the city where Louis spent his late childhood and got his start as a boxer is the focus of this essay. Te Detroit area has been home to a large German-American population from the early nineteenth century to this day. Te frst immigrants came early in Michigan’s history when the state was promoted as an ideal home for farmers and settlers, in an attempt to promote population growth. Detroit was also one of the centers of the twentieth-century demographic shif that brought hundreds of thousands of poor Americans, black and white, north from the Jim Crow South. Racial tensions in Chicago during the twentieth century at times led to violence, with two notable riots in 1943 and 1967. With such a history, the city is a ftting place to study the competing pressures of patriotism, racial identity, and ethnic pride in the context of an international sporting spectacle. Joe Louis is an especially interesting case, as Louis was a participant in the so-called “Great Migration” and was in many ways an everyman of the generation, with his humble beginnings, down-to-earth persona, and desire to serve in combat in World War II. Despite this hometown appeal, the Detroit newspapers were unwilling to recognize Louis as the city’s frst black national hero. Indeed, contemporary reporters did not trumpet his standard-bearing qualities, neither in the build-up nor the afermath of his marquee bouts. Te complex

88 John Muhs ethnographic dynamics of the Motor City inhibited the local media’s willingness to recognize the racial or political implications of Louis’s three most important fghts. Te tempered media response therefore provides insight into the political tensions and the ethnic sensitivities of the times, both local and international.

Joe Louis’s Early Life and Career Born on May 13, 1914, near Lafayette, Alabama, a small town in the Buckalew Mountains, Joseph Louis Barrow was the seventh of eight children of a sharecropper named Munroe Barrow and his wife, Lillie Reece Barrow. Joe Louis never knew his father. Barrow was placed into an institution for the mentally disabled when his son was only two years old. Lef to raise the whole family and work the farm, Louis’s mother married Pat Brooks, who helped the family keep afoat. In Alabama, a young Louis was oblivious to racial tensions and inequalities. He even played marbles with the white landowner’s sons on their way to separate, segregated schools. However, Louis’s mother, stepfather, and older brothers had all known of the growing number of lynchings and heard rumors of better living north of the Mason- Dixon line, with promises of factories with good jobs, electricity, movies, automobiles, and streetcars.3 In 1926, when Louis was twelve years old, the entire family, including Pat Brooks and his eight children, Lillie Reece and eight of her own, packed up their meager possessions and joined millions of other southern blacks in their northward migration. Te Brooks-Barrow family moved to Detroit, Michigan, the industrial home of the booming automobile industry, and settled into a house of their own on Catherine Street in the growing black neighborhood on the city’s eastside. Here Louis, just like many rural southerners who settled in big cities, saw his frst trolley, fushed his frst toilet, and turned on his frst electric light. Te family lived relatively well for a while. Teir home was crowded, but Brooks worked as a street cleaner and Louis’s older brothers all made good money working in the Ford plant. Soon, though, the family fell on hard times when the Great Depression hit and his brothers and stepfather lost

3 Joe Louis with Edna and Art Rust, Jr., Joe Louis: My Life (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978), 4-9. 89 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

their jobs. Louis said of this time, “For the frst time in my life I remember being hungry.” At the suggestion of one of his Dufeld Elementary School instructors, who said, “Tis boy should be able to do something with his hands,” Louis entered an all-boys vocational school, where he helped his family by building tables, cabinets, and other furniture to be used in the house. Hoping to start her son on a path that would lead to a career in music, one of a few careers that could bring a black man relative prosperity at the time, Lillie Brooks bought Joe a cheap violin and paid for weekly lessons. Tis pursuit was short-lived, however, as Louis broke the violin over the head of a neighborhood boy who called him a “sissy” for playing the instrument.4 At the age of seventeen, Louis began skipping his lessons without telling his mother and instead accompanied his friend Turston McKinney to Brewster’s East Side Gymnasium. Boxing provided an alternative to the life of crime he could have adopted by joining one of the street gangs where his natural fghting talents would have been valued. Describing an early sparring match during which he nearly knocked McKinney out, Louis said, “It was like power pumping through me. Maybe it’s something like people getting religion.” Louis began to gain notice for his punching power, and the manager of Brewster’s Gym found a black middleweight named Holman Williams, just a few years older than Louis, to train the young fghter.5 Joe Louis’s amateur debut came as a light heavyweight in 1932 against Johnny Miler, who would go on to represent the United States in the Los Angeles Olympics that year. It was here that Joe Louis Barrow became plain Joe Louis so that “if it got into the papers, Momma wouldn’t know the diference.” Louis was overmatched and lost handily, but he remained determined to get back in the ring and train more. He developed his non-existent lef and honed his right, resulting in fourteen straight knockouts. His confdence was growing, the twenty-fve dollar merchandise checks for amateur victories were pouring in, and Louis was making a name for himself in amateur circles. Te Detroit Free Press then sponsored Louis to fght in the Golden Gloves, the premier amateur tournaments around the country. Louis was sent to cities such as Chicago, Boston, and Toronto where, he later recalled, “I met important people, and I wanted to be

4 Ibid., 13-19; Margolick, 60. 5 Louis, 20. 90 John Muhs important, too.”6 In December of 1933, Louis met John Roxborough in Detroit, who would help shape the rest of his career. Roxborough ran a big-time numbers racket and was infuential in Detroit’s black community. Recognizing Louis’s potential, Roxborough took him under his wing, buying Louis new gear and giving him old dress clothes. Shortly afer this meeting, in early 1934, Louis experienced a telling episode of racial profling. In Chicago for a Golden Gloves fght, waiting in the locker room minutes before the match, Louis was arrested and taken to the police station and was held on the charge of murdering a woman who was believed to be his wife fve years earlier in Gary, Indiana, when Louis was only 15 years old. Someone had seen his picture in the newspaper and mistook him for the real killer. Tis incident, besides forcing him to miss the tournament while the authorities sorted out the mix-up, was a chilling indication of the alacrity with which white northerners were willing to pass judgment on blacks.7 In many ways, the experience of Joe Louis Barrow and his family was archetypal in the broader context of the migration of black Americans from the Jim Crow South to many northern industrial cities. One feature of this experience was the discovery that their new home in the North was not the integrated, egalitarian utopia blacks had imagined. Te falsifed murder allegation was just one example of northern racial prejudice. As Louis noted in his autobiography, “Nobody white ever called me a ‘nigger’ until I got to Detroit.”8 Blacks in Detroit had always experienced prejudiced treatment by much of the white population, including both the established political upper-crust and white working-class immigrants. Before World War I, this racism manifested itself in increasing stratifcation and a decreasing black proportion of the population, as many blacks moved to other cities in Michigan or Ontario looking to escape racially prejudiced policies and attitudes. Te legacy of racial violence in Detroit dates back to March 1863 afer the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, when a group of Irish laborers attacked black residents because of police protection given to a

