Joe Louis Biography - life, family, children, name, school, mother, information, born, drugs, contract Joe Louis Biography Las Vegas, Nevada African American boxer African American boxer Joe Louis was world heavyweight champion from 1937 to 1948. He defended his title twenty times in four years. Early years Joseph Louis Barrow, born on May 13, 1914, was the seventh of eight children of Munroe Barrow and Lily Reese. His father was an Alabama sharecropper and died when Joe was four. His mother took in washing to support her family. Joe was close to his large family, particularly to his mother, from whom he inherited a deep religious sentiment. His mother married Patrick Brooks, with children of his own, when Joe was seven, and the family moved to Detroit, Michigan, in 1926. Joe Louis. AP/Wide World Photos . After Brooks lost his job, Joe and his brothers shined shoes, ran errands, and sold newspapers before and after school to help out the family. Joe also worked as an assistant to an ice-wagon driver. He later said that carrying heavy ice helped him to develop his big shoulder muscles.

As a teenager, Joe was the best boxer of his group. At nineteen he won the National Light Heavyweight Amateur Crown of the Golden Gloves in 1933. Louis received his ring name from one of his managers, John Roxborough, who found the name Joe Louis Barrow too long. Jack Blackburn, a very knowledgeable boxing man, was Louis's trainer. He taught Louis how to punch and worked with him to develop his body coordination. Early matches Before Louis became champion, he was beaten once, by Max Schmeling in 1936. The following year he defeated Jim Braddock for the championship. In 1938 Louis met Schmeling again and knocked him out in the first two minutes of the first round. Louis fought boxers including Billy Conn, Tony Galento, Rocky Marciano (1923–1969), and "Jersey Joe" Walcott (1914–1994). He won nineteen other title fights.

During World War II (1939–45; a war fought between the Axis powers: Germany, Italy, and Japan—and the Allies: England, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union) Louis was drafted, served faithfully, and fought two bouts for army and navy relief. The curse of many victories in a short period of time was the accumulation of a heavy tax burden. For example, Louis won $349,228 for his victory over Schmeling and $591,117 for beating Conn. In his entire ring career he earned $4,677,992. But his federal income taxes were $1,199,000. When penalties were assessed, taxes became astronomical. Business ventures Another source of trouble for Louis was his partnership in a public relations firm. In the early 1960s this firm entered into a contract with Cuba for $250,000 to promote tourism. Although this was not illegal, it was considered in poor taste to deal with a country with whom the United States did not maintain diplomatic relations.

Louis's other business ventures included the Joe Louis Food Franchise, a chain of food shops he opened in 1969 with his former ring rival Billy Conn. The former champ also served as a celebrity greeter at the Caesar's Palace Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. Final years Unfortunately, drugs took a toll on the once indomitable (not able to be beaten) champion in his final years. In 1969, he was hospitalized after collapsing on a New York City street. While the incident was at first credited to "physical breakdown," Louis later admitted to cocaine use and fears of a plot against his life. The following year, Louis spent five months in the hospital suffering from paranoid delusions (irrational anxiety and fear toward others). Strokes and heart ailments caused his condition to worsen. He had surgery to correct an aortic aneurysm (abnormal widening of a blood vessel) in 1977 and was thereafter confined to a wheelchair. Despite failing health, Louis still found time to attend major boxing events. On April 12, 1981, he sat ringside at the Larry Holmes and Trevor Berbick heavyweight championship bout at Caesar's Palace.

Hours after the fight, Louis went into cardiac arrest (a heart failure) and died at the age of sixty-six. In 1994, the bronzed boxing glove that Louis used to defeat Max Schmeling was donated to the city of Detroit by the Michigan Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. Dubbed "The Glove That Floored Nazi Germany," it was enshrined in a plexiglass case at the city's Cobo Center, a monument to Louis's enduring legacy. For More Information Bak, Richard. Joe Louis: The Great Black Hope. Dallas: Taylor Publishers, 1996. Barrow, Joe Louis, Jr., and Barbara Munder. Joe Louis: 50 Years an American Hero. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988. Louis, Joe, with Edna and Art Rust, Jr. Joe Louis, My Life. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978. Mead, Chris. Champion—Joe Louis, Black Hero in White America. New York: Scribner, 1985. User Contributions: Joe Louis | Encyclopedia of Alabama Herbert J.

"Jim" Lewis, Birmingham, Alabama Joe Louis Known as the "Brown Bomber," Alabama native Joe Louis (1914-1981) is considered one of the greatest heavyweight boxing champions of all time. At a time when most sports were still segregated in America, Louis was among the first African Americans to achieve national hero status in a white-dominated society. His defeat of German boxer Max Schmeling was renowned as a vivid refutation of Nazi Germany's official policy of white superiority. He had a career record of 68 wins and 3 losses, with 54 wins by knockout. Louis still holds the record for successfully defending his title more times than any other heavyweight boxer, and his 27 championship bouts are also a record. In 1969, Joe Louis was inducted into the inaugural class of the Alabama Sports Hall of Fam e . Joseph Louis Barrow was born to Munroe and Lillie Barrow on May 13, 1914, in a shack at the foot of Buckalew Mountain near LaFayette in Chambers County .

