American Experience (1988–…): Season 17, Episode 2 - The Fight - full transcript

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NARRATOR:
They came from nothing, yet each
did what he had to to survive.

MAN:
Nobody knew how deeply
Joe really felt.

At an early age he learned
to suppress emotions.

He never really showed them.

( crowd cheering )

MAN:
If I had a theme for Max's life,

it would be
that he's a survivor.

He adapts to the situation,

he adapts to the people
he's dealing with.

MAN:
He could not gloat
over opponents.



He could not be seen in public
with white women.

He had to be seen
as a Bible-reading,

mother-loving,
God-fearing individual,

and not to be too black.

( man speaking German )

TRANSLATOR:
He was loyal to his government,

but his loyalty
had a high price.

He had to burden his conscience

with the dark sides
of the regime.

NARRATOR:
When they met in the ring,

they were the reluctant symbols
of their people...

MAN:
We invested so much
in Joe Louis.

He was our nonviolent, violent
way of expressing ourselves.

NARRATOR:
And of their nations
in the shadow of war.

MAN:
As Joe Louis found himself
drafted to be the symbol

of democracy and America,

Schmeling found himself
conscripted to be the symbol

of Aryan supremacy.

They were prisoners
of... of politics.

NARRATOR:
They would fight only twice,

but their rivalry
would captivate the world,

and by the time they were done,
no one would ever forget them.

ANNOUNCER:
Louis, a left to Max's jaw!

MAN:
They were like Lewis and Clark
or Sacco and Vanzetti.

History brought Joe Louis
and Max Schmeling together,

and in history
they'll always be together.

( sports announcer
calling moves )

ANNOUNCER:
The Studebaker Corporation,

featuring Richard Himber
and his Studebaker champs,

usually heard at this time
over some of these stations,

is courteously relinquishing
as much of their program

in order that a special program
may be presented.

ANNOUNCER:
Good evening,
ladies and gentlemen.

This is Howard Planey speaking,
and in a moment we will present

a ringside,
blow-by-blow description

of the Louis/Schmeling fight.

This broadcast...

VANCE:
June 19, 1936.

Yankee Stadium is host
to the first meeting

of two heavyweight fighters--

German Max Schmeling
and American Joe Louis.

ANNOUNCER:
There's no time
in this swiftly moving drama

to broadcast who's who
in the Yankee Stadium.

It's an amazing cross section
of America--

rich man, poor man,
beggar man, thief,

doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief.

VANCE:
Though they have come
from far and wide to see it,

few in the crowd
expect much of a fight.

In one corner, Joe Louis
is the rising star

of the heavyweight division,

undefeated and,
by most accounts, unbeatable.

A combination of speed, power
and aggression,

he is considered
a near-perfect fighter.

( crowd cheering )

The German Max Schmeling,
by contrast,

is eight years older
and on the downward slope

of a checkered career.

Though possessed
of a dangerous right hand,

he is considered no match
for the American phenom.

MAN:
In my neighborhood, we thought

that the German
was a washed-up fighter,

that it was almost a crime to
bring him in to fight Joe Louis.

There's going to be
an embarrassment.

He's going to go in
and knock out this German,

and that's the end of that.

NARRATOR:
Only one man is confident
of a Schmeling victory,

and that is Schmeling himself.

For weeks he has hinted
to the press and fellow fighters

that he has discovered a flaw
in Louis's style.

MAN:
I was skipping rope
and in walked Max Schmeling.

And the reporters were somewhat
quizzical, somewhat skeptical,

even a little sarcastic.

They said, "Well, Max,
what about Joe Louis?"

( with German accent ):
He said, "I lick Joe Louis.

REPORTER:
Max, have you discovered
any particular weakness

in the Brown Bomber?

ANNOUNCER:
And in about five seconds,
the fight will be on.

They're twisting
in their corners.

( bell dings )
There's the bell!

And they step out.

Both men, cautiously, are...

VANCE:
In the early rounds,

those in the stadium expecting
a quick knockout

were instead surprised
by a closely contested slugfest

as first Louis,
and then Schmeling,

But as the fight wore on,
it began to take a decided turn,

and with it the lives
of these two fighters.

Theirs was a rivalry
born that night

that would draw in two nations
inching closer to war

and take the measure of two men

who had been fighting
all their lives.

TV ANNOUNCER:
Joe Louis, tonight,
"This Is Your Life."

( audience clapping )

Now, to get all the answers
in your case, Joe,

find out what makes
a champ,

let's go back
to 1914, May 13--

your birth date.

Where were you born,
Joe?

In Lafayette, Alabama.

On a farm near
Lafayette.

120 acres
of poor land

rented by your father
and mother,

Monroe and Lily...

Now, how many of you
children were there, Joe?

Of whom you
were the seventh.

Your sister Susie
died some years ago

and your brother Lonie
passed on just last June.

But here from Detroit,
Chicago and Los Angeles

are the others:
Emerelle, Alvanious, DeLeon,

Eulalie, Vunies
and your stepbrother, Pat.

