Happy Birthday to long-time world champion boxer Joe Louis (b. May 13, 1914, in LaFayette, AL), who became a national hero during World War II when race and patriotism intersected with opposition to Nazi ideology. American opposition to Nazi racial thinking put into sharp relief the racial injustice faced by Black people in the United States. Louis made his popularity’s wartime connection more direct when he served in the armed forces from 1942 to 1945. His continued victories in the boxing ring throughout the war years further advanced his image as a vital national and international representative of American excellence. As historians Dominic J. Capeci Jr. and Martha Wilkerson write, “Genuinely the people’s choice, Louis possessed that quality—'divine grace’—characteristic of heroic leadership. He emerged more hero than leader, defining no ideology, presenting no strategy and organizing no constituency. Yet his historical significance lay in the symbolism he represented for black and white societies, their ideologies, their struggles, and their ‘assurances of success.’”
Citations: Dominic J. Capeci Jr. and Martha Wilkerson, “Multifarious Hero: Joe Louis, American Society and Race Relations During World Crisis, 1935-1945,” Journal of Sport History 10, no. 3 (Winter 1983): 10, 12-13, 17, https://www.jstor.org/stable/43609096; “Joe Louis Barrow,” promotional material (1942), collection of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery (Washington, D.C.), public domain, https://www.si.edu/object/joe-louis-barrow:npg_NPG.88.24.
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