6 Ibid., 25-29. 7 Ibid., 30-31; Erenberg, 28. 8 Louis, 9. 91 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

black innkeeper alleged to have molested a white girl.9 Most blacks endured the classist system of exploitation and segregation that afected housing, schools, public accommodations, and interracial marriages, but some were able to maneuver within it and better their condition through self-help. Tese exceptions formed a tiny minority of an already small, and shrinking, segment of the population, as blacks made up 3.1 percent of Detroit’s population of 45,619 in 1860, but only 1.2 percent of 465,766 in 1910.10 But the path of black history in Detroit took an interesting turn during the 1910s and beyond, thanks to Jim Crow, the automobile, civic reform, and World War I. Te institutionalization of segregation and the spread of white supremacist violence in the South drove southern blacks northward in search of equality and opportunity in what was known as the “Great Migration.” Detroit’s black population increased from barely 5,000 in 1910 to over 40,000 a decade later. In this decade, Detroit also saw the birth of the automobile industry and with it a growing need for unskilled factory laborers. With the virtual disappearance of fresh European-born immigrants afer the onset of World War I, Ford Motor Company gained a reputation for hiring blacks to unskilled, semi-skilled, and skilled positions in its factories. B.J. Widick notes that “Henry Ford’s policy of hiring approximately ten per cent of his work force from among the Negroes was a rare and notable exception in American industrial practice.” In 1914, Ford announced that he would pay all workers a minimum of fve dollars per day. Tis news spread around the country and both black and white workers focked to assembly plants to apply for jobs. Pat Brooks was one of these workers hired by Ford, and he brought the Brooks-Barrow family to the Motor City in 1926.11 A black ghetto formed, consolidated, and expanded on the eastside of downtown in two contiguous neighborhoods that became known as “Black Bottom” and “Paradise Valley,” though residential segregation prevented homeownership and confned blacks to tenant status. Te Brooks-Barrow family rented a house on Catherine Street in Black Bottom. Locked in slums where tuberculosis spread freely, young black adults sufered a low fertility rate, which further engendered social instability. Te Detroit Urban League

9 Dominic Capeci, Race Relations in Wartime Detroit (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1984), 3. 10 Ibid., 3. 11 B.J. Widick, Detroit: City of Race and Class Violence (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989), 26; Louis, 26. 92 John Muhs was founded in 1916, during the prime decade of the ghetto’s growth, and emerged as a leading force in the formation of community institutions and in blacks’ transition from rural migrants to industrial workers. However, their eforts were largely undercut by institutionalized racism in housing opportunities and zoning policies.12 Te infux of rural migrants seeking good jobs was not limited to African-Americans. Tens of thousands of poor southern whites focked to the city as well. Te good news that one could make a decent living in the northern factories had reached their ears too. Te auto companies sent recruiters to many areas in the South in their search for cheap and compliant labor, a practice that continued until the 1960s. By 1948, almost a half-million Detroit citizens were transplanted southerners “who brought their prejudices and language with them.”13 Tis infux led to a tremendous augmentation of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in Detroit, to the extent that in the mid-1920s they “mounted a campaign to dominate Detroit,” which at the time was the fourth largest city in the United States. In the 1924 mayoral election, a KKK candidate named Charles Bowles, running as a write-in, nearly defeated the two candidates on the ballot, John W. Smith and Joseph Martin. Technical rulings invalidated 17,000 votes for Bowles—many of the ballots displayed “Boles” or “Bowls”—which proved to be the diference in the race. Te KKK frenzy became even more ominous afer Bowles’s loss, especially as a smattering of blacks attempted to move into neighborhoods outside of the ghetto. Te sight of burning crosses and hooded men marching in the streets was not uncommon in 1925 Detroit.14 Detroit’s real estate board had been determined since 1910 to limit opportunities for black Detroiters to “taint” the lily-white developing residential neighborhoods. In 1925, Dr. Ossian Sweet, a prominent African- American gynecologist, purchased a home three and a half miles west of Black Bottom and Paradise Valley and notifed the police of his family’s plans, fully aware of previous incidents of racial violence. Te two nights following the Sweets’ move-in, hundreds of whites gathered at the home to hurl projectiles and racial epithets at the family. When the mob chased