( Louis laughing
as audience applauds )

VANCE:
In 1926, 12-year-old
Joe Louis Barrow and his family

decided to leave the South.

Behind them were 120 acres
of Alabama red-clay soil

and the privations
of a sharecropper's life.

Ahead lay Detroit and the
promise of five dollars a day

at the Ford automobile factory.

For thousands of southern blacks
like the Barrows,

the job at Ford offered a living

and a bit of dignity
in their new world.

MAN:
I recall

that men would dress up
on Sunday,

and they would wear
their Ford badges

on their lapel
on their vest,

and go to church
with that Ford badge on.

Upward mobility, standard
of living pulled us out.

VANCE:
Joe, too, went to work at Ford
while still a teenager,

pushing 200-pound truck bodies
on a conveyor belt.

In the summer he hauled ice

in the Negro section
of Black Bottom.

Soon his lean physique
was layered with muscle.

MAN ( on record ):
? What makes you so strong? ?

MAN:
The first time I... I seen Joe,
he worked on an ice wagon.

They had to go up, sometimes,
three flights of stairs

with, uh, 75 pounds
or 100 pounds of ice,

and that was a big job,
going up three flights of stairs

with, uh, ice on your back.

VANCE:
Joe never had much use
for school

or anything else
that required him to speak.

He had battled a stammer
since early childhood

and learned the habit
of silence.

people would mistake
this silence for dullness,

and Joe never bothered
correcting them.

REPORTER:
Uh, was there anything
about Joe as a boy

that, uh, showed he would
someday be a great champion

in the ring, DeLeon?

I hardly think so.

He could run faster
than most boys.

He hit kids bigger than himself,

but Joe was mostly quiet
and stayed to himself.

He was a little slow
until he started boxing,

and after he got
to be champion,

he still was slow.

Yeah.

Well, listen, Gus, see,
I didn't know it until later,

but he went
to the Bronson School.

Bronson School.

And that was
for slow learners.

Yeah, for slow...

That's where
he met Thurston McKinney.

Did Thurston go there, too?

VANCE:
Thurston McKinney
was a fast light heavyweight

and one of Joe's running buddies
on the streets of Black Bottom.

As legend has it, he was the one
who introduced Joe to boxing.

Joe's mother had given him
half a dollar a week

for violin lessons, hoping
to keep him out of trouble,

but Thurston had other ideas
for the money.

SMITH:
Thurston McKinney told him,

"Hey, you look
like a... a sissy,

"wanting to play violin.

Ain't nobody play no violin."

He's, like,
"Why don't you go up to the gym

and learn how to box?"

ANNOUNCER:
In the 75-pound division,

Slugger Sullivan meets up
with K.O. Nolfo...

VANCE:
It was only natural

that Joe Louis should find
the boxing ring.

Two bits for a locker
was all a kid needed.

In the teeming ghettos
of America's big cities,

boxing became a flag
of ethnic pride.

Every neighborhood
had a champion.

MAN:
In the '20s, there were
great Irish fighters,

there were great
Jewish fighters,

there were great
Italian fighters.

Particularly in New York
and Chicago,

built on ethnic tension, and
you could get 10,000 people, uh,

for a fight
between two neighborhood heroes.

( audience cheering )

the heavyweight champion of
the world was Jack Dempsey,

a man held in higher regard
by working-class Americans

than the president or the pope.

( cheering )

Dempsey once drew
100,000 fans to a bout.

It wasn't hard to figure.

There was big money
in the fight game.

MAN:
As great as Babe Ruth was,

who made $80,000 at the peak
of his career in salary,

Jack Dempsey, in his fight
with Gene Tunney in 1926,

made $750,000.

That's more than
the entire payroll

of the Philadelphia Phillies
baseball team,

the St. Louis Browns
baseball team.

It was more than Babe Ruth
made cumulatively

in his entire career,
in one fight.

VANCE:
Boxing promised Louis not only
a way to escape poverty.

It was a way
to reinvent himself,

to leave behind
the slow, stammering kid

from the cotton fields

and become the fast,
fearsome fighter.

He quit school for good,
dropped "Barrow" from his name

and went simply by "Joe Louis."

ANNOUNCER:
Madison Square Garden puts on
a cauliflower show...

VANCE:
Louis first made his mark in the
1934 Golden Gloves Tournament,

where he made it all
the way to the finals.

There were plenty of other
good fighters around.

Some worked harder,
some moved better,

but nobody could remember seeing
a kid punch like this.

MAN:
Punching power is something,
to a large extent,

that cannot be taught.

You can make a fair puncher
into a good puncher.

A great puncher like Louis,
they say, is born.

It's the right coordination,
the right build,

everything coming together
in a number of ways.

And it is a sure ticket
to the big money.

VANCE:
The scent of money
is what brought around

a small-time racketeer
named John Roxborough.

Roxborough was king

of the illegal numbers lotteries
in Detroit.

