The Great Depression; Interview with Joe Louis Barrow, Jr. Part 3

INTERVIEWER:

OK, so if you could tell me that story about trying to—and his response to...

JOE LOUIS BARROW, JR.:

One of the ground rules that was very clear, and in the boxing game in the '20s, '30s, and'40s it was a tough game, as it is today, and one of the rules that Roxborough and everybody wanted to play by was that Joe Louis could fight any opponent whenever he wanted to and defeat that opponent, and he wouldn't fix any fights. I think some of the earlier promoters before Mike Jacobs wanted my father to have to 'play the game', if you will, and sort of, lose this one to get that one, and get this shot in order to get in the other shot. They didn't want to have anything of it, I mean, basically my father came from an honest, religious family, where he didn't lie, he didn't cheat, and that was his whole, entire moral background. They didn't want to subject him to have to do that stuff, so the ground rules were, Joe fights whoever he wants, and Mike Jacobs said, Joe, you fight whoever you want, whoever we put in that ring, and you can end it whenever you want, you don't have to take it any further, and you'll never fix a fight. Those were the ground rules that were established, that's how Joe Louis fought, and that's how my father conducted his boxing career for all those years.

INTERVIEWER:

Now, again, there was, I think there was a moment, and I'm pretty sure I read this one in your book, where, where Mike gets together with Roxborough and he says, You guys are colored, and I'm a Jew, it's gonna be a rough, it's gonna be a rough go but I think we can do it.

JOE LOUIS BARROW, JR.:

INTERVIEWER:

Was it unusual to have an all-black management team at that time, and how did the white, again, the white establishment view that? Did they need Mike Jacobs because of that, or...?

JOE LOUIS BARROW, JR.:

I think there was, I think it was probably clear that it was unique to have an all-black group, but the realities are, there weren't that many black fighters, certainly no black heavyweights, fighting for the championship. Joe Louis as a black fighter couldn't turn to whites, because whites didn't want a black champion. Remember, it's the '30s. Remember, whites didn't want blacks fighting, and they certainly didn't want them fighting for the heavyweight crown. So, my father had to turn to where he could turn, and that was to black people, who said, We want a hero, we're gonna make this man someone. He has the talent, he has the ability, he has the drive. So, I can't even conceive of a white person being, taking a risk on Joe Louis, because a white person wouldn't want to buck the establishment, and bring on a black fighter to challenge that establishment as a contender, and then eventually as a champion. No, it needed black people's support and a black man in that conquest, and that's what Roxy put together with Julian Black and Jack Blackburn.

INTERVIEWER:

So when Jacobs got him the shot at New York, so Joe was coming to New York, how did, was there a difference in the reaction between the white press and black press, between white citizens and black folks, and...

JOE LOUIS BARROW, JR.:

My father really was a strong contender, and defeating everyone in the Midwest, but Mike Jacobs knew that if Joe Louis was gonna start his steps towards the heavyweight championship, he had to be in New York, that's where boxing was, Madison Square Gardens. So the major, and the first big fight that my father had was the Primo Carnera fight, in 1935, and that as in New York City, and Jacobs arranged that. And here was Primo Carnera, this huge, huge, tall person, of Italian descent, against this black American. That was an important fight, because it put Joe Louis on the map, the white press all of a sudden got a look at him. Previously, what Jacobs had done to even get Joe Louis recognized, is he literally took a train load, a train-load of white reporters from New York out into Chicago to see my father fight. Only after that was Jacobs able to convince, through the white press, that this was a real contender, and that's how he eventually led to the Primo Carnera fight.

INTERVIEWER:

Were they, was there—

CAMERA CREW MEMBER:

INTERVIEWER:

OK, let's cut, let's cut.

CAMERA CREW MEMBER:

Let's cut.

CAMERA CREW MEMBER:

Take eight.

INTERVIEWER:

So, in terms of...