He became known simply as "Joe Louis" when he ran out of room for his last name when filling out a form for one of his first amateur fights. Louis's father was a sharecropper ; the circumstances of his life and death are somewhat unclear, but he was likely deceased early in Louis's life. Louis's mother took in washing to help support the family before marrying Patrick Brooks, joining her family of eight with his family of eight. In the summer of 1926, when Joe was 13, his newly expanded family moved to Detroit, where Brooks landed a job in the emerging automotive industry . Marva Louis School did not interest Louis, but he fell in love with boxing when a friend took him to a local gymnasium. When Louis turned 16, his mother began giving him money to pay for violin lessons, unaware that he was using the money instead to pay for a locker at the gym where he was learning to box. Although disappointed when she learned of his secret, his mother nevertheless encouraged him to pursue his talent as a boxer.

Louis posted a 50-4 amateur record, making it to the Golden Gloves finals in 1933 and winning the National Amateur Athletic Union light heavyweight championship in 1934. His accomplishments attracted the attention of John Roxborough, a wealthy black Detroit businessman and gambling mogul. Roxborough brought in Julian Black, a Chicago nightclub owner and gambling manager, to help him manage Louis's career when he turned professional in 1934. Roxborough would remain with Louis as his manager throughout his boxing career. In 1935, Louis married Marva Trotter (whom he divorced, remarried, and then divorced again in 1948), and the couple had two children, Jacqueline and Joe Louis Barrow, Jr. Louis also adopted three other children. In the first fight of his professional career, Louis knocked out Chicago's Jack Kracken on July 4, 1934, in a bout lasting less than two minutes. Louis thus exploded onto the professional scene, winning his first 27 fights, 23 by knockout, and amassing purses totaling $371,645, a staggering sum for the times.

During this two-year period, he knocked out Primo Carnera, Kingfish Levinsky, Max Baer, and Paolino Uzcudum, all well-known heavyweights at the time, in a total of 12 rounds. Joe Louis and Max Schmeling Favored to win his much-anticipated match with German boxer Max Schmeling on June 19, 1936, Louis instead was handed his first defeat in the ring as a professional, with a knockout in round 12. Louis then defeated James Braddock on June 22, 1937, to capture the heavyweight title, but his defeat by Schmeling haunted him. Louis hoped to reverse the outcome when a rematch was scheduled for 1938. German Führer Adolf Hitler saw the rematch as an opportunity to prove his belief in white supremacy. Thus, Louis had much to motivate him in his preparation for one of the most significant sporting events in the twentieth century.

In addition to his desire to avenge the only loss of his career and to dispel Hitler's theory of racial superiority, Louis also carried the burden of representing all Americans in this event, which was rife with the political undercurrents of fascism versus democracy. On June 22, 1938, Louis knocked out Schmeling just two minutes and four seconds into the first round. With this resounding victory, Americans both white and black erupted into celebration. In African American communities, Louis immediately became a hero of unprecedented power and influence. Their idolization of Louis was reflected by the numerous poems published in black newspapers, songs composed to glorify his deeds, and the many portraits of him that hung in the homes of black Americans. Joe Louis War Poster Louis successfully defended his heavyweight title for 11 years in 24 matches, with 22 knockouts. As with many other professional athletes of the day, Louis's boxing career was interrupted in 1942 when he enlisted in the Army after the United States had officially entered World War II the previous year. During his military service, Louis participated in 96 boxing exhibitions to raise money for Armed Services relief funds as well as to boost morale.

Louis's high profile also advanced the cause of desegregating the armed forces. Louis was able to use his status to help future baseball great Jackie Robinson and several other African American soldiers gain admittance to Officer Candidate School. After the war, Louis resumed his professional boxing career, successfully defending his title four more times before retiring on March 1, 1949. In 1951, Louis faced serious financial problems caused by his own generosity as well as by a huge bill for back taxes. Louis's fights over the course of his career had grossed approximately $4.6 million, but he only actually received about $800,000 of it. As a result of his financial woes, Louis attempted a comeback, but his career ended when he was defeated by Rocky Marciano on October 26, 1951. Joe Louis Statue in LaFayette In his remaining years, Louis served as a celebrity greeter at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, appeared on quiz shows, and even tried professional wrestling. In 1955, he married Rose Morgan, a successful Harlem businesswoman; their marriage was annulled in 1958.

In 1959, he married attorney Martha Jefferson. After the government agreed to forgive his tax debt, Louis was able to live a comfortable life. His health eventually deteriorated to the point that he was confined to a wheelchair. He suffered a stroke the year before his death and died of a heart attack on April 12, 1981, at the age of 66. President Ronald Reagan waived the requirements for burial at the Arlington National Cemetery so that Joe Louis could be buried with full military honors. On February 27, 2010, Louis was honored by his hometown when an eight-foot bronze statue of the "Brown Bomber" was unveiled in LaFayette in front of a large crowd that included his son, Joe Louis Barrow Jr. The statue, sculpted by Casey Downing Jr., sits atop a base of Alabama red granite and is located near the Chambers County Courthouse. Additional Resources Noles, Jr., James L. Hearts of Dixie: Fifty Alabamians and the State They Called Home. Birmingham, Ala.: Will Publishing, LLC., 2004, 112 -115.