But one glimpse at Joe
in the ring,

and he knew it was time
for a different scheme.

That's right.
Making money.

Money.
Money.

That's what it was.

Money, honey.

That's what it was,
money.

VANCE:
Roxborough partnered up

with a wealthy and connected
numbers man from Chicago

named Julian Black.

and co-manager
with John Roxborough,
Julian Black of Chicago.

VANCE:
Roxborough and Black could
manage Joe's business affairs,

but they knew they needed help
teaching him how to box.

Tell us now, what was
the next step, Julian?

Well, uh, our first
big problem

was to get the best trainer
available we could find.

So we were fortunate to get
the late Jack Blackburn.

VANCE:
Blackburn, a convicted murderer
with a notorious mean streak,

had already trained
several white world champions.

MAN:
When Roxborough fist called
him in to take young Joe on,

Blackburn's reaction was that he
didn't want to waste his time.

He said, "A black heavyweight?

"What's the use?

"I'm just wasting my time,

because nobody will give
a black heavyweight a chance."

He was very bitter
and totally, uh, cynical.

VANCE:
Blackburn's cynicism
sprung in part

from his own bitter experience.

One of the most skilled
lightweights who ever lived,

his career had been undermined
by boxing's color line.

While lesser white fighters
had become famous and rich,

he had brawled
in the back rooms of bars

for the price of
a few bottles of whiskey.

In the end, Blackburn
couldn't pass up

the guaranteed $35 a week.

And then, too, he thought he saw
something special in Joe.

SCHULBERG:
I think Blackburn
really loved nobody--

white or black
or green or brown.

I think he really loved Joe.

He also saw the enormous
possibility in him.

VANCE:
Blackburn would teach Joe
the finer points of boxing,

but perhaps more importantly,

he warned him about what
to expect as a black fighter.

"every single time
you get in the ring," he said,

"is to knock
the other fellow down.

You gotta let your right hand
be your referee."

( "Happy Days Are Here Again"
begins playing )

( male ensemble
singing in German )

The same year
that a young Joe Louis

first landed in Detroit,

another future heavyweight,
20-year-old Max Schmeling,

arrived in Berlin.

Liberated from
the tyranny of the Kaisers,

Berlin in 1926
was a fantastic whirl

of cabarets, theaters
and drinking spots.

TRANSLATOR:
Berlin was the only
cosmopolitan city in Germany,

a city of millions.

When he came to Berlin
a penniless young man,

it must have felt overwhelming--

the variety of possibilities,
the distractions.

VANCE:
The son of a working-class
sailor,

Schmeling had discovered
boxing in small clubs

in his hometown of Hamburg.

Once in Berlin,
his talent caught the eye

of Germany's leading
boxing writer, Arthur Bulow.

Bulow agreed to pay
his training fees

and become his manager.

( crowd shouting )

With Bulow's patronage,
Schmeling rose quickly,

becoming first German,
then European champion.

His rise was followed avidly

by Berlin's largely Jewish
avant-garde,

who had fallen in love
with boxing.

MAN:
It was new, it was different,
it smacked of America.

It was somewhat rebellious.

It almost became a cult
among the intellectuals,

uh, the cabaret society
set in Weimar Berlin.

It was part of the decadence,
it was part of the excitement.

VANCE:
Max took to the strange
world of Weimar society

as if he had been born to it.

Within two years,
the raw provincial boy

was wearing tux and tails and
attending all the best parties.

MAN:
He knew all of
the Berlin avant-garde.

They wanted him
to teach them how to box.

They painted him,
they sculpted him.

He became
a kind of fetish for them.

VON DER LIPPE:
He goes on a self-improvement
campaign.

He starts reading books

about and by
his new circle of friends.

He seemed to always
be able to adapt.

If I had a theme for Max's life,

it would be
that he's a survivor--

he adapts to the situation,

he adapts to the people
he's dealing with.

VANCE:
By 1928, Max Schmeling
had achieved everything he could

He and his manager, Arthur
Bulow, set sail for New York

and a shot
at boxing's biggest prize,

the heavyweight championship
of the world.

Since the late 19th century,
the heavyweight championship

had been largely
the property of America,

and, within America,
of the white race.

There had only been one black
heavyweight champion before,

and many white Americans vowed
that he'd be the last.

His name was Jack Johnson.

MAN:
There was a term at the time
that was used

of the "bad nigger."

The "bad nigger" is
the threatening nigger,

the one who lusts
for white women.

And this was
the baddest of them all.

VANCE:
Johnson cut a broad swath

through the consciousness
of America

with his fists and his mouth.

As he brawled his way to
the world championship in 1908,

Johnson became notorious

for taunting and humiliating
his white opponents.

But he was even more provocative
outside the ring,

consorting openly
with white women.

He desegregated more whorehouses
than anybody in history.

He was... a wild man.

There's a famous story that
he's driving through Georgia

and the sheriff stops him

and says, "You're driving
80 miles an hour.