JOE LOUIS BARROW, JR.:

I mean, I think you can almost really see that, when Joe started his professional career, there was a lot of cynicism. Nobody wanted him to crack that racial barrier, particularly the white press, and a lot of white America. You can kind of see his acceptance trends into, after the title and into the '38 fight, but when he first started, the white press didn't necessarily want to give him the accolades that he needed. 'The Dark Destroyer', and the 'Jungle' this, and the 'something that', and the 'Brown Bomber', of course, the one that stuck. Joe Louis wasn't accepted, but they had to accept him because he was the most bright light. What they really didn't count on, and I think what the press really sort of missed, was the fact that Joe Louis came along in the post-Depression '30s and'40s. America needed a hero. America wanted its emotional integrity, its ego, lifted, and Joe Louis provided it. Whether you're black, white, rich, or poor, America was just coming out of a deep, dark Depression, and the irony is that here's a black man who just lifted the spirits of this country, in such a way that everybody could get behind Joe Louis. I don't think the white press understood that, they didn't understand that we needed a hero in this country, that we were just struggling back, and someone, and that's why sort of,

when Joe Louis fought, everybody listened around that radio. Whites, black, rich, poor, north, south, east, or west, it was a cultural phenomena [sic]

in this country and, for that matter, in the world, when Joe Louis fought, because everyone embraced that radio. I like to say that more people saw my father through that radio, and imagined what they could be, then if they'd seen him in person. More people saw my father through that radio, because people around the world, and in this country, could use their imagination and dream, and Joe Louis created dreams in peoples' minds each time he won and defeated his opponent in the way he did. Clearly for black America, he allowed them to feel rich about themselves, and for the white Americans, trying to struggle with the American ego, this was a man who, particularly when you get into the '36 and '38 Schmeling fights, held up the pride and dignity of this country against the Aryan race, against Hitler and nazism and fascism. Now, Joe Louis represented democracy, he represented freedoms, he represented dreams. My father was very special in that regard.

INTERVIEWER:

Do you think there was an irony to that, insofar as that, for, at a certain point, all America, he represented dreams, he represented America and democracy, as you say, yet, he was special, because other black people didn't enjoy that [inaudible].

JOE LOUIS BARROW, JR.:

Well, Joe Louis wasn't special in the sense that, yes, he represented freedom and democracies, and that came very clear and was very vivid in the '38 Schmeling fight. I mean, I remember talking to my dad, and he was describing to me what his most important fight was, and his most important fight, frankly, was not the '38 Schmeling fight, it was the '36 Schmeling fight, because that's the one he lost. That's the one that he took for granted, that's the one that he started reading the press and believing that he was invincible. The realities are, that you can't be arrogant that way, not in anything, in your life, in business, in a sporting encounter, et cetera. So, that really taught Joe Louis that you really can't take anything for granted, and what he had been questing for, he almost lost, because he didn't think somebody eight years his senior, Max Schmeling, could defeat him. Well, when he beat Jimmy Braddock a year later and was the heavyweight championship of the world, black people celebrated. They celebrated for a month, but Joe Louis didn't think he was the heavyweight champion. My father didn't think he would ever have been the heavyweight champion of the world, had he not had another shot at Max Schmeling. Then, Hitler was making moves in Europe. All of a sudden this one boxing contest became a world event, 'cause on the one hand you had Hitler and Nazi Germany, on the other hand you had Joe Louis representing freedom and democracy, a freedom and democracy which he couldn't live, a freedom and democracy which he couldn't experience, and as a black American, yes, he was the heavyweight champion of the world, but he still couldn't go to certain hotels, he still couldn't ride in certain places, he still couldn't eat in certain places. It was segregated, there was bigotry, and later in life, I think my father forced America to deal with that conscience. But the realities are, not until Joe Louis defeat Max Schmeling in 1938, did he really start transcending to be a true, broad American hero. That's when people throughout this country said, Joe Louis defeated the enemy, and the enemy was the emerging Nazi Germany, and even though Max Schmeling was not a Nazi, everyone considered a German to be a Nazi. So, the overtones of that '38 fight were phenomenal. Max Schmeling experienced things that he'd never experienced before, pickets, people telling him he was bad, that he represented something that was evil. And yet

Joe Louis had to defend the freedom of democracy, and he held up that flag. To him, he wanted to defeat him because he lost in '36, but to America and the world, they had to send a signal to Adolf Hitler, and Joe Louis did.

INTERVIEWER:

Great. What about the Carnera fight-

CAMERA CREW MEMBER:

We have to change reels.

INTERVIEWER:

OK. Chris, do you think, and I find [unintelligible]...

CAMERA CREW MEMBER:

Take nine.

INTERVIEWER:

Just a second. OK.