12 Capeci, 4-5. 13 Widick, 27. 14 Ibid., 3-27. 93 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

Dr. Sweet’s brother and a friend into the house, the inhabitants fred into the crowd, killing one person. Police ofcers, who had been watching the events unfold idly until that point, arrested everyone in the home for murder. Within days, black attorneys and the NAACP mobilized to defend the Sweets. Recognizing the prominence of the case, the NAACP hired Clarence Darrow. In the subsequent trials, Dr. Sweet and his family were acquitted on the grounds that blacks possessed the right to protect their home. Te all-white jury may not have reached this verdict had it not been for Darrow, the “most brilliant courtroom lawyer in the nation,” whose spectacular seven-hour summation ranks as one of his greatest speeches. Te verdicts surely encouraged black Detroiters temporarily, but interracial enmity carried over into the 1930s.15 Although Detroit was a fourishing industrial center enjoying the boom of the 1920s as much as any place in the country, the Great Depression hit the city with a fury found only in cities like Pittsburgh and Gary, Indiana, which were dependent on heavy manufacturing. Te working class was struck the hardest: in 1930 and 1931, 225,000 of metro Detroit’s 475,000 auto workers lost their jobs and had no regular source of income. Blacks were the last hired and the frst fred even when the economy was booming, and they sufered most heavily when Detroit was wracked by the Depression. At one point perhaps up to eighty percent of Detroit’s black workers were unemployed. Afer Pat Brooks found himself out of work and Louis lost his debut to Miler, Louis worked a stint at Ford’s River Rouge factory pushing truck bodies to a conveyor belt. His stretch working for Ford didn’t last long, though, as he lef afer a few months to return to fghting.16 In 1934, Louis defeated another rising black fghter in Detroit named Stanley Evans to win the light heavyweight title for the Detroit Golden Gloves. Ten, afer Louis knocked out Joe Bauer in less than two minutes, Roxborough convinced his charge that it was time to turn professional at the age of twenty and move to Chicago so he could be trained and co-managed by Julian Black. Louis was eager to start making serious money and agreed immediately. Lillie Reece took more convincing, however. Afer some coaxing by her son and Mr. Roxborough, she gave Roxborough her consent only “if he would make sure that [Joe] lived well

15 Capeci, 6; Widick, 21. 16 Ibid., 44; Louis, 26-27. 94 John Muhs

Joe Louis and his management team prior to the Schmeling defeat, 1936. Left to right, assistant manager Julian Black, trainer Jack Blackburn, Louis, and manager John Roxborough. These three men had a tremendous effect on Louis’s transformation into a national hero by developing his wholesome public image. (Photo reprinted from My Life, by Joe Louis with Edna and Art Rust, Jr.) and led a decent Christian life.”17 In June 1934, Joe moved out of his family’s home in Detroit and made the journey to Chicago, where Roxborough introduced him to Julian Black, a Chicago numbers racketeer and nightclub owner. Black’s nightclub was a gathering spot for black sportsmen in Chicago, and he was able to enlist revered trainer Jack Blackburn, who began teaching Louis the fner points of the “sweet science.” With his all-black management and training team, who together were savvy in both the technical aspects of boxing and its underworld wheeling and dealing, Louis now had the resources and pugilistic acumen to take the boxing world by storm. In his frst year afer turning professional, Louis fought and won twenty-three times, twenty-one of them by knockout.18 Louis’s jump to professional bouts coincided with boxing’s lowest point in terms of popularity and respectability. Boxing was predominately a working-class sport, and the Depression lef its fans with no money for food or bill payments, let alone tickets to a fght. Te prosperous days of Jack Dempsey and his several million-dollar gates were long gone. Moreover,

17 Ibid., 31-33. 18 Erenberg, 30-38. 95 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

crooked managers, fxed fghts, and “hollow” champions robbed the sport of its appeal to fans.19 Te poor reputation of boxing and minimal fan interest would have been a deterrent for any rising heavyweight, but Louis had the additional hurdle of fagrant racial discrimination in the sport’s premier division. Te last black champion, Jack Johnson, with his several white wives and lovers, fancy suits, fast cars, and braggadocio in the ring, had been white Americans’ worst nightmare. Tis nightmare fully came to fruition during his reign as heavyweight champion between 1908 and 1915, prompting a search for a “white hope” to knock Johnson of his throne, which Jess Willard eventually did. Te color line was subsequently drawn, and no black heavyweights fought for the title in the 1920s. Even Louis’s handlers were skeptical of his chances to make it big, despite knowing better than anyone else how much talent and skill he possessed. Trainer Jack Blackburn summed the problem up when he said to Louis, “White man hasn’t forgotten that fool nigger with his white women, acting like he owned the world.”20 With white Americans still sore from the unwholesome reign of Jack Johnson, Louis had to carefully craf a public image that people would accept in order to break down the barrier keeping black boxers out of title contention. Louis fortunately had a brilliant management team that ensured that the mainstream media portrayed him as nothing but a sportsman and a “credit to his race.” Roxborough, Black, and Blackburn imposed a strict regimen on the twenty-year-old Louis, training him inside the ring and grooming him outside of it to be a champion prizefghter. Louis recalled in his autobiography one example of their eforts to climb out from under the shadow of Jack Johnson and break the “Sambo” trope in white America. “One time we were talking about these little black toy dolls they used to make of fghters,” Louis wrote in his autobiography. “Tose dolls always had the wide grin with thick red lips. Tey looked foolish. I got the message—don’t look like a fool nigger doll. Look like a black man with dignity.” His handlers taught him to comb his hair and maintain proper hygiene, to eat with proper etiquette, and perhaps most importantly, never to have his picture taken with a white woman. To deal with the media, he

19 Ibid., 32. 20 Louis, 36. 96 John Muhs was also tutored in grammar, geography, history, and arithmetic.21 Paired with a rapid-fre string of victories, this image endeared Louis to the mainstream public. In particular, his 1935 defeats of Max Baer and the Italian Primo Carnera—the frst fght in which Louis was held up by some as a symbol of democracy and freedom, on the eve of Italy’s invasion of Abyssinia, the last non-colonized African nation—helped thrust Louis into the media spotlight. Louis was now the top contender for the heavyweight title. Tere were always skeptics in the media, though, who reverted to racist tactics and portrayed Louis as a “Sambo” fgure—simple, slow, and more suited for the cotton felds than the ring. In a nationally syndicated column, Davis J. Walsh wrote that “something sly and sinister and perhaps not quite-human came out of the African Jungle” to knock out Carnera, while Grantland Rice described Louis as “the bush-master of the North American continent.” While white Americans recognized his fghting ability, to some it was a refection of his primal nature, not superior skill or courage.22