You're fined $50."

a hundred-dollar bill and says,
"I'm coming back the same way."

MAN:
Jack Johnson had to be
the bravest man in America.

I'm amazed
at what he did publicly,

uh... that many would not
dare to do privately.

In fact, even looking
at a white woman

could be a death sentence
at the time.

VANCE:
Fight promoters began
to look high and low

for a "Great White Hope" who
could end Jack Johnson's reign.

federal prosecutors stepped in
with a trumped up morals charge.

But it would be
other black fighters

who would pay the steepest price
for the bigotry Johnson stirred.

For the next decade, while
Jack Dempsey ruled the ring,

his best competition
watched from outside the ropes.

Joe, I'm satisfied
you're going to be

the next heavyweight
champion of the world.

I hope so.

Well, Joe,
as your manager,

I will do
everything possible

Thank you.
to fight for
the championship.

VANCE:
John Roxborough
refused to be discouraged

Two decades after Jack Johnson
had been forced from the ring,

he believed it was time

for another
black heavyweight champion,

and he thought he had
the fighter to do it.

The person who was going to get

the shot at
the heavyweight title

had to be a special individual--

not only a great boxer,
but this person had to be more.

This person had to be
nonthreatening to white society,

to white dominance,
to white values.

VANCE:
Roxborough and Black set down

a series of rules
for their young fighter,

which they shared freely
with reporters.

SAMMONS:
He could not gloat
over opponents.

He could not be seen
in public with white women.

He had to be seen
as a Bible-reading,

mother-loving,
God-fearing individual

and not to be too black.

MAN:
The shadow of Jack Johnson
was hanging over everything

that Roxborough and Black did.

They set out deliberately
to create somebody

who was precisely
the opposite of Jack Johnson.

VANCE:
Joe had already seen
what happened

to impudent blacks
in his own lifetime,

so he willingly donned
the mask of the "Good Negro."

MAN:
Nobody knew how deeply Joe
really felt, because remember,

Black and Roxborough
had schooled him

to suppress his emotions.

So he never really showed them.

VANCE:
The mask was not
just for the outside world.

It was also for Joe,
a way to shield himself

from revealing too much
of what was inside.

"He says less than any
sports figure in history,"

observed one writer,
"and that includes Dummy Taylor,

the mute pitcher
for the Giants."

Only in the ring could Joe
really let himself go,

and he did so with a fury
that thrilled... and terrified.

By the middle of 1935,

Louis had won his first
23 professional bouts,

an average of one
every two weeks,

and was beginning to earn
glowing notices.

But he hadn't fought
east of Detroit yet.

The road to the big prize,
the heavyweight championship,

stretched ahead
1,000 miles to New York.

Seven years earlier, in 1928,

Max Schmeling
had arrived in New York

with his own roadmap
to the heavyweight crown;

but New York hardly took notice.

GOLDMAN:
In the 1920s,

foreign fighters were not
treated well in New York City.

One could be a national champion
of Germany or France or Italy

You were still treated like
a six-round fighter in New York.

VANCE:
In typical fashion, Schmeling
adapted to his new surroundings.

He abruptly fired
his mentor, Arthur Bulow,

and hired in his place

a wily New Yorker
named Joe Jacobs,

known widely
as "Yussel the Muscle."

MAJESKI:
This was the quintessential
boxing manager

of the '20s and '30s--

cigar-smoking,
fedora-wearing guy,

had the, uh,
the boutonniere on his lapel,

would go in and talk
a mile a minute.

He was the guy
who could open doors.

He was the guy
who'd give him the publicity.

He was the guy
who had the contacts.

That's the biggest thing
in boxing-- he had contacts.

Hello, everybody.

Greetings from
our training camp,

Greenkill Lodge,
Kingston, New York.

VANCE:
The two made an unlikely pair,

the square-jawed Teuton and
the wiry, wise-cracking Jew.

Max Schmeling is now quartered

in the finest training camp
ever assembled.

VANCE:
But the partnership worked.

MAN:
There was a saying
that Joe Jacobs couldn't see

the difference between
a left hook and a right cross,

but he knew how to sell.

That's why Yussel Jacobs,
who wasn't very much liked,

was the right man.

Well, Jack, we certainly
do look like brothers.

VANCE:
It didn't hurt that Schmeling
was a dead ringer

Soon, Jacobs was placing
flattering profiles

in the sports pages
and getting fights.

In 1930,
after only two years in America,

Schmeling landed a bout
with Jack Sharkey

for the vacant
heavyweight championship.

( round bell rings
as crowd clamors )

80,000 fans
filled the Yankee Stadium

in a fight billed as
a battle between the continents.

and was out-pointing Schmeling
on all the judge's cards.

But in the fourth round,
he made a fatal mistake.

Corralled against the ropes,

he slugged Schmeling
below the belt.

MARGOLICK:
Schmeling clutched himself
and fell onto the canvas

and started to get up.

