Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 2,105

This is the grave of Joe Louis.

Born in 1914 in Chambers County, Alabama, Joseph Louis Barrow grew up very poor, like most black people in Alabama. His parents were sharecroppers, he had little access to an education, and he stuttered. His father was sent to a mental institution in 1916 and mostly out of his life. I can only imagine what a mental institution for black Alabamans was like in 1916. The rise of the Ku Klux Klan and an increase in white terrorism in Alabama led his family–his mother had remarried–to flee the South and join the Great Migration. They ended up in Detroit. The family remained very poor, though at least one of his brothers got a job in Henry Ford’s River Rouge factory, which did pay pretty well. But then the Depression came and so many people were laid off.

Barrow’s mother wanted him to play the violin. He was more interested in boxing. He started doing so at the age of 17, going as Joe Louis to hide the fact from his family. But it turned out pretty well. He became a dominant Golden Gloves fighter, working his way up the amateur ranks and becoming the light heavyweight champion.

In 1934, Louis went pro. Louis was very upfront about what it meant to be a black boxer. This was still the era when white heavyweights refused to fight black boxers, not after Jack Johnson became America’s Manliest Man and then shoved it in the face of the whites. He hired a black promoter and said promoter told him that there was no way white management would treat him with the respect he deserved and get him the fights he needed. Soon, as Louis was really good, the white boxing world pressured Louis to sign white management. He refused. None of this really helped Louis though–his managers were completely ripping him off. But they did set up an image for Louis to follow if he was to become the true heavyweight champion. He had to be the anti-Jack Johnson: no taunting, no big spending, and especially no white women. He lived by that too and the powerful white promoter Mike Jacobs joined the fray.

Soon, Louis was a serious contender and it was getting harder for whites to not fight him. This was the 1930s. Fascism was on the rise. His fights against Europeans took on political dimensions, even if Louis himself did not play this up. When he defeated the Italian Primo Carnera, a former heavyweight champion himself, the left public saw it as sticking it in Mussolini’s fascist eye. By 1935, there was no way to keep Louis out of a title fight. Some were horrified. When he fought and quickly beat Max Baer, Washington Post sportswriter Shirley Povich stated of. many whites, “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.” Again, whites saw the heavyweight title holder as the King of Men. How it can be one of them?

But the problem that whites faced is that boxing had been a mess ever since Jack Dempsey retried. Lots of fixed fights, a lack of compelling figures, etc. And Joe Louis was clean and charismatic. Plus the mid 30s were not twenty years earlier. It was a more liberal time, even as it was a scary and horrible time as the right was also on the rise. Louis had his shot stopped for a bit after losing to the German Max Schmeling in 1936. That should have given Schmeling a title shot. But all the managers stepped in and had Louis fight the champ James Braddock instead. Braddock’s manager insisted he get paid huge amounts of Louis’ future earnings but Louis’ team agreed because if Schmeling won, the Nazis would never let a Black man fight for the title. So it happened, Louis won, and became the champ in 1937. He would remain the champ all the way til 1949, a crazy amount of time. He defended his title an insane 25 times.

The most famous of Louis’ defenses of course came against Schmeling again. This fight is well known. Schmeling wasn’t a Nazi and refused to join the party. He and Louis totally respected each other. Later, after the war, they became personal friends. But that didn’t mean that everyone didn’t see their 1938 rematch as politically fraught. Louis just destroyed him, knocking the German out in the first round. To be fair here, Louis’ 25 title defenses were often against total schmucks. But with it getting harder to fight Europeans due to World War II, what was he to do?

Louis joined the military in World War II, joining the cavalry, based on the fact that he loved riding horses. But he was too important to see combat. He also used his pull to help other black soldiers, including officer candidates delayed by racism from getting processed; one of these included Jackie Robinson. Much of his time was spent advocating for black soldiers against white racist officers, which was a lot of white officers.

After the war, Louis defended his title a couple more times before retiring in 1949. All of Louis’ cheating management led to severe financial problems for him later. The IRS said he owed tens of thousands of dollars. It was a mess for years. He fought for a couple more years somewhat against his will, ending with Rocky Marciano knocking him out in 1951, a fight the new champ very much did not want to have because he didn’t want to hurt Louis and Marciano could hurt anyone.

The IRS kept coming for a long time. What help Louis did get came mostly from the mob. He had become tight with gangsters. He got paid to give Jimmy Hoffa a hug in the courtroom in 1957 during the latter’s bribery trial because most of the jury was black; Hoffa got off. The mobster Frank Lucas once paid a $50,000 tax lien against Louis. The ex-champ had to go into professional wrestling to earn money. Finally, the IRS backed off some in the early 60s. Louis was able to earn some money by being himself and lived OK.

Louis was also a great golfer and did a lot of work to desegregate that elite white sport, supporting black professional golfers and became the first black golfer to play a PGA event when he was invited to play one in 1952. Later in life, Louis started doing cocaine. He collapsed on a New York street in 1969 and ended up in a mental hospital. His health was never great after that. Shortly after going to the Larry Holmes-Trevor Berbick title fight in 1981, Louis had a heart attack and died. He was 66 years old.

Joe Louis is buried on the confiscated lands of the traitor Lee, Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia.

If you would like this series to visit other boxers, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Sugar Ray Robinson is in Inglewood, California and Muhammad Ali is in Louisville, Kentucky. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.