Joe Louis versus Max Schmeling Te twenty-two-year-old Louis, with a record of 24-0 at the time, was favored heavily in his frst bout with Schmeling and trained somewhat lazily. As he recalled, “Instead of boxing six rounds, I’d box three. Punch the bag one round instead of two.” Ranked as the number one heavyweight contender, Louis had the feeling he was on top of the world and developed the arrogance to go with it. He had also developed a passion for golf during 1935, and while training in New Jersey in the months leading up to the fght, he ofen quit training against the wishes of his handlers in favor of hitting the links. Marva, his new wife, was also at training camp with him and was another source of distraction.23 Detroit, like the rest of America, was expecting Louis to whip Schmeling in Yankee Stadium. On May 21, the Free Press ran a story promoting impresario Mike Jacobs, who was prematurely seeking the next “white hope.” Tis refected not only the widespread anticipation of Louis victories over Schmeling and aging champion James J. Braddock, but also echoed

21 Ibid., 39. 22 Erenberg, 42. 23 Louis, 83. 97 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

the reign of Jack Johnson. Jacobs’s new search for a “white hope,” however, was motivated more by business interests than outrage at a possible black champion. Louis had proven that interracial bouts could be lucrative, and Mike Jacobs was not prejudiced. In another column, W.W. “Eddie” Edgar, who was a columnist for the Free Press from 1924 to 1948, drew attention to the New York Boxing Commission’s declaration that the winner of the June fght would be the top challenger to Braddock. Edgar claimed this could be a “jinx” on Louis, as a similar declaration had been made about Harry Wills, who won his bout and became the top contender but, by a twist of fate, never got the chance to fght then-champion Jack Dempsey. Joe Louis’s supporters were eagerly anticipating an opportunity for the Detroiter to break the long-standing color line and did not want him to sufer the same fate as Wills. Reporting later on Louis’s last workout before the fght, which was forced into a hotel ballroom due to rain, Edgar commented on the virtuosic quality of the fghter’s masterful movements. Clearly, the local media either were not aware of Louis’s lazy training habits or simply overlooked them because expectations were running so high. Before the fght even took place, white mainstream Detroit was proud of its own “master of the world of boxing.” To at least some extent, Louis’s hometown status gave the media reason to support him in his boxing endeavors. Tis support was a testament both to the power of sporting achievement to overcome racial prejudice and to Louis’s ability to maintain a completely inofensive and genuinely likeable persona.24 Te German community in Detroit provided a diferent perspective. Te Detroiter Abend-Post, now named the Nordamerikanische Wochen-Post, was founded in 1854 and is still the longest-running German newspaper in the state of Michigan. Te paper’s pre-fght coverage framed the underdog Schmeling as the protagonist, focusing on reporting how Schmeling’s, not Louis’s, training was going. “A surprise victory by Schmeling cannot be ruled out,” a columnist wrote in a June 17 article. “Max can not only claim greater experience, but he also has no fear of Louis at all—in contrast to other opponents.” Te German’s mental acumen and durability were frequently cited as advantages over “the Negro.”25

24 “Jacobs Seeks a ‘White Hope’,” Detroit Free Press, May 21, 1936, 19; W.W. Edgar, “The Second Guess,” Detroit Free Press, May 21, 1936, 19; Ibid., 13. 25 “Schmeling Sieg durchaus möglich,” Detroiter Abend-Post, June 17, 1936. 98 John Muhs

Te fght took place on June 19, 1936, in Yankee Stadium afer rain postponed it one day. In the second round, against his trainer Jack Blackburn’s advice, Louis dropped his lef hand to throw a lef hook, and Schmeling slugged him in the jaw with a right cross that changed the fght. Louis said later of the punch, “I thought I’d swallowed my mouthpiece. I was dazed, everything clouded over.” Schmeling kept hitting Louis with his right until in the twelfh round he registered a shocking knock-out, Louis’s frst professional loss. Te defeat turned many American boxing fans against him. Tey viewed him as a broken man who had neither the head nor the heart to match his white superior. Te Free Press ran a story the day afer the fght by Jack Miley, a Wisconsin native writing from New York, who wrote that, afer the fourth-round knockdown, “Joe acted as if he knew he had met his master.” Whether Miley intended this use of language as a social commentary, framing Schmeling’s subjugation of Louis in the ring as a natural relationship between whites and blacks, was not obvious at frst. Te message became clearer when later Miley wrote, “As for Louis, he’s regusted.” Te use of the word “regusted,” which is an amalgamation of “revolted” and “disgusted,” is a reference to the derogatory black-face minstrelsy of Amos ‘n’ Andy, which portrayed blacks as silly, lazy, stupid, and cowardly. Using a national media source to cover the fghter in this way allowed the Free Press to distance itself somewhat from the fght’s racial context. Te newspaper that had sponsored Louis for the Golden Gloves less than three years prior must have recognized white Detroiters’ mixed reaction to Schmeling’s upset of Louis, and accordingly avoided taking a stance of its own on any issues of race by printing the New Yorker Miley’s column.26 Meanwhile, the unexpected result of the fght delighted German Detroiters who rooted for Schmeling to prove boxing experts wrong. On the day afer the fght, the Detroiter Abend-Post wrote, “Before he crossed the German ‘beater’ yesterday night … the colored boy was simply ‘unbeatable’…. Nobody could stand up to him. Schmeling made all this laughable.” Tis told-you-so tone and derogation of the Detroit native is a refection of a division among Detroiters over the issues of race, ethnicity, nationality, and origin. Tose German Detroiters who still felt a close link

26 Louis, 87; Jack Miley, “Courage in Opening Round Decided Bout for Schmeling,” Detroit Free Press, June 20, 1936, 14. 99 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

