It was over in 124 seconds.
A couple of weeks ago, I was extremely puzzled at The View’s Meghan McCain’s complaint specifically, about the refusal of the Philadelphia Eagles to visit the White House and, more generally, about her complaint that she doesn’t ‘’like how political sports has gotten.’’
Huh?
As a student of history, I can’t think of a time when sports competitions haven’t been political; the ancient Olympic Games in Greece, for example, were often as political as its modern equivalent.
Then as now, organized sports around the world and in America have been used for political and/or propaganda purposes; the careers of athletes like Jack Johnson, Jim Thorpe, Willis Ward, Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Juan Carlos and Tommie Smith attest to that fact...and I could easily increase that list to include other athletes, college and professional sports organizations or the modern Olympic Games.
Probably no single sporting event in American history has been as political or was used for greater propaganda purposes than the 1938 heavyweight championship bout between Max Schmeling and Joe Louis (a rematch of the 1936 fight between Schmeling and Louis when Schmeling scored one of the biggest upsets in the history of professional boxing); a fight that took place 80 years ago today, June 22, 1938.
Joe Louis’s career, of course, was stepped in politics from the from the moment his professional career began in 1934, as Wikipedia explains.
Louis's amateur performances attracted the interest of professional promoters, and he was soon represented by a black Detroit-area bookmaker named John Roxborough. As Louis explained in his autobiography, Roxborough convinced the young fighter that white managers would have no real interest in seeing a black boxer work his way up to title contention:
[Roxborough] told me about the fate of most black fighters, ones with white managers, who wound up burned-out and broke before they reached their prime. The white managers were not interested in the men they were handling but in the money they could make from them. They didn't take the proper time to see that their fighters had a proper training, that they lived comfortably, or ate well, or had some pocket change. Mr. Roxborough was talking about Black Power before it became popular.
Roxborough knew a Chicago area boxing promoter named Julian Black who already had a stable of mediocre boxers against which Louis could hone his craft, this time in the heavyweight division. After becoming part of the management team, Black hired fellow Chicago native Jack "Chappy" Blackburn as Louis's trainer. Louis' initial professional fights were all in the Chicago area, his professional debut coming on July 4, 1934, against Jack Kracken in the Bacon Casino on Chicago's south side. Louis earned $59 for knocking out Kracken in the first round. $59.00 in 1934 is equivalent to 1,098.77 in 2016 dollars. Louis won all 12 of his professional fights that year, 10 by knockout.
In addition, there was the long shadow cast by the white backlash against former heavyweight champion, Jack Johnson, so Louis’s management carefully crafted and adopted a code of public conduct for Louis that was nothing less than a black respectability politics that Louis needed to adhere to in order to thrive
Black and Roxborough continued to carefully and deliberately shape Louis' media image. Mindful of the tremendous public backlash Johnson had suffered for his unapologetic attitude and flamboyant lifestyle, they drafted "Seven Commandments" for Louis' personal conduct. These included:
- Never have his picture taken with a white woman
- Never gloat over a fallen opponent
- Never engage in fixed fights
- Live and fight clean[24][25]
Louis’s 1935 fight against Primo Carnera was nearly as steeped in political overtones as Louis’s later bouts with Max Schmeling. as David Margolick explains in his book on the Louis-Schmeling fights, Beyond Glory: Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling, and a World on the Brink
To Harlem...Mussolini seemed a far more immediate enemy than Hitler. His dagger was aimed at Ethiopia, one of the few African nations actually run by blacks and the source of religious, historical, and political pride among African Americans.
Fears of a race riot over the Louis-Carnera fight were so intense that prior to the Louis-Carnera fight at Yankee Stadium, ring announcer Harry Blough said this:
Ladies and gentleman, before proceding with this most important heavyweight contest, I wish to call upon you in the name of American sportsmanship—a spirit so fine that it has made you, the Amerian sporting public, famous. I therefore ask that the thought in your mind and the feeling in your heart that, regardless of race, creed, and color, may the better man emerge victorious. Thank you.
(You can catch the end of Blough’s announcement at beginning of this clip of the Louis-Carnera fight.)
Louis went on to defeat Carnera by a knockout in the 6th round and became. for many, black and white, an American hero (although films of the Louis-Carnera bout were not shown in the Southern parts of the United States.). As Joe Louis Barrow, Jr. explains, his father was able to have an impact that no other black celebrity (and few white celebrities, to be honest) of his time could have.
