Joe Louis Research Paper

632 Words3 Pages
“This might be the end of the world. If Joe lost, we were back in slavery and beyond help. It would all be true, the accusations that we were lower types of human beings. Only a litter high than apes. That we were all stupid and ugly and lazy and dirty and, unlucky and worst of all, that God Himself hated us” (Angelou 392). Joe Louis, an African American boxer, impacted the lives of the black community with his victory in the boxing ring. Louis winning the fight symbolized African Americans over coming racial stereotypes. Louis being beaten down by his opponent was a representation of blacks being beaten on by society and other races. African Americans put all their hope into Louis winning the fight. When Louis won the fight against his white opponent African Americans saw it as their race overcoming the stereotypes they’ve lived with their whole lives. Angelou writes, “it wouldn’t do for a black man and his family to be caught on a lonely country road on a night when Joe Louis had proved that we were the strongest people in the world” (Angelou 394). At the end of the fight when Louis is crowned champion the African Americans went crazy and they cheered and “people…show more content…
“It was our people falling. It was another lynching, yet another black man hanging on a tree” (Angelou392). David Barash commented about how we take spectator sports too seriously and identify through our favorite players and teams and when they succeed we succeed and when they lose, we do too. Barash says, “The opiate of the masses isn’t religion, but spectator sports. What else explains the astounding fact that millions of seemingly intelligent human beings feel that the athletic exertions of total strangers are somehow consequential for themselves?” (Barash 362). When Louis was losing, his people were losing too; they felt the pain of being
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