with the fatherland were among those who identifed more with Schmeling than with Louis. Te same Abend-Post article noted that Hitler sent Schmeling a congratulatory telegram. Te German community clearly reveled in the glory Schmeling had brought to their “race”at the expense of a fellow Detroiter and American.27 Charles Ward of the Free Press, however, stood by the defeated “Detroit Bomber.” Defending Louis against his detractors, he wrote on June 29, referring to boxing experts, “Far too many of them are announcing with considerable certainty that the cufng that Max Schmeling gave Louis will do Joe no good and perhaps may end his career as a fghter.” Ward concluded, however, “He’ll come back determined to vindicate those who said nice things about him before the Schmeling afair.” Of course, “those who said nice things” would have included many Detroiters such as Ward. But Ward avoided any recognition of the naysayers’ tendency to fall back on racial stereotypes when criticizing Louis. Te Free Press staf probably didn’t want to upset its readers or ignite a backlash by using charged language. Black Detroiters, who strongly supported Louis, had mixed reactions to the upsetting result of the fght. Te Detroit News, competition to the Free Press in the Detroit mainstream newspaper market, reported the day afer the fght that Paradise Valley displayed very little dejection or violence in response to their hero’s fall. In fact, “Even the snake dances that followed Joe’s victories of the past year were not missing. Tey twined around streets flled with his fans, and the cry this time, even in defeat, was ‘Wait until next time.’” As the Joe Louis supporters who identifed most with the fghter and had the most invested in the bout, blacks in Detroit would have been understandably devastated by the result of the fght. Tis optimism in the face of defeat is remarkable in many ways. Te black community in Detroit did not have much positive history on which to refect and would have been desperate to see one of its own reach new heights. Yet such constant misfortune might have steeled the resolve of these downtrodden residents of the city in a way that allowed them to take the 1936 upset in stride. Perhaps they could sense that Louis, still in the early stages of his professional career, was destined for greatness. However, not every black Detroiter was able to hold her chin so high. Te same column in the News

27 “Schmeling besiegte Louis durch K.O.,” Detroiter Abend-Post, June 20, 1936, 1. 100 John Muhs reported that an 18-year-old girl tried to commit suicide afer the fght by drinking a bottle of strong disinfectant, before the drug store proprietor saw her and stopped her.28 Regardless of the nature of their reaction, blacks in Detroit demonstrated that Louis was their hero in victory or defeat.29 Te number of skeptics grew, but with the remaining fan support Louis stayed determined in his pursuit. He soon began blazing a comeback trail with a new set of victories, beginning by defeating ex-champion Jack Sharkey. He easily dispatched Sharkey by knockout in the third round, and then produced six more equally impressive victories between the fall of 1936 and spring of 1937. Meanwhile, Schmeling had been received following his defeat of Louis by all Germans, including Adolf Hitler, as a national hero. By demonstrating his superior mental toughness, he became a symbol of the perfect Aryan man and a propaganda tool for the Nazi regime. Hitler ordered Schmeling to return as quickly as possible to the Reich, where a huge reception awaited him, including a three-hour tea party and photo-op at the Chancellery with Hitler, Goebbels, and other top Nazi ofcials. Schmeling’s victory and the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin served as similar symbolic expressions of the Nazis’ self-portrayal as the protectors of the highest ideals of western civilization. Tat they were competing against black Americans like Joe Louis and Jesse Owens “brought the question of American and German racism to the forefront of American consciousness.”30 Tis international rivalry between the United States and Germany politicized sport in a way that allowed Joe Louis a chance to break the color barrier in the heavyweight division that had existed since Jack Johnson. As a result of the growing anti-Nazi sentiment in America, the management teams of Louis and Braddock worked out a deal to avoid a Schmeling- Braddock title bout that was generating a lot of negative press and threats of boycott. Instead, Louis and Braddock would face of. Te championship fght between the “Brown Bomber” and the “Cinderella Man” was set to be in Chicago’s Comiskey Park in June of 1937. Now many Detroiters, despite their continued support for their fallen hero, were more cautious in assuring a Louis victory over Braddock. In

28 There is no conclusive evidence cited by the News that the girl’s suicide attempt was directly related to the Schmeling upset of Louis, but the writer definitely implies it. 29 “Joe Louis Fans Celebrate, For It Was a Great Fight,” Detroit News, June 20, 1936, 5. 30 Erenberg, 92-106. 101 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

the Free Press on the day before the fght, Eddie Edgar wrote of how Joe “appeared to be anything but the sharp-shooting puncher he had been in the pre-Schmeling days” during his last sparring match before the fght. “Tere was a worried look on the faces of Joe’s handlers as they accompanied the Bomber back to his dressing quarters. And the experts who have picked the Bomber … lef feeling that Joe afer all wasn’t a 3-to-1 choice to whip Braddock.” On the day of the fght, Edgar wrote of how Louis’s loss of “superman” status meant being relegated by many Americans to the ranks of inferior Negroes. “It is said that Louis has become gun-shy—that is, that he becomes befuddled when a foe lets go with a right-hand punch—the type of blow with which Schmeling felled him,” wrote Edgar. “He no longer, they said is the bomber, but has become more of a defensive fghter who can’t think any too quick in hard going.” Of course, this was the common trope about black boxers, that they couldn’t take a punch and didn’t hold up well to pressure because they were weaker mentally than their white foes. Tis was an echo of a deeper belief that all blacks were instinctual beings who were not entitled to full citizenship. Te fact that Detroiters like Edgar supported Louis while paying credence to these racial views demonstrated that the city still contained a relatively strong presence of such racial attitudes.31 Tis reversion to stereotypes and reservation of confdence was presumably attributable to the prospect of a black man becoming heavyweight champion for the frst time since Jack Johnson, an unsettling thought for many whites. Johnson’s defeat of Jim Jefries in 1910 set of dozens of race riots in American cities in the North and in the South. Not far removed from a KKK campaign and the Ossian Sweet afair, Detroit was particularly sensitive to the prospect of interracial violence. White Detroiters also may have been much more cautious about getting their hopes up for the Braddock fght because of their disappointment in his loss to Schmeling. Furthermore, Braddock had an inspiring story himself. Afer chronic hand injuries had forced him to work on the docks and collect relief checks for his family during the Depression, he turned his life and career around by beating Max Baer in 1935 to gain the heavyweight title. His story was encouraging for many Depression-era Americans who wanted to see