Prior to the first Louis-Schmeling bout in 1936, Max Schmeling’s boxing career had been, for the most part, non-politicized. Schmeling rose through the ranks to become the heavyweight champion from 1930-32. By the time of his first bout with Louis in June 1936, the Nazi Party had come to power and, by most accounts that I’ve read, Schmeling did not, himself, become a Nazi Party member but did accomodate himself to the political situation as best as he could. The Nazis made some accomodations for Schmeling as well. For example, Margolick notes that the Nazis adopted a policy that ‘’all athletes had to be trained as fighters for Nazism and had to be tested for ‘political reliabilty’’’ yet allowances and exmptions were made for Schmeling; for example, Schmeling was able to keep his Jewish promoter, Joe Jacobs. He made some appearances on behalf of the Nazis that could have well been a calculated need to get along.
And then…
On June 19, 1936 at Yankee Stadium, Max Schmeling scored one of the biggest upsets in boxing history, defeating Joe Louis by a knockout in the 12th round.
(Reels of the first Schmeling-Louis fight were shown in the South...)
It was a propaganda victory for Adolf Hitler, of course, just a couple of months before the Olympic Games in Berlin. African Americans were, of course, saddened and shocked at the loss of their champion.
After beating Louis, it was largely assumed that Schmeling would get a shot at the heavyweight title against James Braddock. Instead, Louis was able to get the heavyweight title shot at Braddock and, in fact, 81 years ago today, Louis defeated Braddock by a knockout in the 8th round to become the heavyweight champion of the world...well, as far as everyone was concerned but himself.
Louis got his second shot at Max Schmeling 80 years ago today, a little more than three months after Nazi Germany annexed Austria and war was looming.
Margolick’s Beyond Glory is at its best in detailing the politics and the propaganda from both the Nazi government and media and the American government and media in the build-up to Schmeling-Louis round two and I recommend reading that for the intricate details.
In this last portion of this essay, I want to talk about the politics and propaganda that resulted from the second Louis-Schmeling fight.
After Schmeling’s first round loss to Louis in the second fight, he was shunned by Hitler and, decades later, it was reported that Schmeling hid two Jewish children in his hotel room when the Nazis expelled all Jews from Berlin.
But before a couple of thousand people, at a special tribute to Schmeling, tears welled in Lewin's eyes when he took the microphone and pointed to his old friend, seated at a front table next to the present heavyweight champion, Mike Tyson.
"I'm going to tell you what kind of champion Max Schmeling is," Lewin told the crowd.
"Beginning on Nov. 9, 1938, for four days, Max Schmeling hid my brother and me in his Berlin apartment. That was the night known now as 'the Crystal Night,' when the Gestapo began picking up all Jews off the streets.
"Max Schmeling risked everything he had for us. If we had been found in his apartment, I would not be here this evening and neither would Max.
"And that, friends, is the kind of champion Max Schmeling is."
Schmeling was also sent to the front lines (some say maliciously and on Hitler’s orders) for the Battle of Crete in May 1941.
I’ve written previously about Joe Louis campaigning for Republican presidential nominee Wendell Willkie against his fan, Franklin Roosevelt. Later, one week after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Louis volunteered for the Army...somewhat controversially, because many blacks felt that they should not volunteer to serve for a country that practiced racial segregation in the armed forces. Louis was a critical asset for the US in getting African Americans to enroll in the army. When he was able to do so, he used his celebrity to fight racial segregation in the Armed Forces.
I mean, I’m writing a lot of this because I love history, I love this history but I also want to reply to Meghan McCain.
I really think that pretty much, all that Max Schmeling and Joe Louis really wanted to do was box.
Schmeling and Louis weren’t dictating the politics or the times that they lived in, politicians were more responsible for that than anyone else...and politicans and, really, people generally project their politics toward organized sports and the athletes that play them; that was true in ancient Greece, it was true in the late 1930’s, it’s true now, and it will probably be true 1000 years from now.
Sometimes, we also seem to forget that athletes are also citizens with a conscience and people that do have a platform for a host of things and causes.
Individual athletes didn’t create these systems; black baseball players would have loved to join the major leagues long before Jackie Robinson began playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers; it was the politics that kept them out.
Both Max Schmeling and Joe Louis made good choices and, sometimes, bad choices to help others but they weren’t dictating the policy or customs of thier times.
The politicians were...and are...so if Ms. McCain doesn’t ‘’like how political sports has gotten’’ then I suggest that she addresses her concerns to the politicians and not the athletes who are only, at times, acting on their conscience given the platform that they have.