It was at that point that
Joe Jacobs sprung into action

and stood up
and started shouting,

"Don't get up, don't get up!

You were fouled,
you were fouled!"

He starts
running around the ring,

he starts running to the ref,

he starts pleading
Schmeling's case.

There's this moment of great
indecision and tumult

in the ring
and outside the ring.

And finally, um, Schmeling
was declared the victor.

VANCE:
Schmeling returned to Germany
with a heavyweight title

VON DER LIPPE:
He's called
"the low-blow champion."

He becomes the punchline
of jokes.

He becomes an object of disdain
for many cabaret routines.

VANCE:
The Germany Max returned to
was a far darker place

than the one he had left.

The economy was collapsing

under an avalanche
of worthless Marks.

Unemployment was rising

and with it,
violence in the streets.

the Nazi Party was drawing
strength from chaos.

Suddenly, the implacable glare
of the party's leader

could be seen everywhere.

In January 1933,

Adolph Hitler assumed
sole power over Germany

and immediately began
a quiet campaign of terror.

Many of Schmeling's
old friends--

Jews, homosexuals, communists--

who had found a home
in the Weimar cabarets

suddenly found themselves
outcasts

and fled or were banished
from the new Germany.

BATHRICK:
May 10, after the takeover,
there was a book burning.

And a lot of those books
were by these artists

that had been very close
to Max Schmeling.

So all of these people
were in trouble

once the political winds
had shifted.

VANCE:
But Max had already tacked again

and set himself
with the prevailing winds.

In 1932, he had married

the Czech-born movie star
Anny Ondra.

Blond and beautiful,

she was the picture
of an Aryan princess

and a favorite
of Hitler's inner circle.

Max and Anny became Germany's
most glamorous couple,

even appearing together
in a popular movie.

Helfen?

Schmeling fought a rematch
against American Jack Sharkey.

The winner...

and new world champion...

VANCE:
This time, he lost his title

in a widely condemned
split decision.

MARGOLICK:
He got redemption in
the only way that he could.

He was seen to be a victim,

a victim of a political
decision, in a way.

And so when
he came back to Germany,

all of a sudden he was a hero.

REIMANN:
The people really
seemed to like him.

The way he had the looks,
you know.

"You have to have a punem
as well," you know, a punem,

and Schmeling had
that certain look

VANCE:
Max's fame brought him freedom
to pursue his career in America,

great wealth and access
to the highest echelons.

At first, Schmeling had no
particular fondness for Hitler.

over the Fuehrer's resemblance
to Charlie Chaplin.

But Max did admire power
and understood its usefulness.

( Krause speaking German )

TRANSLATOR:
When he wanted to help somebody,

he always turned directly
to Hitler or his aides.

He liked to associate with them.

This doesn't necessarily show
a love for the Nazis,

but rather a love
of the powerful,

of people who stood
in the spotlight.

Schmeling wanted to be
the center of attention.

VANCE:
Schmeling tried to ingratiate
himself on two continents:

he courted American fight fans,
visiting New York often

with Joe Jacobs conspicuously
by his side;

but he was also willing
to carry out the bidding

of the Nazi regime.

As he prepared to return
to New York in June 1933,

Hitler summoned him
for a meeting.

BATHRICK:
And toward the end,
Hitler says two things.

"If you run into problems,

feel free to contact me
if I can be of any help."

The second thing he says is,

"When you go
to the United States,

"you're going to obviously
be interviewed by people

"who are thinking that
very bad things are going on

"in Germany at this moment.

"And I hope
you'll be able to tell them

that the situation isn't
as bleak as they think it is."

And that basically was
the contract

under which the two of them
would operate

from that point on.

It certainly was
a devil's contract.

VANCE:
Only days after their meeting,

Hitler purged German boxing
of Jews.

He ordered a national boycott
of Jewish stores.

Many business were ransacked
and destroyed

and Jews paraded in the streets.

Nevertheless,
upon his return to New York,

Schmeling upheld
his end of the bargain.

( man speaking German )

TRANSLATOR:
After arriving in the States,

Schmeling held
a press conference.

Many journalists were
waiting to hear

about conditions in Germany.

Schmeling told them that
everything was okay and quiet

in his home country.

He denied that Jewish people
were persecuted.

His assignment was to calm down
the American people.

( continues in German )

VANCE:
But Schmeling's efforts
to please

both his government
and his American public

could at times tangle himself
and his manager in knots.

In 1935,
he fought a come-back bout

against the American Steve Hamas
in his hometown of Hamburg.

The event very much resembled
a Nazi Party convention.

There were SA bands playing,
speeches were made,

there were unending Sieg Heil
and Heil Hitler cheers,

ending with Schmeling's victory
over the American.

VANCE:
After Schmeling
knocked out Hamas,

he and 29,000 fans
spontaneously stood

and sang the Nazi anthem with
arms raised in the Sieg Heil.

MARGOLICK:
It was a moment
of high Wagnerian pageantry.