Published: July 17, 2008 | &nbspLast updated: June 23, 2015 THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ALABAMA Welcome to your free, online resource on Alabama history, culture, geography, and natural environment. This site offers articles on Alabama's famous people, historic events, sports, art, literature, industry, government, plant and animal life, agriculture, recreation, and so much more.

NAVIGATE 11th April 1944, Joe Louis (right) with his sparring partner, first Sergeant George Nicholson of New York City pictured in London Pictures | Getty Images 11th April 1944, Joe Louis (right) with his sparring partner, first Sergeant George Nicholson of New York City pictured in London April 11, 1944 License 11th April 1944, Joe Louis (right) with his sparring partner, first Sergeant George...11th April 1944, Joe Louis (right) with his sparring partner, first Sergeant George Nicholson of New York City pictured in London LessMore Joseph Louis Barrow - famous Heavy Weight boxing star born in United States Joseph Louis Barrow Height : 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m) Weighted At : Heavy Weight Stance : Orthodox Reach : 76 in (190 cm) Joseph Louis Barrow, better known as Joe Louis, was an American professional boxer and the World Heavyweight Champion from 1937 to 1949. He is considered to be one of the greatest heavyweights of all time.

RELATED BOXERS Joseph Louis Barrow biography, birth date, birth place and pictures Joseph Louis Barrow biography Email Print Joseph Louis Barrow (also known as: Joe Louis, The Brown Bomber, Joe Louis Barrow), born May 13, 1914 in LaFayette, Alabama, United States - died April 12, 1981 in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States is an African-American boxer. In his day, heavyweight champion Joe Louis was the most famous black man in America, virtually the only one who regularly appeared in the white newspapers. By breaking the color barrier that had been imposed on boxing after black heavyweight Jack Johnson outraged white sensibilities, Joe Louis began a process that would eventually open all of big-league sports to black athletes. Throughout his unprecedented twelve-year reign as world heavyweight champion, Louis projected a power inside the ring and a quiet dignity outside of it that would transform him from a black hero, obsessively identified in the white media with his race and alleged "savagery," into a national hero, and ultimately a sports icon. His later years were difficult, marked by financial worries and bouts with mental illness, but when he died, millions mourned his passing.

As Muhammad Ali put it, "Everybody cried." Growing Up Part of Joe Louis' appeal lay in his rags to riches story. The seventh of eight children born to Alabama tenant farmers Munroe and Lillie Barrow, Joe lost his father early on. Two years after Joe's birth, Munroe Barrow was confined to the Searcy State Hospital for the Colored Insane, and Lillie was soon informed that he had died. In fact, Munroe lived on for another twenty years, an invisible man oblivious to his son's growing reputation. Believing herself a widow, Lillie Barrow soon married Pat Brooks, a widower with five children of his own. For a while Joe and the other children helped their parents work the cotton fields, but in 1926 the Brooks/Barrow family joined the growing swell of black migration northward. The family resettled in Detroit, where twelve-year-old Joe found himself woefully unprepared for school. To his embarrassment, he was placed in classes with younger, smaller children, and eventually the school system shunted him off to the Bronson Vocational School.

Fortunately for him, he discovered a vocation that would take him far beyond the precincts of the Detroit school system. When the Depression threw his stepfather out of work, Joe began doing odd jobs around town and hanging around with a rough crowd. To keep him off the streets, his mother scraped together 50 cents a week for violin lessons, but Joe used the money to join the Brewster Recreation Center, where he took up boxing. Fearing that his mother would discover where the "violin money" was going, Joe dropped the Barrow from his name and began boxing neighborhood kids as Joe Louis. While he showed great promise, an exhausting, full-time job pushing truck bodies at an auto-body plant left him little time or energy for training. In late 1932, he entered his first amateur match against Johnny Miller, a member of that year's Olympic boxing team. Louis' lack of training showed, and Miller knocked him down seven times in the first two rounds. Mortified, Joe Louis gave up boxing altogether, taking his stepfather's advice to concentrate on his job instead.

Interestingly, it was his mother who encouraged him to get back into the ring, seeing in boxing a chance for him to make something of himself doing what he enjoyed. The Amateur Years This time, Joe Louis quit his job and focused on his training. He returned to the amateur circuit, winning fifty of fifty-four matches over the next year, forty-three by knockouts. This impressive record soon brought him to the attention of John Roxborough, known throughout Detroit's black ghetto as the king of the numbers racket. Roxborough's other career was as a civic leader, sponsoring a number of charitable causes and helping local youngsters fulfill their dreams. He decided to take Joe Louis under his wing, even moving him into his house, putting him on a proper diet, and getting him some decent training equipment. In June of 1934, on the verge of going pro, Joe Louis asked Roxborough to become his manager. To help fund Louis' career, Roxborough brought in Chicago numbers runner Julian Black, a longtime business associate. Together, they brought Louis to Chicago to train under Jack Blackburn, who had already taken two boxers to world championships. Those boxers, however, were white.

