More Than Just a Fight

Abstract

Anyone who has had the pleasure of examining the fascinating African American weekly newspapers of the 1930s cannot help but be struck by the obsessive, yet loving coverage of one figure: the boxer Joe Louis (1914-1981). Pivotal developments such as the Scottsboro case, the various Don't Buy Where You Can't Work campaigns, and the struggle to secure a federal anti-lynching bill all took a back seat to news of the young fighter. In fact, between 1933 and 1938, Louis received more front page headlines and mentions in the Chicago Defender, one of the top weeklies, than any other individual.1 Seven decades later, the god-like stature of Louis during the Depression is difficult for some to comprehend. He lacked the outspoken personality of Jack Johnson, the braggadocio and political involvement of Muhammad Ali, or the fiery determination of Jackie Robinson. He said little outside the ring and, to use a familiar cliche, was generally content to let his fists do the talking. As Lewis Erenberg, author of one of three new books on Louis, observes, many young people today only have a vague sense of the boxer, probably shaped by the incessant clips of old fights aired on ESPN Classic (p. 225). But there is far more to Louis than meets the eye. Despite his current obscurity, Louis is arguably the most important American athlete of the twentieth century. During the darkest days of the Depression, he functioned as a superhero (long before Ali became a celebrated black Superman in the 1970s) whose knockouts of white opponents offered vicarious satisfaction for African