JOE LOUIS BARROW, JR.:

Joe Louis, even though he was, you know, my father, even though he was heavyweight champion of the world and everybody put him on this pedestal, the realities are, he was a black man, and America, conscious...

INTERVIEWER:

Start from the beginning. It's OK.

JOE LOUIS BARROW, JR.:

Even,

even though my father was heavyweight champion of the world, he was still a black man, and America reminded him

that he was a black man

constantly.

My father,

even though sometimes they wanted to open the doors for him, he always felt very strongly that if his black brothers and sisters couldn't walk through those same doors the next day, then he wouldn't do it.

So he wouldn't stay in hotels when he traveled on the road, where black people couldn't stay, even though the white establishment might have wanted him too. Then there were stories about, when he had to, because it was the only hotel in town, they would segregate him, they put his whole entourage on the top floor, create their own restaurant up there so that they wouldn't go down and use the restaurant in the hotel. My father didn't like the prejudice, I mean, he understood it, and he understood he had to battle it. One of the most unfortunate stories was when he was in the Army, and my father conducted some ninety-six exhibitions, entertained some three million troops, so he was headed back to Fort Riley, Kansas, and he was in Oklahoma having done an exhibition, and all of a sudden they held up the plane for him, and this white businessmen said, Why are we holding up the plane? Well, there's someone coming, and we're waiting for this black soldier. And he said, Well, what nigger are we waiting up, waiting for? And just as he said that, Joe Louis is walking in the plane, and he looks up and sees that the nigger that he's calling and waiting for is Joe Louis, the heavyweight champion of the world, in his uniform, having entertained troops yet once again. Well, he stuck out his hand to apologize to my father, and my father just sort of fluffed it off and went on and sat down, but he had to endure many of the same indignities that other blacks did, regardless of the fact that he was heavyweight champion of the world.

INTERVIEWER:

Thanks. I know that story. The Italian-Ethiopian situation, and the Primo Carnera fight. Was there a relationship there, was there a significance for the black population?

JOE LOUIS BARROW, JR.:

The Primo Carnera fight, I think, was, was sort of a lot of 'press stuff'. He was Italian and my father was black, Mussolini and Ethiopia, and there was a lot to be made of what was going on outside of our borders, but the realities are, that my father didn't focus on that. I mean, more people, other people focused on it more than my dad. My dad just wanted to have a good showing, 'cause it was his first, first major fight in New York City, which was the stronghold of boxing. I think more was played, you know, made of that in the press than actually the realities are. Even though my father was aware of it, it didn't matter to him.

INTERVIEWER:

What about in the community? What about, [coughs] what about, say, in Harlem, or in the community, did it mean something to them?

JOE LOUIS BARROW, JR.:

Well, there's no question, every time Joe Louis fought, it was important to black America, it was important in the community, because Joe Louis was the only way that blacks in this country could compete on equal grounds. It was the only time that blacks in this country, given a square, square opportunity, even playing field, could beat up on whites and not go to jail. So, when Joe Louis won, it was a marvelous, marvelous feat, because it told every black American who was enduring the prejudice, enduring the segregation, that hey, if you give us a chance and let us compete, we can win. It's just, the only reason you're not letting us win is because you're suppressing us, and repressing our abilities to be able to compete. So he instilled great deals of pride whenever he fought and whenever he won, because Americans, black Americans said, I can do it now, I can make it, I can be somebody. There's a story once, when I was on a radio talk show, and we'd been talking about what happened in black America when my father won, and literally, people would bang the pots and pans. So, it was a radio call-in show, and this caller calls in, and says, I used to bang the pots and pans. I said, well, how did you feel, how did you react? He said, Let me explain it to you this way. I grew up in the ghettos of Pittsburgh, and I was slated to work in the steel mills. That's all that we could do, that's all that was expected of us. But yet, today, I'm a college dean, and I'm a college dean because your father gave me the sense of self-worth and respect, that I could do more than was expected of me. That's what Joe Louis meant to me. I've been listening to you talk about your dad for a half an hour, and I've had tears in my eyes, remembering what Joe Louis meant to all of us as we grew up in the ghettos of Pittsburgh. He made the difference in our lives, not a difference in our lives. And when I heard that story I was just, humbled, I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what, to react, that here was a man who literally instilled enough confidence and self-worth to this poor black kid in ghettos Pittsburgh, that he started his own journey, his own journey to accomplish something that was unexpected. And I was very proud of that.

