Boxing

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• 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. 

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• 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."

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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. 

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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?