(2 of 4)
Colored Trinity. Out of gratitude for a loan of a few thousand dollars—made a couple years before when he was in a tight squeeze—generous, square-shooting John Roxborough gave Julian Black, Chicago ex-gambling-house operator, a half interest in Joe. Meanwhile Roxborough grew fond of the good-natured, easygoing lad, took him home, taught him to brush his teeth, take a bath, eat with a knife & fork. He got Joe a job as an unskilled laborer at the Ford Motor plant, dressed him in castoffs, gave him $5 a week for spending money.
After a year of personal grooming (during which time Joe's terrific fists knocked out nearly every amateur he faced), Roxborough took his protege to Chicago, got wily Jack Blackburn, onetime Negro lightweight, to groom him for a professional ring career. "Joe didn't like to fight at first," says Blackburn. "But he was a natural fighter, easy to teach, and he learned more about the fight business in a month than most fighters learn in six months."
For one who disliked fighting, Joe Louis did pretty well. In the winter of 1935, six months after his first professional match, New York boxing promoters already had their eyes on him. One of them was shrewd Mike Jacobs, Broadway ticket speculator, who was looking for an up-&-coming heavyweight to fight giant Primo Camera for the benefit of Mrs. William Randolph Hearst's pet charity, the New York Milk Fund.
Jacobs succeeded in signing up Joe Louis. Whereupon Roxborough, Black & Blackburn, assisted by the Hearst press, began a promotional buildup. Because they knew whites (especially those who buy fight tickets) like Negro fighters virtuous, and remembering the stigma that still clung to colored fighters as a result of Jack Johnson's flamboyant wenching when he was world's heavyweight champion (1908-15), Louis' brain trust decided that their boy was going to be pure.
Black Moses. Though Joe Louis is no saint, the build-up worked for four reasons : 1) the astuteness of Joe's managers; 2) the promotional genius of Mike Jacobs and his Hearst henchmen; 3) the change in the U.S. attitude toward Negroes since Jack Johnson's day; 4) Joe's naïveté, natural reserve and disinterest in liquor and tobacco. By the time Louis climbed into the ring to fight Camera, he was a living legend to his people: a black Moses leading the children of Ham out of bondage.
Race-proud Manager Roxborough, pleased with his puppet, continued to use Louis as an ambassador of racial good will. He advised Joe to treat his opponents with unusual deference, inside the ring and out. He forbade him to have his picture taken with any white woman, or ever to enter a cabaret alone. When Joe was caught speeding at 90 m.p.h. along a Chicago boulevard, Roxborough took away his driving license, has never since permitted him to drive a car (one of Joe's brothers has since been his chauffeur).