Alston Hoosman, 38, is a handsome, laughing bulk of a man (6 ft. 5 in., 225 Ibs.) who has always wanted to be a champion. He fought his way up to sixth place on the boxing press's list of U.S. heavyweights before Joe Louis knocked him out in Oakland, Calif, in 1949; then he drifted off to Europe, where he won some notice but not top billing as an actor in German films and TV. Last week Al Hoosman found himself an acknowledged champion at last—champion of the 5,000 luckless children born in Germany to U.S. Negro G.I.s and the German women they met during the occupation.
Back in 1950, when Al was still a heavy-weight-at-large hanging around the Frankfurt PX, he got to know some German girls with Negro babies. He heard the bitter stories of the Negerkinder. He heard about the little boy who, taunted by a ring of white children crying, "Du schwarzer Neger," answered them bitterly: "Be happy you are not one."
Two years later Hoosman landed a leading role in a German movie called Toxi—and the part set him to thinking. Says he: "I played a Negro G.I. who regrets having left his girl friend in the lurch, and comes back to Germany to get his baby." It led him to try organizing boxing benefits for G.I. Negro children; but he got little help from the U.S. Army, which was not anxious to call dramatic attention to its illegitimacy problem. Last year, impelled by the fact that the great majority of Negro-fathered children are now approaching the school-leaving age of 14, when they must find an awkward place for themselves in German society, Hoosman took a giant step and founded the Association to Help Colored and Parentless Children.
For the past 16 months the organization has consisted of little more than Hoosman, his portable typewriter and a pile of stationery. Working out of his tiny Munich hotel room, he has searched for sponsors, raised funds, got publicity, gathered statistics and lists. Last Christmas the Bavarian radio helped Hoosman put on a party for 40 Munich Negerkinder. He got headlines in the West German press by smuggling out of East Germany a little Negerkind named Roswitha Kubik. Louis Armstrong and his band raced over from a Stuttgart concert to put on a special Saturday afternoon party for Hoosman's Munich children. Last week Munich's Lord Mayor Thomas Wimmer promised Hoosman official support for "your great cause." Al Hoosman of Waterloo, Iowa, a man with a cause, as well as an itch to write verse, combined his two interests:
I hope my life has not been lived in vain;
Of many failures I hope there has been gain.
I truly pray that—in some way—I've helped my fellow man.
For I can.