In1940,most had grown accustomed to seeing heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis decisively winning his fights with his fists. That year, however, the boxer participated in a very different type of ...

Joe Louis and Max Schmeling were respected athletes ... Rockefeller met Schmeling on a golf course, and gave the boxer encouragement for upcoming fights. Franklin D. Roosevelt, U.S. president ...

"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 ...