The fact was that black boxers had very little chance of getting a shot at the title, particularly in the heavyweight division. Racism and segregation were endemic to American society, but in boxing there was a special reason that blacks were virtually ruled out as heavyweight contenders. That reason was Jack Johnson, who had held the heavyweight championship from 1908-1915. Johnson was the first black heavyweight champion, and he reveled in the distinction, flouting white conventions by gloating over defeated white opponents, consorting openly with white prostitutes, and marrying white women. For seven years he defended his title against a series of "great white hopes," but in 1915 he finally lost to one of them, Jess Willard, in a match that may have been fixed. The white press openly rejoiced, and white boxing promoters and fighters vowed never to give another black man a shot at the title.

Given this history, Blackburn was reluctant to take on a black boxer, but he needed a job and Roxborough and Black promised him a "world beater." Blackburn put Louis on a strict training regimen, including running six miles a day, and trained him in a style that combined balanced footwork, a strong left jab, and rapid fire combination punches. At the same time, his management team carefully nurtured an image designed to draw a sharp contrast between Joe Louis and Jack Johnson. Louis was to be gracious before and after a fight, conform to an image of God-fearing, clean-living decency, and above all avoid outraging white opinion by dating white women. Together, training and image building would propel Joe Louis to a shot at the title. Turning Pro Joe Louis' first pro boxing match took place on July 4, 1934, when he knocked out Jack Kracken in the first round. By October 30th of that year, when he knocked out Jack O'Dowd in the second round, he had won nine straight matches, seven of them by knockouts.

Along with his reputation, his payments were growing, from $59, to $62, $101, $250, $450, in the midst of the Depression when most of his old neighborhood was struggling on relief and occasional work. Louis was conscientiously sending money home to support his family, but he also began to develop spending habits that would plague him in later years, buying expensive suits and a shiny black Buick he would use to cruise for girls on visits home. It was soon clear that Louis had outgrown these carefully chosen opponents designed to nurture his early career. Louis' managers began to look around for tougher competition, and soon settled on Charlie Massera, ranked eighth in Ring magazine's survey of top heavyweight contenders. On November 30, 1934, Louis met Massera, knocking him out in the third round. Two weeks later, he went up against Lee Ramage, another up-and-coming heavyweight, and a real challenge for Louis. Ramage was quick on his feet and accomplished in defense. For the first few rounds he managed to fend off Louis' powerful jabs, and between rounds Blackburn advised Louis to start hitting Ramage's arms, if he couldn't reach anything else.

Eventually, Ramage was too tired to lift his arms, and Louis got him against the ropes, knocking him out in the eighth round. Roxborough decided Louis was ready for the big time, and that meant New York's Madison Square Garden, which had controlled big-league boxing since the 1920s, when it sewed up contracts with all the major heavyweight contenders. And that presented a major difficulty. Jimmy Johnston, the flamboyant manager of Madison Square Garden, said he could help Louis, but Roxborough had to understand a few things. As a Negro, Joe Louis wouldn't make the same as the white fighters, and more ominously, he "can't win every time he goes in the ring." In effect, he was telling Roxborough that Louis would be expected to throw a few fights. That went against one of Roxborough's commandments: no fixed fights, and he hung up on Johnston. Fortunately for them, Johnston's monopoly was getting a little shaky. A man by the name of Mike Jacobs would prove their salvation.

Passed over for leadership of the Madison Square Garden Corporation, Jacobs had been looking for a way to break the Garden's monopoly, and in a bizarre series of maneuvers surrounding a New York charity, he found it. Traditionally, Madison Square Garden had hosted a few boxing competitions for Mrs. William Randolph Hearst's Milk Fund for Babies. The Fund got a cut of the profits, and Garden boxing got good publicity from Hearst's powerful papers. When the Garden decided to raise the rent on Milk Fund events, some enterprising Hearst sportswriters, including Damon Runyan, decided to form their own corporation to stage boxing matches in competition with the Garden, with a share of the proceeds to go to the Fund. They could provide the publicity, but they needed an experienced promoter, so they brought in Jacobs, forming the 20th Century Club. Officially, Jacobs held all the stock, as the sportswriters didn't want to be publicly identified with matches they'd be covering. In the meantime, Joe Louis' winning streak continued. On January 4, 1935, he defeated sixth-ranked Patsy Perroni, and a week later he beat Hans Birkie.

Mike Jacobs needed a serious contender to get his Club off the ground, and before long the name of Joe Louis came to his attention. He went to Los Angeles to witness a rematch between Louis and Ramage, and this time Louis knocked Ramage out in the second round. Impressed, Jacobs invited Louis to fight for the 20th Century Club, assuring his managers that "He can win every fight he has, knock 'em out in the first round if possible." The Brown Bomber Jacobs promoted a few "tune-up" fights for Joe Louis out of town, while his secret partners in the Club began to churn out the publicity that would eventually make Louis a household name. Scouting around for an opponent for a big New York match, Jacobs hit upon Italian Primo Carnera, a former heavyweight champion. The match was scheduled for June 25, 1935--and the timing couldn't have been better. Throughout the summer, Mussolini had been threatening to invade Ethiopia, one of the very few independent black countries. Feelings ran high throughout the international community, and particularly among black Americans.

