Joe Louis: "The Greatest Boxer" Quiz

Answer: Detroit, Michigan

Joseph Louis Barrow was born in La Fayette, Alabama. He grew up in Detroit, the seventh of eight children born to farmer parents. When Louis was two years old, his mother, Lillie, was told that his father, Monroe, had died in the Searcy State Hospital for the Colored Insane. This was not true. His father lived for twenty more years. Lillie remarried and migrated to the north, to Michigan.

Louis was unprepared for school when he was twelve years old, and teachers put him in classes with much younger children. In his growing up years, he developed a stammer. His mother, trying to 'save' him, paid for violin lessons. Louis took this money to begin boxing as Joe Louis. Soon, his mother then began to support his boxing, believing it would give him a solid path in the future.

Answer: ever have his picture taken with a white woman

Louis once was photographed with a white teenage girl for a high school newspaper in Michigan, but this did not cause trouble. Louis firmly refused to be seen in a picture with a watermelon; this action was his stand against racial stereotyping.

Early on, working for Roxborough and Black, there were three other things Louis was not supposed to do: "gloat over a fallen opponent," "never engage in fixed fights" and "live and fight clean."
(source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Louis)

In general, Louis was taught early on to not show excess emotion, and he rarely showed emotion in public. Since he had developed a stammer as a young man, he was careful not to say too much in public either. Louis was married four times, twice to his first wife.

Answer: heavyweight

Louis was heavyweight champion from 1937 to 1949. In the ring, he was renowned for his left jab and his sheer power. There are some seventeen weight classifications in professional boxing for males. Heavyweight boxers weigh over 200 pounds. There are also cruiserweight (or junior heavyweight) and light heavyweight classes.

Answer: bugle blower

Louis was called everything from "Shufflin' Joe" to the "coffee-colored kayo king." Many articles discussed him as if he were an animal from the an African country. Cartoonists depicted him with his lips as larger than life, and his speech was sometimes exaggerated to sound like Uncle Remus.

His son, Joe Louis Jr, proudly said, "What my father did was enable white America to think of him as an American, not as a black. By winning, he became white America's first black hero." Many people praise Joe Louis for bringing African-Americans into positions of popularity and helping integrate sports in America.
(source: espn.go.com/classic/biography/s/Louis_Joe.html)

Answer: James J. Braddock

This fight took place on June 22, 1937 at Comiskey Park, with over of fifty thousand fans in attendance. Although Braddock (also known as "Cinderella Man") knocked Louis down in the first round, Louis went on to win the fight in the eighth round. Braddock was taking medicine against arthritic pain during this fight and he became very affected by it. Louis later said of Braddock that "he was the most courageous fighter I have ever fought." Overall, Joe Louis was a trail-blazer who paved the way for black boxers to become world champions, since, previous to him, there had been a color barrier. Jack Johnson had been a champion, but his style had shocked many white audiences.

Jack Johnson had actually been the first heavyweight boxing champion (1908-1915), but his fights became contentious and the scene of near riots. In a 1910 fight against James Jeffries, Jeffries said, "I am going into this fight for the sole purpose of proving that a white man is better than a Negro."
(for more on Jeffries, see sports.jrank.org/collection/19/Boxing.html)

Answer: Gene Tunney

When Dempsey lost, he told his wife Estelle Taylor, "Honey, I forgot to duck," a quip U.S. President Ronald Reagan used with regard to the failed assassination attempt on him in 1981. Dempsey fought Tunney again almost a year after his defeat. Word has it that Al Capone offered to fix the rematch, but Dempsey would have nothing to do with it. Dempsey lost the rematch; many criticize what they call "the long count."

Jack Dempsey was the heavyweight champion from 1919 to 1926. Jack Dempsey and Joe Louis are regularly compared as two of the greatest boxers ever. Dempsey's boxing matches were tremendously lucrative and popular. He was an aggressive and powerful puncher--ranked at number 7 of the 'greatest punchers of all time" on "Ring Magazine's" list.

Former heavyweight champion Jack Johnson said of the two, "Jack Dempsey was the better, stronger puncher on the attack, but Joe Louis could knock anybody's brains out that he caught coming in."

Answer: Adolf Hitler

Noted author and member of the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes, described Louis's overall effect during the Depression and in World War II in these terms:
"Each time Joe Louis won a fight in those depression years, even before he became champion, thousands of colored Americans on relief or W.P.A., and poor, would throng out into the streets all across the land to march and cheer and yell and cry because of Joe's one-man triumphs. No one else in the United States has ever had such an effect on Negro emotions - or on mine. I marched and cheered and yelled and cried."
(Source: Langston Hughes, (2002). Joseph McLaren. ed. 'Autobiography: The Collected Works of Langston Hughes,' Vol. 14. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press. at p. 307)

Joe Louis traveled extensively and often faced overt racism. Once, a military policeman commanded Louis to move his seat to the rear of an Alabama Army camp bus depot. Louis is reported to have declared, "We ain't moving." The MP wanted to arrest him, but Louis persuasively argued his way out of imprisonment. Similarly, once it is said that Louis was forced to try bribery in order to convince a commanding officer to drop charges against him for hitting an officer who called him a "nigger."

Answer: Max Schmeling

On the night of June 22, 1938, Louis and Schmeling met for the second time, The fight occurred in Yankee Stadium and was broadcast to millions of listeners all over the world, with announcers reporting live in various languages. This was perceived as an epic battle, particularly at this time in world history. President Franklin D. Roosevelt is purported to have told Louis at a White House meeting, "Joe, we need muscles like yours to beat Germany."

Answer: Jersey Joe Walcott

From January 1939 through May 1941, Louis defended his title thirteen times. He finished his career with a 68-3 record, which included a convincing 54 knockouts. After his fight with Walcott, he did not fight for two years. His winning years were apparently over.

In 1950, he lost a debated decision to Ezzard Charles, who was his successor as world heavyweight champion, and Louis retired completely after Rocky Marciano knocked him out in 1951.

Answer: Internal Revenue Service

The IRS wanted some $1.25 million in unpaid taxes, interest, and assorted penalties from Louis. In order to attempt to repay this, he turned to professional wrestling for a time to help pay his debts. In 1970 Louis was committed for six months to a psychiatric institution in Colorado as a result of cocaine addiction and paranoia.

When he got out of the institution, he became, among other activities, a celebrity 'greeter' of the public at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. Joe Louis's influence continues concretely in many ways, including the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit where the Detroit Red Wings play.