Joe Jacobs climbed into the ring
and also gave the Nazi salute.

It made the Nazis unhappy,

because here was this Jew giving
the Nazi salute--

and not only that,
but he had a cigar in his hand,

which they thought was
a terrible impertinence.

VANCE:
Jacobs' reception in America
was no warmer

when a photograph of the salute
appeared in newspapers

the next day.

READER:
"Up in the Bronx,
the good burghers agreed

"that the little man
with the big cigar

"was no credit to their creed.

"In the Broadway delicatessens
and nighteries

"where playboy Jacobs is
a familiar figure,

"the waiters were conspiring

to slip Mickey Finns
in his herring."

Jack Miley, New York Daily News.

VANCE:
While Max Schmeling rode out
the vicissitudes

Joe Louis was heading in one
direction only: straight up.

By 1935, Louis had raced through

the lower ranks
of professional boxing.

Next stop, the big time:
New York.

NEWFIELD:
In the 1930s, New York was the
capital of boxing, the Mecca.

There were no casinos,
there was no Las Vegas,

there was no Atlantic City.

Big fights happened
at 50th Street and 8th Avenue

in the old
Madison Square Garden.

VANCE:
New York boxing was controlled
by one company--

the giant Madison Square
Garden Corporation.

The Garden promoted the fights
and owned the fighters--

and they wanted nothing to do
with a black heavyweight.

MAN:
Jimmy Johnston was running
boxing in Madison Square Garden.

And he had a phone call from
John Roxborough out in Detroit

and John Roxborough offered him
Joe Louis.

And Jimmy Johnston didn't know

that John Roxborough was
a black man,

and Jimmy Johnston said,
"We don't need the nigger."

So that's how Madison Square
Garden lost Joe Louis.

VANCE:
There was one fight promoter
willing to take a chance on Joe:

Mike Jacobs,
otherwise known as "Uncle Mike."

Jacobs-- no relation
to Schmeling's manager--

owned a thick New York brogue

and a set of poorly molded
false teeth

through which he'd mutter
his signature line--

"What's in it for Uncle Mike?"

He was a street kid and
he sold newspapers at first.

He would go to the box office

and buy tickets
for the scalpers,

until he began to realize

that, heck, he could do this
for himself.

VANCE:
Uncle Mike could turn anything
to his advantage--

even the Depression, which
finally gave him his chance

to go after the Madison Square
Garden's monopoly on boxing.

For years, the Garden
had donated generously

the favorite charity of
Mrs. William Randolph Hearst,

wife of the newspaper tycoon.

In gratitude, Hearst's stable
of big-time sportswriters

spilled gallons of ink
promoting the Garden's fights.

But with boxing in the doldrums,
thanks to the Depression,

the Garden had cut back
on Mrs. Hearst's charity.

Uncle Mike stepped in.

He made a deal with them
to promote his own shows,

with a bigger portion going
towards the Milk Fund charity.

And in doing so,
he became very chummy

with some of the major newspaper
reporters for-- and columnists--

for the Hearst newspapers.

This was a masterstroke.

VANCE:
Jacobs convinced three of
Hearst's biggest sportswriters

to join him in a new venture:
the 20th Century Sporting Club.

With the backing
of the Hearst papers,

20th Century began to compete
with the Garden

for the biggest
boxing promotions,

drawing thousands to the
cavernous New York Hippodrome.

SAMMONS:
Mike Jacobs has the venues,
he has the press behind him,

but he needs a big draw.

And he sees something special
in Joe Louis.

VANCE:
What Mike Jacobs saw was not
Louis's skin color

but his already strong hold
on black Americans--

whose money was as green
as anyone else's.

MARGOLICK:
There were these stories
working their way back East

about this mythical boxer

who was going to be
the Moses of boxing.

So you have
this incredible scene

where Joe Louis comes
to New York for the first time

and the bellhops carry him
off the train.

and they were waiting
for him to get there.

VANCE:
With an evangelical following
of black fight fans,

Mike Jacobs rushed to set up

a coming-out party for his
heralded young phenom.

SILVER:
What they needed was
a name opponent

and a sacrificial lamb
to show Louis at his best.

VANCE:
Jacobs settled on
an ex-heavyweight champion,

the Italian giant Primo Carnera,

otherwise known as
the "Ambling Alp."

GOLDMAN:
Carnera was between
six foot five and six foot six.

He weighed generally
between 260 and 280 pounds.

There were people,
sportswriters included,

who claimed there should be
a special dreadnought class

for men like Carnera.

VANCE:
In fact, Carnera was hardly
a fighter at all.

For years, he'd been managed
by New York gangsters

and had won a series
of fixed fights,

including-- it was rumored--
the world championship in 1933.

Over time, Carnera had learned

some rudimentary skills
in the ring,

but what was most important
to Mike Jacobs was

that the paying public
loved him.

( newsreel theme music plays )

The Louis-Carnera fight was

the most anticipated
to hit New York in a decade.