In the prematch publicity, Jacobs sold Louis as a kind of ambassador for his race, and by the time of the fight, black as well as white were deeply curious about this heavyweight contender crossing the color line. More than 60,000 fans, and 400 sportswriters, poured into Yankee Stadium that night to see six-foot, one-inch Joe Louis, weighing in at 197 pounds, take on the six-foot, six-inch, 260-pound Italian giant Carnera. After a few lackluster rounds, they saw something amazing. Starting in the fifth round, Joe Louis came out swinging, nailing Carnera with a right that bounced him off the ropes, then a left, and another right. Only hanging onto Louis kept Carnera from going down. In the sixth round, Louis knocked him down twice for a count of four, but each time Carnera staggered to his feet. Finally, Carnera had had enough, collapsing against the ropes. The referee called the fight. Overnight, Joe Louis became a media sensation, and Americans awoke to a rare phenomenon: a black man in the headlines.

Naturally, commentators focused overwhelmingly on his race, hauling out a seemingly limitless supply of alliterative nicknames to characterize the newly prominent contender: "mahogany mauler," "chocolate chopper," "coffee-colored KO king," "saffra sandman," and one that stuck, "The Brown Bomber." Sportswriters played up and exaggerated Louis' Alabama accent and limited education to convey an impression of an ignorant, lazy "darkie" incapable of anything but eating, sleeping, and fighting. At the same time, many sportswriters peppered their columns with dehumanizing savage references. For Davis Walsh, "Something sly and sinister and perhaps not quite human came out of the African jungle last night to strike down and utterly demolish Primo Carnera." Grantland Rice wrote in the Baltimore Sun, "His blinding speed, the speed of the jungle, and instinctive speed of the wild, was more than Carnera could face . . . Louis stalked Primo as the black panther of the jungle stalks his prey." Even New York Daily News sports editor Paul Gallico, widely viewed as a cultured liberal often sympathetic to black athletes, seemed overwhelmed and a little unhinged by Joe Louis.

After watching a training session, he wrote: "I had the feeling that I was in the room with a wild animal. . . . He lives like an animal, fights like an animal, has all the cruelty and ferocity of a wild thing. . . . I see in this colored man something so cold, so hard, so cruel that I wonder as to his bravery. Courage in the animal is desperation." Getting a Shot at the Top Cruelty and laziness had nothing to do with the real Joe Louis, as his management team well knew, but it would take more than the truth to change the image. A combination of skillful public relations and external factors would be needed to transform the Brown Bomber into a national hero embraced by all segments of society. Fortunately for Louis, the public relations aspects were in the hands of skilled management team that had been successfully crafting Louis' image from the beginning. With his sudden rise to fame, they went so far as to release to the press a series of "seven commandments" that Joe Louis had lived by, rules that many newspapers would use in shaping their own coverage. Other factors were out of Joe Louis' control, but worked to his advantage. Among these was the sorry state of boxing.

Riddled by scandal and lackluster champions, professional boxing had been losing fans since the retirement of Jack Dempsey in 1929. Boxing was hungry for an exciting champion, and Louis' undeniable power in the ring and his willingness to fight any serious contender fit the bill. And far beyond boxing's precincts, world events were undermining America's racial worldview. In Germany, Nazism's aggressive trumpeting of Aryan superiority was beginning to irritate many Americans, who started to ask themselves hard questions about what exactly they found offensive in the doctrine. Together, these factors began to soften the rigid color line that had prevailed in heavyweight title competitions for twenty years. Another twist of fate would put Louis in sight of the championship, and dissolve that color line. Just weeks before Louis beat Carnera, James Braddock had defeated reigning heavyweight champ Max Baer in one of boxing's biggest upsets. Assuming a Baer victory against a challenger who'd lost twenty-six fights in his career, the Garden's Jimmy Johnston had made a fatal contractual error. He had signed Baer to the standard contract, obligating him to fight his next match in the Garden only if he won.

Mike Jacobs went to work on Max Baer, eventually signing him up to fight Lewis on September 24, 1935. But Louis had personal business to attend to first. That day he married Marva Trotter, a 19-year-old secretary at a newspaper, beautiful, intelligent, well-spoken, and perhaps most important to his managers, black. As Louis put it in his autobiography, "No Jack Johnson problem here." The new Mrs. Louis had a ringside seat when Max Baer was counted out in the fourth round when he refused to stand up from one knee. Later Baer told a reporter, "I could have struggled up once more, but when I get executed, people are going to have to pay more than twenty-five dollars a seat to witness it." The Schmeling/Louis Matches With his victory over Baer, Joe Louis was widely seen as the best fighter, and his drawing power eclipsed that of the hapless James Braddock. But there was another white hope on the horizon. Former heavyweight champion Max Schmeling Louis and his fans were devastated, but not for long. The next year, it was Louis, not Schmeling, who got a shot at the championship.

