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Joe Louis

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Submitted By jjunquet
Words 1427
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Jessica Junquet
Thursday, October 30th, 2014
History
Joe Louis

Joe Louis: American Hero Betrayed
Joe Louis was a symbol of hope for white and mostly black Americans in this country. This image that Joe created did not just happen in a day, it took years and hundreds of matches. He was one of eight black children who did not receive any education and preformed manual jobs. He was a hard worker who earned enough money to take violin lessons. Yet, it was not violin lessons he was attending it was boxing lessons.
Louis was not born with the skills of a boxer. He had to work extremely hard to achieve what he did. His first fight he was knocked down seven times, but still remained to get up. His first manager, John Roxboro thought he was making a solid investment with Louis. As his career was beginning to start up he was faced with rules in order to participate. He was not aloud to take a picture with a white woman, he must be humble, and if he were to win a fight he was to not raise his arms in success as for it may start a riot. Basically, he was trained to act white.
1934 was the year to change it all. Louis won his first twelve fights in a row and ten of those fights were by knockout. Louis started to get very respectable at boxing; he won twenty-two fights without defeat, which started to raise attention to the black community. This was during the time of the depression. Louis was starting to create something for his community to believe in. As he became more successful he was put in articles in the paper and then transported to New York to continue his career. At this time Louis was improving his skills and weighed 265 pounds. He gave black America racial pride by being able to accomplish something so hard for a black man in a white world. At this time black Americans did not have much to be proud in besides if one of their fellow community members

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