Mike Jacobs' publicity agents
had cleverly linked the fight

to a brewing
international crisis:

Italy, symbolized by the giant
Carnera, was preparing to invade

the kingdom of Ethiopia,

embodied by the relatively
diminutive Louis.

RING ANNOUNCER:
Regardless of race,
creed or color...

may the better man
emerge victorious!

( crowd cheering )

the man mountain turned out
to be more like a molehill.

Louis knocked him out
in the sixth round.

"Primo came down slowly,"
one reporter wrote,

"like a great chimney
that had been dynamited."

After the fight, more than
20,000 people showed up

at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem,

where Louis had promised

to appear, win, lose or draw.

When the fighter finally showed,

he wore his usual
blank expression,

"as if the crowd were
looking at someone else,"

one writer remarked.

"It was all too big and too much
for just a kid,"

Louis would later say.

But in fact,
it was only just beginning.

Overnight, Louis had become the
biggest draw in the fight game.

Over the next year,

Jacobs easily set up opponents
for Joe,

and Joe just as easily
knocked them down.

CAB CALLOWAY:
? Rip-bop-mcgostic-
mcgostic-me-joy ?

? Knock me some of that
good, fine hoy ?

? Rip-bop-mcgostic-me-
jumping with joy! ?

? You jump, jump, jump
when you jump with joy! ?

? Come on, Joe, let's go! ?

GOLDMAN:
Louis was going through
the heavyweight division

like Sherman through Georgia.

Kingfish Levinsky, one round.

Max Baer, four rounds.

Primo Carnera, six rounds.

Stanley Poreda, one round.

Lee Ramage, three rounds.

Nobody can do anything
against this young man.

He has the big punch, he has
the power, he has the style;

he is capturing
the popular imagination.

BILLY HICKS & HIS SIZZLIN' SIX:
? Ah, who's the sharpest man
in town ?

? Got the head built
for a crown ?

? Solid, mellow,
all-around good fellow ?

? That's Joe the Bomber. ?

VANCE:
With each victory, Joe's stature
in black America rose higher.

BILLY HICKS:
? ...with a poker face ?

? Joy for Louie,
no jive to McCoy ?

? That's Joe the Bomber. ?

MAN:
We invested so much

in Joe Louis
when he started winning.

We needed some victories.

BILLY HICKS:
? Jackie's murder
of the first degree... ?

JARRETT:
The fact that Joe Louis
was winning

without any dispute
over white America...

he was our "nonviolent" violent
way of expressing ourselves.

SMITH:
We had never had
guys to look up to

when he first started.

We didn't have nobody.

He comes on, and we had somebody
to look up to.

VANCE:
Ravaged by the Depression
and virulent racism,

many blacks invested Joe
with the strength they lacked.

In North Carolina, an inmate
bound for the electric chair

was said to have cried,
"Save me, Joe Louis, save me."

SAMMONS:
Joe Louis's victories

over white opponents were
palpable and tangible,

and blacks saw in them
something that... that fed them.

VANCE:
Joe tried to live up
to people's expectations,

but the adulation of the outside
world was making it harder

to play the "Good Negro."

He was making serious money now,

money he could never have
dreamed of back in Detroit.

And there were women, too.

They couldn't keep their hands
off him.

WOMAN:
He had a beautiful body.

And he...
there was no fat on him.

He was big and muscular
and a beautiful color--

kind of coffee colored,
with cream, double cream.

He was just a beautiful man.

VANCE:
Louis had become so big, so fast

that he no longer had time
for his manager's sermons.

BARKSDALE:
I happened to be
in different cities

and, uh, there was always
a woman in that city,

although I don't know names.

Sometimes it would be a chorus
girl or a singer from a show.

He scored.

( laughs )

( crowd chattering )

VANCE:
Trying to keep the mask
from slipping,

Joe's handlers encouraged him

to marry a beautiful young
secretary named Marva Trotter.

The couple walked the streets
of Harlem like movie stars.

But nuptials did little
to slow Joe down.

STUBBS:
I heard that Roxborough

picked that girl
for him.

Yeah, they did,
they did.

They picked her.

ADAMS:
He was getting
into things,

and they decided that
he should marry somebody.

She was attractive,
she was intelligent,

and he said,
"Well, I'll just go
along with the program."

But when they was
in town,

we'd slip off
to Toledo at night,

And, I don't know,
it was just one
of those things.

Looked like it was
just a business deal.

You got the marriage

to keep you
out of trouble.

VANCE:
Unlike Jack Johnson before him,

Joe never flaunted
his personal life,

and sportswriters
kept his secrets.

But that didn't mean
they treated him well.

In the end, the mask
could only offer Joe

so much protection
from white racism.

NEWFIELD:
America was a different
country in 1934 and 1936,

and if you go back and read
the sports writing of the '30s,

there are despicable,
repugnant stereotypes

of Louis as dumb, as lazy,
on one hand,

or as an animal of the jungle
on the other hand.