Partly this was due to events in Schmeling's homeland. Many Americans had been disgusted by Hitler's attempt to use sporting events, such as the 1936 Berlin Olympics, as a showcase for Nazism and Aryan superiority, and Hitler touted Schmeling's victory over Louis as "proof" of that superiority. Financial considerations also played a role, and when Mike Jacobs offered James Braddock a share of future proceeds from Louis' fights, he agreed to a match. Incredibly, there was virtually no outrage at this "violation" of the color barrier. Clearly, boxing in America had come a long way. On June 22, 1937, Joe Louis knocked out Braddock in the eighth round, becoming the World Heavyweight Champion. Everyone knew a Schmeling rematch was the next order of business if Louis' title was to be seen as fully legitimate. A year later, on June 22, 1938, it came. The buildup to the match was incredible, even by the standards of the most famous black man in America. The world was on the verge of war with Nazism, and Max Schmeling was seen as an Aryan poster boy.

For the first time, white and black America were united behind Joe Louis, proof that America's best could defeat Germany's. Louis had a simple strategy for the fight: unrelenting attack. From the beginning Louis came out swinging, landing an overhead right that stunned Schmeling, breaking two of his verterbrae with a roundhouse right, and knocking him down three times in rapid succession. Two minutes and four seconds into the match, Schmeling's trainer threw in the towel. Seventy-thousand fans hailed Joe Louis as an American hero. A National Hero Between the Schmeling match and the outbreak of World War II, Joe Louis would defend his title fifteen times against opponents who were so clearly outmatched they were nicknamed the "Bums of the Month." Only light-heavyweight champion Billy Conn seemed to offer any kind of challenge, taking Louis thirteen rounds to defeat on June 18, 1941. Before the match, Joe Louis introduced a memorable phrase into the American lexicon by declaring of Conn, "He can run, but he can't hide." Shortly after Pearl Harbor, Joe Louis enlisted in the U.S. Army, cementing his reputation in white America.

The army sent him on a series of exhibition matches for the troops, as well as speaking engagements. Twice he donated the proceeds from title fights to the Navy Relief Fund. At the same time, he worked quietly to desegregate the armed forces, often participating in interracial events. When Joe Louis left the service in 1945, he was at the peak of his popularity. He was finally accepted as an all-American hero, and in press coverage, words like "integrity" and "dignity" took the place of the old savage stereotypes. He successfully defended his championship against all comers, earning huge purses and retiring undefeated in 1949 after the longest reign of any boxing champion in history. His legendary generosity to his family, old neighborhood friends, and virtually any worthy black cause, endeared him to the public. But below the surface, things were not always so good. His constant womanizing, carefully shielded from the press, had taken its toll on his marriage. In 1945, he and Marva divorced. They remarried a year later, but finally called it quits in 1949.

His generosity also took a toll, and throughout the war he'd actually had to borrow significant sums from his managers. Even more alarming, he owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes. A year after his retirement, financial considerations forced him back into the ring. He went up against the new heavyweight champion, Ezzard Charles, on September 27, 1950, losing in a fifteen-round decision. On October 26, 1951, he made one last comeback attempt, losing to future champion Rocky Marciano in an eighth-round knockout. Declining Years For the rest of his life, Joe Louis would struggle with financial difficulties. Money came from personal appearances, exhibition matches, and even a mercifully brief stint in professional wrestling. From 1955 to 1958, he was married to Rose Morgan, a successful beautician with her own business who could foot most of the bills. In 1959, he married attorney Martha Malone Jefferson, moving into her home in Los Angeles. Under political pressure, the IRS settled with Louis for payments of $20,000 a year on taxes owed, but even that sum remained out of reach.

In the 1960s, Louis' life began to unravel. He took up with a prostitute, identified as "Marie" in his autobiography, who presented him with a son in December of 1967. The Louises adopted the boy, naming him Joseph. At the same time, Louis began to get involved with drugs, including cocaine, and began to show signs of mental illness, warning his friends and family of plots against his life. For a few months, he was committed to a mental institution in Colorado. Martha stuck by him, and with her help and encouragement, he quit cocaine. Unfortunately, his paranoid delusions continued intermittently, though much of the time he was his old, genial self. In 1970, Caesar's Palace, in Las Vegas, hired him as a greeter, a job which involved signing autographs, betting with house money when the action seemed a little slow, and playing golf with special guests. The job suited him, and the casino even provided him housing, as well as $50,000 a year. Joe Louis lived and worked at the Palace until a massive heart attack felled him on April 12, 1981.

Joe Louis' funeral became a huge media event. A nation that had almost forgotten him suddenly remembered everything he had meant, hailing him anew as a great boxer who had restored class and integrity to professional boxing. Three thousand mourners gathered to hear tributes from speakers like Jesse Jackson, who saluted Joe Louis for "snatching down the cotton curtain" and opening up the world of big-league sporting to black athletes. Perhaps the greatest tribute came from Muhammad Ali, who told a reporter: "From black folks to red-neck Mississippi crackers, they loved him. They're all crying. That shows you. Howard Hughes dies, with all his billions, not a tear.

Joe Louis, everybody cried." AWARDS 1933, Won 50 of 54 amateur boxing matches, 43 by knockouts; 1935, Won 20 of 20 professional boxing wins, including defeats of former world heavyweight champions Primo Carnera and Max Baer; 1935, Associated Press "Athlete of the Year" award; 1936,1938-39,1941, Ring magazine's "Boxer of the Year"; 1937-49, World Heavyweight Champion, longest reign in boxing history; 1941, Edward Neil Memorial Plaque (for man who contributed the most to boxing); 1993, First boxer honored on a U.S. postage stamp.

