City of Champions by Stefan Szymanski

Author:Stefan Szymanski
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The New Press
Published: 2020-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

TWENTY

JUNE 22, 1938

It takes Joe Louis two minutes and four seconds to beat Max Schmeling, boxing representative of the Third Reich. Louis, already world champion, has now avenged his unexpected defeat in 1936. When much of America rejoices at the triumph, white supremacists have to eat their disappointment. Louis, who had grown up in Detroit, learned his trade in the publicly funded Brewster Recreation Center, during the time when the Black Legion, a splinter group of the Ku Klux Klan, terrorized the city.

At 10:08 p.m. the bell rings in Yankee Stadium.1 What the audience sees is a white man who walks slowly toward his opponent, a black man. Race is everything this evening. This fight is fought over white supremacy, and for once, America is siding with the black man. Joe Louis is usually slow to advance in the first round, but this time, he bounds from his corner, eager to throw the first punch. For maybe seven seconds, the two boxers feint jabs at each other, and then Louis hits Max Schmeling, Hitler’s boxer, with a strong left jab. Two more blows snap back Schmeling’s head, followed by a left hook to his body. They clinch. As they break free, they face each other, Schmeling crouching now, extending his left arm as if this will keep Louis away; Louis leans forward and peers between his raised gloves, looking for an opening. He leaps at his opponent, who tries to hold him, but Louis manages two more hits to the head and drives Schmeling onto the ropes. Schmeling pushes forward and stems the tide for a moment, but as he steps back, Louis delivers a fierce left jab straight to the face. Barely thirty seconds have passed.

There’s a lull, as the two men weigh where they stand. Schmeling thinks he may have weathered the storm and tentatively advances again, but as Louis continues to crouch forward, threatening to strike, the German slowly retreats to the ropes. He manages to duck under a huge left-handed swing, but as he tries to raise himself, an upper cut hits him full in the face, followed by another right. He is now defenseless. A huge swinging blow misses completely, and Louis steadies Schmeling’s head with his right glove as if he were to deliver the full force of his left arm into Schmeling’s face. Instead, he chooses to deliver a blow to stomach, one to the kidneys, then one to the head again. Left, right, left, right, left, right—Schmeling is now leaning on the ropes, looking out to the audience, and the referee pushes Louis away so Schmeling can catch his breath. Just over one minute of the fight has gone by.

Schmeling turns back into the ring, trying to steady himself with the rope as he leaves the security it offers. Louis walks straight at him and delivers a left and then a right to the head; Schmeling falls forward onto his knees, then onto his back, and rolls again so he is back on his knees.

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