Description: This is a history of race relations in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century told through the lives and times of two African American sports figures, the boxers Jack Johnson and Joe Louis. Hietala explores how the public careers and private lives of the first two African American heavyweight boxing champions both define and explain vital issues in U.S. history of the period. Incorporating extensive research into the black press of the time, the major events -- the John Jeffries "fight of the century" in 1910, the Mann Act trial, Louis's two bouts with Max Schmeling in the 1930s, Louis's enlistment in the Army in 1942 -- are all organized around the principle themes of the book: the persistence of prejudice and segregation from the early 1900s to the late 1940s; the two boxers' symbolic significance to black Americans, and the hopes they inspired that their success in the ring would diminish racism and foster greater opportunity and civil rights for all Americans.

Please Wait