CHRONOLOGY * 1914 Born May 13 in LaFayette, Alabama * 1926 Moves to Detroit, Michigan * 1932 Fights first amateur boxing bout * 1934 Moves in with John Roxborough, asks Roxborough to become his manager * 1934 First professional boxing match, July 4 * 1935 Defeats Italian Primo Carnera, June 25, and becomes media sensation * 1935 Marries Marva Trotter, September 24 * 1935 Defeats Max Baer to become top heavyweight contender, September 24 * 1936 Loses to German Max Schmeling, June 11 * 1937 Becomes World Heavyweight Champion, defeating James Braddock on June 22 * 1938 Defeats Max Schmeling in rematch, June 22, becoming national hero * 1942 Enlists in U.S.

Army * 1945 Enlistment ends in October * 1945 Divorces Marva Trotter * 1949 Retires as undefeated World Heavyweight Champion * 1950 Loses comeback attempt against new heavyweight champion Ezzard Charles, September 27 * 1951 Last professional boxing match, loses to Rocky Marciano, October 26 * 1955 Marries Rose Morgan, a successful beauty shop operator, on December 25 * 1958 Divorces Rose * 1959 Marries attorney Martha Malone Jefferson * 1967 Louises adopt a baby boy, naming him Joseph. Apparently, this the child of Joe Louis and a New York City prostitute, identified as "Marie" in Louis' autobiography. Martha would go on to adopt three more of Marie's children, of unknown paternity.

* 1970 Committed temporarily to Colorado state mental institution * 1970 Takes position as greeter at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas, Nevada * 1981 Dies of massive heart attack on April 12 The Official Site of Joe Louis FACEBOOK Joe Louis burst onto the professional boxing scene in 1934 with style and skill such as the boxing world has seldom seen. Known to many as the "Brown Bomber," Louis emerged victorious from his first 27 fights, all but four of which he won in knockouts. In the early days of his career, he destroyed such great heavyweight fighters as Stanley Poreda, Natie Brown, and Rosco Toles. It was here that Louis delivered to the entire world a premonition of the reign of domination that he was to begin. Joe Louis Barrow was born on May 13, 1914. His father, "Mun Barrow," was a cotton picker from Alabama and his family fought with poverty for most of his childhood. His family moved to Detroit in 1924, at which point Joe first became involved in boxing.

Having grown up in the Old South, Louis had acquired the instinct and anger of a true fighter, even amidst the evils of racial discrimination and intolerance. His early career was a period of hard work and determination, and was one without glamour or fame. Ten years after his arrival in Detroit, Louis won the Golden Gloves as a light heavyweight. Following this win, Louis turned professional and won twelve contests within the first year. The first few years of Louis' pro career involved a steady ascension up the pyramid of the Heavyweight class. His boxing prowess, as well as his reputation, was growing at an incredible rate. In June of 1935, he fought Primo Carnera, the former heavyweight champion, before a Yankee Stadium crowd of 62,000. Louis followed this fight with a pairing against Max Baer, who he defeated by knockout in the fourth round. Ernest Hemingway described this fight as "the most disgusting public spectacle outside of a public hanging" that he had ever seen. Joe Louis was seemingly invincible, until his meeting with Max Schmeling on June 19, 1936.

Schmeling was the underdog but, to the surprise of all, gave Louis a defeat that would continue to sting long after the cuts had healed. Louis was counted out in the 12th round of this lengthy fight and suffered the first and most painful defeat of his boxing career. In 1937, Louis faced world heavyweight champion James J. Braddock in Chicago. In an eight round match, Louis captured the heavyweight title of the world by knocking Braddock out. After this victory, Louis stated, "I don't want nobody to call me champ until I beat Schmeling." Louis had ascended to the top of the boxing world, but in his estimate his journey was far from complete. His embarrassing loss to Max Schmeling was the only dark spot on a career that otherwise was the stuff of dreams, and he was consumed by a desire for revenge. Following this successful title defense against Welsh boxer Tommy Farr in a 15-round marathon match, Louis initiated his "Bum of the Month" campaign. The idea was for Louis to take on a variety of fighters, whether they were contenders or not.

During this period, on the day of June 22, 1938, Louis once again took on the only opponent who had ever beaten him, Max Schmeling. This time around, Louis knocked Schmeling out and captured the admiration of countless Americans. Louis gained a moral victory for himself and for his country, and simultaneously struck a damaging blow to Hitler and his pretentious beliefs. Louis' first punches, a pair of powerful left hooks, began his opponent's eventual demise. Schmeling complained bitterly about being hit with foul kidney punches, but every punch was a fair one. The fight was nothing short of ridiculous, with Schmeling falling to the floor in just two minutes and four seconds. It was this time period that bore witness to Louis' reign of terror in the heavyweight boxing world. Beginning in 1937, he began a 12-year reign as boxing's heavyweight champion of the world. During this stretch, Louis had victories over Lou Nova, Tony Galento, Gus Dorazio, Buddy Baer, and Johnny Paycheck. Louis' epic battle with Billy Conn at the Polo Grounds also occurred during this time.

