FIVE years ago, I was given a plastic bag of boxing books and magazines at the end of a book signing. It was a busy time, and the bag finished buried under other stuff in a room at my house. It was lost and last week I found it and found a true boxing classic. It was a book that I had never heard of.
The book is called, Joe Louis: A Picture Story of his Life by Neil Scott and with an introduction by Frank Sinatra. It was published in 1947. I’m not sure where to start. The pictures are sensational, the words magical and Sinatra is brilliant.
The first picture in the book is a close-up of a pair gloves worn by Louis in that picture where he is leaning forward; in the book, the gloves are the main focus in the photograph, slightly blurred and old. Scott writes about the two “devastating fists” and tells the reader to “Note the ease of their position.” And he is right, all great fighters hold their hands in such relaxed and easy poses – it is a little thing that stands out when you look for it.
The next two pictures (don’t worry I’m not going to do each of the pages in the book, which does not have numbers) are of two women in Joe’s family. Octavia Hays Barrow, his great aunt, and Virginia Hays Barrow, grandmother of the boxer. The women are stunning. Scott again, first on Octavia and then Virginia: “Like other of the Champion’s forbears, she possesses predominant Indian characteristics…Note her sensitive, intelligent face and its striking basic mold of North American Indian.” The pictures are a triumph. There are also bold, early, revealing pictures of Louis’ many relatives on farms in Alabama and a warning: “Negro life is still much the same in Alabama.” This is no ordinary pictorial history.
There is a diversion for a picture of President Roosevelt meeting with Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia. It’s the start of Louis’ War Years: “The civilised world sat idly by while the near-naked Ethiopians defended themselves with spears, sticks and stones against the mustard gas, tanks, machine guns and dive bombers of Mussolini’s mechanised Roman Legions.” It is all painting a picture of Joe the hero; then Hitler and Franco make an appearance before the first boxing picture.
The picture is old, it is sad, it is Louis on the floor against “Hitler’s official sports representative, Max Schmeling.” There is then a picture I have never seen before of Louis on his knees, gloves holding the middle rope and his eyes staring at something on the canvas. “Millions of hearts went down with Joe on that night.”
And then Joe starts to ruin everybody, his face happy, his dressing room packed with smiling faces. Joe grinning at the camera, raising his right fist in a picture after knocking out Jim Braddock to become the world heavyweight champion. He looks so young – no scowling, he’s just an exuberant kid.
The Schmeling rematch continues the War on Fascism. There are brutal pictures. “Schmeling literally screamed with rage and pain.” There is a final picture of Schmeling being held by the referee: “Der Fuehrer’s fighter needed lots of protection that night.”
In the Tony Galento fight – two contrasting pictures of knockdowns each suffered – the words fully capture the savagery of Louis that night. “At times it seemed he would tear the stubby Italian to pieces.” Galento is shown taking a beating and the last picture from the fight is one of Galento, his face held together by stitches and plasters, holding his wife’s substantial bosom as she sits on his lap. “Tony is being comforted by Mrs. Galento, to whom he was still the greatest little guy in the world.”
The damage to Arturo Godoy’s face is ridiculous. The picture is from the rematch; Louis had beaten him mercilessly after the first fight had gone the distance. Godoy argues at the end after the stoppage and tries to attack Louis; the rage with blood is captured. In the first fight, Godoy had kissed and rumpled Joe’s hair. Louis was mean and these pictures reveal that side of the great man perfectly.
There are a lot of pictures of men going down, their bodies limp and others of men on the canvas, their faces smeared with their blood. In the background, often, Louis is looking over and walking to a corner.
Then there are the army pictures of Joe on a horse, Joe with Eskimos, Joe’s medical with hundreds in attendance, Joe in Italy, Joe in a muddy ditch at training camp. And then, in the final pages, Joe the activist. Neil Scott, the author, was black. There is a picture of Louis and Scott with a man called Isaac Woodard, “who was blinded in a beating by South Carolina police the day after he was released from the army”.
Woodard was on a bus, pulled off a bus, attacked, blinded and then found guilty of assault. Louis was co-chairman of the Isaac Woodard Benefit Committee. In the picture, Issac is being helped up steps, his dark glasses covering his eyes. Joe is not smiling in this picture. The Woodard incident was pivotal in the modern history of Civil Rights in America. Joe Louis was involved.
The final word goes to Old Blue Eyes. Here is Sinatra talking about his idol and friend: “We can feel proud, too, because he so dramatically personifies one of the ideals which we hold dear – that a man’s character and ability do not spring exclusively from the colour of his skin or the nature of his religious beliefs.” What a hidden beauty this little book is.