31 Edgar, “Battering by Separate Cuts Louis Drill Short,” Detroit Free Press, June 21, 1937, 13; Edgar, “Battle Eve Odds on Bomber Drop to 2½ to One,” Detroit Free Press, June 22, 1937, 15. 102 John Muhs him continue his boxing success. Tough he was still many white fans’ sentimental favorite for the June 22, 1937, bout, Braddock was an aging champion and few expected him to actually defeat the powerful Louis. Sure enough, in the eighth round Louis landed a right to Braddock’s chin that literally took him of his feet and dropped him on his face for the count, setting of celebrations from Harlem to south-side Chicago to Paradise Valley in Detroit. Louis, who lived in Chicago at the time, recalled the throng of fans gathering outside his house afer the fght and the black people yelling things like “Don’t be another Jack Johnson” and “We’re depending on you.” In Detroit, hundreds of people gathered outside Lillie Reece’s home until she came out to wave to them and be cheered. Remarkably, whites expressed little animosity toward Louis and made few cries for a “white hope” to stand up to the new champion.32 Te next day Edgar triumphantly wrote in the Free Press, “Gone was the Louis who stumbled around … who didn’t know how to protect himself … who seemed gun-shy during his training days. In his place was Joe Louis— fghting man.” In another column, Edgar proudly noted that by dethroning the champ, Louis “became the frst Detroiter ever to achieve that honor and thus completed a life saga that will outdo the rags-to-riches tales so popular in the days of Horatio Alger, Jr.” In his column, Edgar played up Louis’s ties with the whole city rather than isolating the black community. Tis is not entirely surprising coming from a mainstream newspaper, but the omission of racial implications from Edgar’s analysis speaks to Detroiters’ sensitivities to the threat of interracial violence and to the readiness with which some white Detroiters accepted Louis as one of their own afer defeating Braddock.33

Te Rematch: Louis versus Schmeling on the Eve of War Already, though, people turned to discussing the impending rematch with Schmeling. In the same issue of the Free Press, a story considered the possibility of a venue in the Motor City. “Detroit, it is fgured, has an excellent chance to land a Louis-Schmeling match for several reasons,”

32 Louis, 118-119; Erenberg, 128. 33 Edgar, “World Championship Climaxes Louis’ Ring Career,” Detroit Free Press, June 23, 1937, 19; Edgar, “The Second Guess,” Detroit Free Press, June 23, 1937, 20. 103 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

read the article. “Tere is no deep-dyed anti-Schmeling sentiment here that would lead to a boycott.... It is also the home town of the new champion.” Te comment refects the complex racial tensions in Detroit. Because of the strong presence of black and white migrants from the South and the established community of descendants of German immigrants, both fghters had support in the city. Many Detroiters, including blacks, celebrated their champion, but at the same time, many Detroiters refrained from viewing Schmeling as the villain he was to New Yorkers, for example.34 Despite the celebrations in Detroit and statements such as Edgar’s, Louis knew his work was far from done. When initial negotiations between the two parties to schedule a rematch failed, the “Brown Bomber” bided his time by defending his title three times before spring 1938. Meanwhile, the fres of international tensions were stoked as Italy joined Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan in the Anti-Comintern Pact to form the “Axis Powers” in November 1937, and Hitler rolled his troops into Austria in March of 1938. Te threat of war in Europe was real, and Americans were growing nervous.35 In spite of these tensions, the boxing world wanted to see Schmeling and Louis fght again. Schmeling had defeated Louis and lost his chance to fght Braddock for the heavyweight championship, and now Louis had the title belt. Both men had legitimate claims to be the best. Te natural solution was to let them fght it out in the ring. When the rematch was fnally scheduled for June 22, Louis retreated to his camp and trained unremittingly. He understood the gravity of the fght’s context, later recalling, “White Americans—even while some of them still were lynching black people in the South—were depending on me to K.O. Germany.”36 Two years more mature and feeling the pressure to defend American values in the ring, Louis was not going to succumb to the recreational pleasures of golf and sex. He was in prime condition by the date of the fght and completely poised to exact revenge. Nevertheless, Detroiters still saw the fght as an even match in the days leading up to the fght. W.W. Edgar wrote on June 7, “Regardless of which side you are on, you can argue by the hour without coming to a satisfactory settlement,” referencing an actual argument he had heard between two local

34 “Kearns Makes Louis an Offer,” Detroit Free Press, June 23, 1937, 19; Erenberg, 110-112. 35 Ibid., 137. 36 Louis, 137. 104 John Muhs fght fans over who would win. Tis report refects real division in Detroit over the viability of the two fghters as possible champions, regardless of the two fans’ personal loyalties. Te story demonstrates the lack of overt anti-Schmeling sentiment in the city and perhaps the presence of some pro-Schmeling sentiment, at least among the German community served by the Abend-Post. It was this relatively balanced atmosphere that had initially made Detroit a candidate city for hosting the fght. In full appreciation of the underdog German challenger in this monumental match, Edgar penned a column on June 19, writing that by coming back afer losing the title once before, Schmeling had a chance to become one of the “most amazing champions the history of sports.” On the same day, the Free Press reported that Nazi ofcials raided Jewish residences in all of Germany and packed families into prison vans waiting in the street. Tis came just two days afer reports that mobs had attacked Jewish Berliners following a decree that “was designed to assure a complete boycott of Jewish business.”37 Clearly, reconciling the German heritage of Detroiters and appreciation of the German Schmeling with the disdain for Nazi Germay’s increasingly hostile behavior toward Jews was a difcult task and a subject that the Free Press simply avoided. Turning from the front page to the sports page revealed a compartmentalization of the international political drama and the fght between Louis and Schmeling. Te pre-fght sports coverage from Detroit treated the coming title bout as if it were to take place in a vacuum. No mention was made of the international or racial tensions that paralleled the Louis-Schmeling rivalry. Likewise, no mention was made of the coming heavyweight title bout in the reports of Nazi attacks against Jews. Tis came despite the daily presence of German-American Bundists at Louis’s camp, where reporters like Edgar and Ward spent time in covering the fght preparations, and despite Max Machon, Schmeling’s trainer, strutting around the German’s camp in a Nazi uniform.38 One plausible explanation for this phenomenon is that Detroiters did not need to be reminded of the stakes. Anxiety over a possible victory by the German also may have played