INTERVIEWER:

Didn't you also tell me once about, that, in fact, it wasn't, it wasn't, not only true, there was a special place he had for, for black people, but also white people too. You told me...

JOE LOUIS BARROW, JR.:

Yeah. Well, and there was a, there was another opportunity when I learned, and we had been talking about my dad's impact throughout the world. Another radio call-in show, this voice comes on, very European voice, he says, I'm Polish, my name is Walter. And when I survived those concentration camps for four years, I did so because I knew the Germans were not invincible, that somebody would beat them, because Joe Louis had already defeated Max Schmeling. I survived the Holocaust because I knew that the Germans could not win, because your dad defeated Max Schmeling. Well, who can believe that somebody, surviving the Holocaust in a concentration camp, had the memory of Joe Louis, and that kept him going. That's a phenomenal amount of power. A person who only learned of Joe Louis through the radios, learned of Joe Louis through the talking and the writings, and learned of Joe Louis because he defeated Hitler's favorite champion Max Schmeling. That's, that's a phenomenal kind of power and influence, that Joe Louis didn't want, didn't seek, but he had, because of the times, because of the times that people needed a hero to revere, to think about, to want. Joe Louis provided that void across the world, which is so phenomenal. At the same time, even in white America, he challenged America to deal with its conscience. You can't call me heavyweight champion of the world, you can't call me special, but yet all of a sudden relegate me, like, and all of my brothers, to an inferior life. One time this, this white man came up to me after I talked at a, at a Rotary club, and he said, Joe, I've known you for five years, but I've never told you this story. Your father was a unifying force for us in a poor, segregated town in Texas. He said, Our town was so poor, we only had one radio, and it was the first time that blacks and whites got together, because we all wanted to listen to the Joe Louis fights. We all got around, and huddled around the radio. The whites were on the inside and the blacks were on the outside, but other than work in the fields, we never saw blacks, he said. And the next day, something happened that was even more of a phenomena [sic]. Us white boys wanted to replicate the fight, and for the first time in our lives, we wanted to be a black man, we wanted to be Joe Louis, because we didn't want to play the loser, because who wanted to be a loser? And that was contrary to what our parents were telling us. Our parents were telling us that blacks were inferior, that blacks weren't important, that blacks were insignificant, but yet for all the kids on that playground in that white school in this poor segregated town in Texas, we wanted to be a black man, 'cause the black man was our hero. And all of a sudden we're saying, What are you trying to tell us, white America? What are you trying to tell us, parents? That blacks aren't good? When the heavyweight champion of the world, the most powerful individual, the most revered individual, somebody that we emulate, is a black man? Joe Louis challenged the conscience of America in many, many ways throughout this country.

INTERVIEWER:

Oh, good. Great. OK, cut.

JOE LOUIS BARROW, JR.:

I mean, one of the things that you have to remember about Joe Louis, is how he impacted a lot of people in very different ways, some very seriously, and some in humorous ways, and John Thompson, coach at Georgetown University, told me once that his parents lived in the southwest side of Washington, D.C., in the basement of this row-house. The white folks who owned the house upstairs invited them to listen to a Joe Louis fight, and they went up, and of course, in the fifth or sixth round, all of a sudden Joe Louis defeats this white man. The white owner of the house was so incensed that he turned off the radio, so that they couldn't hear the play by play and the ring announcers talking about how Joe Louis yet defeated another opponent. So, John's parents were very, very sensitive about that, and they went downstairs and very quietly said thank you for letting us listen to the, to the fight. Once they got downstairs and closed the door, they just yelled and hooped and hollered, and they hooped and hollered because they were proud of Joe Louis's victory, they wanted to take pride in that, but yet they couldn't express that pride in front of whites, that's a tragedy in this country. Because, whites still said that, This is a black man, he shouldn't be where he is, he shouldn't be allowed to beat up on whites, that's our domain, that's our province. And, you know, you hear story after story, how blacks in the South would never say anything, would never do anything in front of whites when Joe Louis fought, but those kids had some awful big chests the next day, they walked around with a level of pride you can see just bursting from their chest and busting those buttons, because yet, you know, Joe Louis defeated another person.

INTERVIEWER:

Great, [inaudible]?

CAMERA CREW MEMBER:

Yeah, we're just about out.

INTERVIEWER:

OK. We'll have to change camera rolls.