"What my father did was enable white America to think of him as an American, not as a black," said his son, Joe Louis Jr. "By winning, he became white America's first black hero." Louis was ...

The New York Daily News, June 23, 1938. When Joe Louis defeated Max Schmeling in a 1938 rematch, the nation celebrated -- and one of the biggest parties was in Harlem. In the famous New York ...

Joe Louis on the first Schmeling fight ... Roxborough saw in Louis the chance to make big money. In his autobiography Louis would recall, "[Roxborough] told me about the fate of most black ...