37 Edgar, “The Second Guess,” Detroit Free Press, June 7, 1938, 14; Ibid., 36; “War Extended by Jew Haters,” Detroit Free Press, June 19, 1938, 1; “Crowds Attack Jews in Berlin,” Detroit Free Press, June 17, 1938, 1. 38 Louis, 139-140. 105 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

a part in silencing Louis supporters in Detroit. By brushing the larger issues under the rug and focusing primarily on the pure sporting elements of the bout, and by refusing to tout Louis as the American standard-bearer in a politically and racially charged heavyweight fght, sportswriters allowed themselves a bit of leeway to minimize the implications of another possible Louis defeat. Te drama built each day in anticipation. Te day before the fght, the Free Press reported that the US government had indicted eighteen American citizens as suspected spies for Hitler, leading to the conclusion that “relations with Berlin are under the worst strain since war days.” Undoubtedly, because of the looming fght and events on both sides of the Atlantic, Americans, including Detroiters, were feeling a crescendo of tension. Another Free Press column from June 21 noted that “‘cleansing’ Berlin of its 140,000 Jews seemed more clearly than ever tonight to be the ultimate aim of continuing anti-Semitic persecution.” All the while, an increasingly emboldened Hitler increased international problems by stirring up Germans in the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia to demand reunifcation.39 On June 22, the day of the fght, Charles Ward of the Free Press picked the Bomber to take down Schmeling, but not with complete certainty, noting, “but the Schlager is a fair journeyman fghter and a match for Louis if Father Time remains neutral. If he sneaks that right hand over again, the Louis pickers may climb down The Brown Bomber’s attack was of their limbs and go slinking away just relentless in his rematch with Max Schmeling in Yankee Stadium on June as they did the last time.” Te “Brown 22, 1938. He landed thirty-one punches in the two minute, four second-long Bomber” from Detroit had other plans, bout, while Schmeling failed to connect on a single punch. (Photo however. With the whole world watching, courtesy of the Bettman Archive.) he climbed into the Yankee Stadium ring on that Wednesday night with one thought: revenge.40

39 “U.S. Indicts 18 as Spies for Hitler, Including Two in Reich’s War Ministry,” Detroit Free Press, June 21, 1938, 1; “Nazis Clearing Berlin of Jews,” Detroit Free Press, June 21, 1938, 2. 40 Ward, “Ward to the Wise,” Detroit Free Press, June 22, 1938, 16. 106 John Muhs

Te result of the fght was emphatic. Louis defeated Schmeling by knocking him out in the frst two minutes and four seconds of the frst round, making the bout the shortest heavyweight championship fght in history up to that point. Schmeling threw just two punches in the fght, a right cross that Louis blocked and a lef hook that fell short of its mark. In the next day’s issue of the Free Press, there were reports from Paradise Valley that “cheering, shouting, singing and above all dancing, a crowd estimated at 10,000 gaily cavorted in the streets afer the fght.” Black Detroiters could not contain their excitement. “Our Joe,” as he was familiarly known, had shown people everywhere that he, a black American, was the best boxer in the world.41 For all that was said about Louis’s superior punching speed and power, Detroiters were equally proud of the way he carried himself. Schmeling and his trainer made groundless claims that Louis cheated in both of their two bouts, which led to Charles Ward’s statement that “Louis, both in defeat and victory, seems a better sportsman than his opponent.” Te carefully crafed public image of Louis made him a fgure palatable to white Americans at the time. Detroiters could take additional pride in the fact that their city had produced a dignifed champion. In a sign that Louis had reached the pinnacle and achieved national hero status, southerner Grantland Rice, the “Dean of American Sportswriters,” ironically compared the great (and black) Louis to the great (and white) Jim Jefries, who retired as undefeated champion in 1904, in a June 27 article printed in the Free Press. Rice, who had previously called Louis the “bush-master of the North American continent” afer his 1935 bout with Carnera, said that Louis and Jefries were both “too good for the feld” and had “no worlds lef to conquer.” On June 28, Ward refected the public’s feeling that the fght was more than just Louis vs. Schmeling. It was America vs. Germany. But Louis himself took an apolitical approach to the bout. According to Ward, “When somebody asked if [Louis] thought of old Max as the representative of Herr Hitler and the indomitable hosts of the ideological countries, he grinned and said no, he thought of him merely as old Maxie.” Now that Louis had beaten Schmeling, the Free Press was clearly less tentative about mixing the

41 “Paradise Valley Dances for Joy as Its Joe Wins,” Detroit Free Press, June 23, 1938, 1. 107 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

political context with sports coverage.42 Whatever Louis said, Detroiters, like most Americans, held onto their belief that his victory was one for their country. On July 11, Eddie Edgar wrote that Schmeling, had he beaten Louis, was to become even more closely linked with Hitler, and that Louis stopped the dangerous alliance from deepening. It should be noted that historians like Erenberg and Margolick argue convincingly that Schmeling was reluctant to become Hitler’s poster boy. Yet at the time, Edgar went so far as to say, “A victory would be the wedge by which Schmeling would pry his way into a high ofce in the Nazi government…. But Louis changed all this in little more than seconds.” Now that Louis had safely secured victory, Edgar was unafraid to recognize the international implications of the fght. Louis had become more than a boxer: he was a national hero serving to protect Americans from the threat of a fascist takeover. Ten on July 15, Edgar gave his article the sub-headline, “Fighting for Uncle Sam,” based only on Louis’s statement, “I don’t care if the Government does take 75 per cent of my purse. I want to fght.” People like Edgar were so overjoyed by the victory that they construed even the simplest of Louis’s comments into refections of his good American values of patriotism and humility.43 When Louis actually decided to fght “for Uncle Sam” by joining the army in January 1942, Detroiters’ pride in their hometown hero only grew. H.G. Salsinger of the Detroit News wrote on January 12, “Louis is the greatest sports fgure of his time and one of the most inspiring of all time.” Te frst character trait of Louis’s praised by Salsinger was, of course, his humility. As a black man still trying to fully escape the shadow of Jack Johnson, Louis had to seem humble at all times, even at the apex of his career. Salsinger in fact contrasts Louis and Johnson, noting the lack of a serious search for a “white hope” to dethrone the Brown Bomber. Tis was a testament to the success Louis and his management team had in creating a public image of Louis as the “anti-Johnson” to dispel white fears. It is not unreasonable to suggest that had Louis cavorted with white women, had he worn fashy outfts and driven fast cars like Jack Johnson, it is unlikely he would have received the

