The Hindu : Sport / Boxing : Remembering the `Brown Bomber'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Apr 14, 2006

Sport

Sport - Boxing

Remembering the `Brown Bomber'

ARLINGTON: With the laying of a wreath and the playing of taps, Joe Louis was remembered at Arlington National Ceremony on Wednesday on the 25th anniversary of the boxing great's death.

Family and friends gathered at Louis' grave, beneath the long branches of a splendid oak tree not far from America's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

"The Brown Bomber," the nickname etched on his tombstone, was remembered as a black sports hero who transcended the divisions of race in the segregated 1930s and 1940s.

"Joe Louis challenged the conscience of the country," Louis' son, Joe Louis Barrow Jr., told the gathering.

"You couldn't have it both ways. You couldn't put Joe Louis on a pedestal and admire him as the heavyweight champion of the world and yet not allow him and his people to eat where they wanted to eat, live where they wanted to live, and be educated where they needed to be educated."

Remarkable victory

Louis was heavyweight champion from 1937 to 1949. His most memorable victory came on June 22, 1938, when he avenged a loss to Germany's Max Schmeling with a first-round knockout at New York's Yankee Stadium — a bout billed as a clash of culture, race and nations against Adolf Hitler's Germany.

Louis also served in the U.S. Army during World War II, achieving the rank of staff sergeant.

He did not meet the requirements for burial at Arlington when he died at 66 in 1981, but President Ronald Reagan honoured the request of Louis's widow and granted a waiver. — AP

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