Boxing 
-
SOURCE: The Nation
5/8/2023
Joe Louis was the World's Most Popular Athlete; Racist Businessmen Refused to Let Him Endorse Fords
by Silke-Maria Weineck
Market research documents related to the Ford Motor Company's refusal to grant retired champ Joe Louis a dealership franchise reveal a combination of middle-class prejudice and the willingness of the business world to accommodate Jim Crow.
-
SOURCE: TomDispatch
1/27/2022
Is Ali the Last American Hero? Who Else is There?
by Robert Lipsyte
"I’ve been wondering lately just how Ali actually reached such heights. There are plenty of people alive today who once hated him and yet, in American popular culture, he’s now a secular saint."
-
SOURCE: Texas Monthly
1/22/2022
New Documentary on 1996 De La Hoya vs. Chavez Fight Digs Into Complexity of Mexican Ethnicity Across the Border
Director Eva Longoria Bastón's documentary on the 1996 match between Mexican champion Julio César Chávez and LA-born Oscar De La Hoya examines how the fight revealed tensions between Mexican and Mexican-American communities expressed in citizenship, language and sports allegiance.
-
SOURCE: Black Perspectives
10/12/2021
Jack Johnson and Africa: Boxing and Race in Colonial Africa
by Abraham Tapiwa Seda
Jack Johnson's achievement as the world heavyweight champion had cultural significance far beyond the United States, as European colonial regimes that had used sports like boxing as instruments of social control found that they could also be instruments of rebellion and rejection of white supremacy.
-
SOURCE: AV Club
9/13/2021
Ken Burns's "Muhammad Ali" Well-Crafted, But Not Groundbreaking
Ken Burns has an irresistable subject for his latest project. The problem isn't the quality of his film, but that so many others have gotten there first.
-
SOURCE: The Sportsman
6/22/2020
On this Day in 1938, Joe Louis and Max Schmeling Went to War
Although his title fight with Joe Louis was treated as a symbol for both racial conflict and the looming battle between fascism and democracy, the German heavyweight was relieved to be dumped as a mascot of the Nazi party after a decisive loss to the African American champion.
-
5/14/19
Cassius Marcellus Clay and Muhammed Ali: What’s in a Name?
by Joshua M Casper
They were born with the same moniker, and both changed history. Two names. Two men. Two identities, Muhammed Ali and Cassius Marcellus Clay will forever be linked.
-
SOURCE: NYT
5/24/18
Trump Pardons Jack Johnson, Heavyweight Boxing ChampionTrump Pardons Jack Johnson, Heavyweight Boxing Champion
Decades after Johnson was convicted under the Mann Act, his case drew significant attention as a gross miscarriage of justice and a symbol of the depths of racism in the American justice system.
-
12-7-15
Ten Rounds of History: The All-American Boxing Film Is Back with Creed
by Bruce Chadwick
Why have we loved boxing movies so much for over a hundred years?