42 Ward, “Ward to the Wise,”17; Grantland Rice, “The Sportlight,” Detroit Free Press, June 27, 1938, 14; Ward, “Ward to the Wise,” 15. 43 Erenberg, 58, 97-98, 115-116; Margolick, 127-128, 186-187; Edgar, “The Second Guess,” Detroit Free Press, July 11, 1938, 14; Ibid., 16. 108 John Muhs

The “Monument to Joe Louis,” dedicated in Detroit in 1986, generated controversy upon its unveiling due to its association with violence and the Black Power Movement. (Photo courtesy of Robert Graham.) same mainstream support in his hometown of Detroit, let alone the nation.44

Controversy over Detroit’s Memorialization of Louis Te dedication of the “Monument to Joe Louis” at the intersection of Jeferson and Woodward Avenues in Detroit on October 16, 1986, fve years afer Louis’s death, is a testament to the city’s appraisal of Louis’s signifcance to the community. Te memorial, commissioned by Sports Illustrated and completed by Robert Graham, is a 24-foot-long bronze arm with a clenched fst suspended by a 24-foot-high pyramidal framework. Known simply as “Te Fist,” the sculpture generated controversy upon its unveiling. Graham made no efort to duplicate Louis’s arm and instead worked from his imagination to come up with the ungloved fst. Critics preferred a replica of Louis in his fghting stance, “the whole man as he is always remembered in the ring.” Te Free Press reported that Detroit city councilman John Peoples asked if the council had the authority to move the piece from its high-profle location, saying that “Joe Louis was more than just a fst.”45

44 H.G. Salsinger, “Joe Louis Hailed as Greatest Sports Figure of His Time,” Detroit News, January 12, 1942, 21. 45 Marsha Miro, “Joe Louis sculpture already creating a stir,” Detroit Free Press, October 16, 1986, 1. 109 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

Some black Detroiters not only felt that the monument failed to do Louis justice, but thought that it refected negatively on the city’s image. During the 1980s, the city was known as the nation’s murder capital, and the damage from the 1967 race riots still seemed recent. Te Michigan Chronicle, Detroit’s African-American weekly newspaper, quoted Ms. Vera Wright as saying, “We have enough image problems and enough violence in Detroit without adding a clenched fst.” Certainly a less Black Power- infected symbol would have rufed fewer feathers in a city with a troubled racial history.46 Yet not all responses to the sculpture were negative. Some felt the work of art did the Brown Bomber justice. Te son of Joe Louis, Joe Louis Barrow, said, “I am humbled and thrilled. It symbolizes the greatness of Joe Louis and the city that nourished him.” He was also quoted as saying, “Te pyramid is symbolic of his impact on people at the top and bottom. Whether you were at the top or bottom, this man impacted everyone.” Others also perceived the fst as a testament to more than purely the punching power of Louis. Mayor Coleman A. Young, who was a childhood friend of Louis’s and Detroit’s frst black mayor, serving from 1974 to 1993, responded to critics like Peoples by saying that he hoped “good sense” would triumph over the “know-nothings.” Young fought back tears when recalling how Louis grew up in Black Bottom and called the sculpture a “marvelous work of art.”47 In some ways, that the work of art generated controversy and discussion is a ftting tribute to Louis’s life. When Joe Louis defeated Braddock to become the frst black heavyweight champion since Jack Johnson, and when he squared of against Hitler’s paragon of Aryan supremacy in Max Schmeling, he challenged Americans to rethink their own racial ideologies. He spurred further public discourse about racial issues by serving in the segregated army in World War II and later breaking the Professional Golfers’ Association color barrier in the January 1952 San Diego Open. It makes sense that even afer his passing Louis and his achievements caused Detroiters to consider their city’s complex identity. Regardless of their varying reactions to the memorial, Detroiters on both sides of the debate made it clear that Joe

46 M.A. Goodin, “Family, peers split on Joe Louis monument,” Michigan Chronicle, October 25, 1986, 1D. 47 Ibid.; Bruce Alpert, “Is it a knockout?” Detroit News, October 17, 1986, 11A; Mark Kram, “Detroit monument salutes Joe Louis’ power,” Detroit Free Press, October 17, 1986, 16A. 110 John Muhs

Louis meant more to the city than a title belt he earned decades ago. Detroit remembered Louis in more ways than “Te Fist.” In 1979, the city completed the construction of Joe Louis Arena, the venue where the Detroit Red Wings play their NHL games to this day. Adjacent to “Te Joe,” as the hockey arena is known to locals, sits Cobo Center, host of the annual North American International Auto Show and former home of the Detroit Pistons, where a full statue of Louis stands in the concourse. Cobo Center also contains the Joe Louis Video Memorial Room, opened in 1991, which pays tribute to the Bomber with Ted Talbert’s video “And Still the Champ.” Te Joe Louis Video Memorial Room commemorates the June 22 anniversary of Louis’s defeat over Schmeling by awarding each year several “Brown Bomber Jackets” to individuals who have made signifcant contributions to the community, particularly in outreach to youth. While it would seem that most Detroiters of the time viewed Louis as a reason to be proud, those who took issue with the black boxer’s battering of white foes forced the mainstream media to stife any refection on the value Louis’s victories had for race relations. Nevertheless, Louis’s match-ups against Schmeling and Braddock forced Detroiters to deal with the competing priorities of race, ethnicity, and nationality. It is clear, too, that any positive mainstream reaction to his accomplishments would not have been possible without the carefully crafed image of Joe Louis as Jack Johnson’s polar opposite. Louis emerged as a black hero in the pre-war Great Depression amidst a rocky racial climate, when Detroit needed him most, and will remain a legend in the Motor City for generations to come. Te arc of Joe Louis’s career takes its place as part of a complex racial history in Detroit that continues to this day.

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