In 1942, Joe Louis began a period of service in the Army and worked as a physical education teacher. It would be four years before Louis again returned to the ring. Between 1946 and 1949, Louis flawlessly defended his title four times, including two victorious fights against 'Jersey' Joe Walcott. Louis retired in 1949, still the undefeated heavyweight champ. Succumbing to financial pressures and government debts, Louis was forced back into the ring. In 1950, he attempted to recapture his title in a bout against Ezzard Charles. However, in a points decision, Louis was handed a loss. Not ready to accept defeat, he again tried his hand in 1951 against Rocky Marciano. During this unsuccessful return to the ring, Marciano knocked Louis through the ropes in the 8th round. This was Joe Louis' final time in the ring. He had earned $5 million in his illustrious boxing career. But at 37, Joe Louis had not a single cent to show for it. To support himself, Louis decided to make a living as a Las Vegas casino host.

Joe Louis still holds the distinction of having successfully defended his title more times than any other heavyweight in history. He knocked out five world champions and will remain a powerful part of boxing history for many decades to come. His life and success story serve as proof that black and white Americans can coexist. Joe Louis is a role model for all of us and proved that good sportsmanship can exist even in a sport as violent as boxing. When he died in 1981, Joe Louis was eulogized - and continues to be known - as one of the greatest prizefighters of all time. Biographical Sketches | West Adams Heritage Association Joe Louis World Boxing Champion, 1937-1949. 1914-1981. World boxing champion 1937-1949, nicknamed "The Brown Bomber." Joe Louis was born Joseph Louis Barrow on May 13, 1914, in Lexington , Alabama , the youngest of seven children. His father was committed to a mental institution when Joe was two and died when he was four. His mother, Lilly Barrow, remarried and the family moved to Detroit .

Louis was studying cabinet-making at a trade school when he took up amateur boxing, registering as "Joe Louis," in some accounts so his mother wouldn't find out. He won 50 of 54 amateur bouts. He had taken a job on an auto assembly line, but decided to become a professional boxer when he won the U.S. Amateur Athletic Union crown in 1934. Hattie McDaniel First African American to win an Oscar. 1895-1952. First African American film star to win an Oscar. Hattie McDaniel was born in Wichita , Kansas to Henry and Susan McDaniel. Her father was a freed slave who have become a Baptist minister; her mother was a gospel singer. McDaniel's father organized her and her brothers and sisters into a singing troupe to earn money. Ramon Novarro Heart-throb of the silent screen. 1899-1968. Actor, best known for his silent films. Born in Durango, Mexico, and christened Ramon Gil Samaniego. His father was a prosperous dentist. Ramon sang in the church choir and studied classical piano.

In 1914, his family moved to Los Angeles to escape the aftermath of the 1910 Mexican Revolution. Little Richard Flamboyant central figure in the history of rock and roll. 1932- . Born in Macon, Georgia, as Richard Wayne Penniman. He was one of twelve children. His father, Charles "Bud" Penniman, was a Seventh Day Adventist preacher who sold moonshine on the side. The family lived on an unpaved street in a poor section of town. As a child Richard sang with the Penniman Singers and the Tiny Tots Quartet. By age fifteen he was a regular with Sugarfoot Sam's Minstrel Show. Sugar Ray Robinson Greatest welterweight and middleweight boxer of the 20th century. 1921-1989. World welterweight boxing champion who held the middleweight title five times. Named by the Associated Press in 1999 the greatest welterweight and middleweight boxer of the century. Caroline Severance Social reformer, suffragist, founder of the Friday Morning Club. 1820-1914. Born Caroline Seymour in Canandaigua , New York .

She graduated at fifteen from the Female Seminary at Geneva , New York . In 1840 she married Theodoric C. Severance, a banker. She had five children, the first of which died when he was six weeks old. She was active in abolitionist causes in the years before the Civil War. After the war, in 1866, she helped Susan B. Anthony found the Equal Rights Association. Robert Maclay Widney Founder of USC. Pistol-packing judge and real estate developer. 1838-1929. Principal founder of USC. Born in Piqua , Ohio . At 16 he left for the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains where he adventured for two years with a knapsack, axe, and rifle. Robert M. Widney arrived in California in 1857. He attended the University of the Pacific at Santa Clara , 1858-62, taking his BA and MA., later serving there as a professor of mathematics.

08 Apr US Boxer Joe Louis Barrow dies at 67 Photos and Images | Getty Images 08 Apr US Boxer Joe Louis Barrow dies at 67 December 28, 1946 License Dr Clark Foreman (left), President of the Southern Conference for Human Welfare,...Dr Clark Foreman (left), President of the Southern Conference for Human Welfare, congratulates American boxer and world heavyweight champion Joe Louis, (Joseph Louis Barrow, 1914 - 1981), at a dinner in his honour as a 'Great American and a Great Fighter' at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York, where he was presented with a scroll. Louis held the world championship for a record 12 years, defending his title 25 times. Behind them are American singer and actor Frank Sinatra and American actress Carole Landis. Original Publication: People Disc - HP0270 LessMore

Question: Which US boxer was born Joseph Barrow?
Answer: Joe Louis