The Paczki Principle
like new leather
sexy and a bit provocative
First-time visitors to Detroit are sometimes unnerved by the immense public sculpture at the intersection of Jefferson and Woodward, a 24-foot bronze fist and forearm. The work of California artist Robert Graham, "Monument to Joe Louis" was installed in 1987 to honor the Detroiter who was one of boxing's all-time greats and America's first black athletic hero.
An Alabama native and son of a sharecropper, Louis came to Detroit with his family in the 1920s, and took up boxing at the Brewster Recreation Center in his teens. He grew into a powerful opponent, with a strong right cross and equally deadly left hook, and was the U.S. amateur champ before turning pro in 1934. Dubbed the "Brown Bomber" by sportswriters, Louis went on to rack up a 27-fight winning streak, usually thanks to his effortless knockout punch, against some of the world's toughest foes. At the time, boxing was one of the few sports in which black and white athletes competed against one another, and Louis became a hero to black Americans and a household name for everyone else.
Louis's eleven-year reign as the world heavyweight champion began on June 22, 1938, at Yankee Stadium, when he k-o'd Germany's Max Schmeling in one of the century's most anticipated---and shortest---sporting events. In just two minutes and eight seconds, Louis clobbered Schmeling in what was viewed as the symbolic triumph of democratic ideals and the American way over the rising tide of fascism in Europe. Nazi German ideology considered blacks and other minorities "inferior," and its propaganda machine had promoted Schmeling as the exemplar of its master Aryan racial ideal.
Louis kept his world heavyweight title until 1949, though he was serving in the U.S. Army during some of those years. After retiring in the early 1950s, he suffered from financial troubles, and spent his later years as a greeter at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, where he died in 1981. President Ronald Reagan waived the eligibility rules for burial at Arlington National Cemetery, and there Louis, whose victory over Schmeling presaged the defeat of Nazi Germany, rests for eternity.