READER:
"I felt myself strongly
ridden by the impression

"that here was
a truly savage person,

"a man on whom civilization
rested no more securely

"than a shawl
thrown over one's shoulders.

I had the feeling that I was
in the room with a wild animal."

Paul Gallico,
New York Daily News.

VANCE:
Louis was picking up
a growing number of white fans.

Laid low
by the Depression themselves,

they responded
to his rags-to-riches story.

But there were still millions

who wished to see Joe
stopped in his tracks.

"Good Negro" or not,
he was still a black man

physically dominating
his white opponents;

and so many hankered

for the return of
a "Great White Hope."

But few imagined that
the savior might come

in the form of an aging fighter
from across the Atlantic.

( announcer speaking German )

By 1936, Max Schmeling's
up-and-down career

was on an upswing.

He'd won four fights
in a row in Europe

and scrapped his way
back into contention

in the heavyweight division.

Despite his age,

he had become the next
logical opponent for Joe Louis.

The fight would be crucial,
the winner to get a shot

at the world champion,
Jimmy Braddock,

a former longshoreman
with brittle hands

who had come to be known
as the "Cinderella Man."

MARGOLICK:
When Louis fought Schmeling,

the idea was that either one
of them could beat Braddock

was who would have the privilege
of fighting Braddock first.

This was really the fight
for the world championship.

VANCE:
No one gave Max
much of a chance.

The boxing press scoffed,

calling him "Moxie Schmeling"

for daring even
to take the fight.

But Schmeling
would not yield to doubt.

He believed he had one decisive
advantage over his opponent.

REIMANN:
I think that he thought
that he could outthink him--

that his brain was
better than that of Joe.

VANCE:
Schmeling began
to study Louis's fights,

looking for something, anything
he could use to his advantage.

SCHULBERG:
I think that with
a Germanic thoroughness

that Schmeling had...

uh, looked at every...
every available

foot of film on... on Louis.

He not only ran it forward,
he would stop it,

he would actually
run it backward,

he would put it in slow motion.

VANCE:
After weeks of study,

Schmeling believed the film
had yielded something,

a small defect in Louis's
overwhelming attack.

and he was a great...
he had the great... greatest jab

in the history of boxing
up to that time--

he would jab, but his jab
would come down to his waist

rather than up to his face.

REIMANN:
And that was
the split second

where Schmeling
could land his right hand.

REPORTER:
Max, have you discovered
any particular weakness

in the Brown Bomber?

Yes, I did,
but I won't tell.

VANCE:
Schmeling left Germany for
New York with little fanfare.

Unlike Max himself,

the Nazis had no confidence
that he could win.

On the orders of Propaganda
Minister Joseph Goebbels,

Nazi newspapers had buried
the story of the fight.

REIMANN:
Hitler was annoyed that he
was going to fight a Negro,

Schmeling with a Jewish manager
and fighting a Negro, a nigger.

and I don't think they...
expected him to have a chance.

VANCE:
At his Lakewood camp,
Louis seemed overconfident,

and the only person who could
have whipped him into shape

was in no shape himself.

GIBSON:
At that point,

Jack Blackburn's problems
had affected him.

Jack was drinking,

his camp was confused
and, uh, his mind was diverted.

( announcer speaking German )

But Schmeling was focused,
more focused than ever before.

He was not only working
on his body but on his mind.

He knew that
to land his right hand,

he would have to be in close,

and that meant
overcoming his fear.

that part of his strategy would
have to be showing no fear.

During the weigh-in,
he walks up to Joe Louis,

shakes his hand, says,
"Hello, Joe, how do you do?"

He comes away and shouts
over his shoulder,

"Good luck this evening, Joe."

Joe Louis and the press are...
are perplexed

by this show
of courteous bravado.

ANNOUNCER:
And in about five seconds,
the fight will be on.

They're twisting
in their corners.

There's the bell,
and they step out,

sparring around
the center of the ring there.

VANCE:
Both fighters came out
cautiously,

feeling each other out.

KAPLAN:
Schmeling would probe
with his left jab.

He didn't care if he...

if he touched
the opponent or not,

but it was out there,
he would probe with it

and he'd move and he'd be
looking for openings.

Every time Louis jabbed,

he'd return his left hand
low at his side

rather than up here
where it's supposed to be,

where he could block
a counter right hand.

ANNOUNCER:
Now Schmeling
tries with a left...

VANCE:
At just over two minutes
into the fourth round,

Louis jabbed
and Schmeling pounced.

ANNOUNCER:
Schmeling backing away
cautiously,

waiting for some opening
that he wants.

And, ah...

a right hand high
on Louis's jaw!

That made Louis rock his head!

Schmeling has sent Louis down!

Joe Louis is down!

KAPLAN:
He saw Joe Louis's hand drop

and when that hand dropped, he
came over with that right cross.

Boxing is a very unique sport.

You can have all the great
assets like Joe Louis had--

speed, great boxing ability,
great footwork,

great left jab, tremendous power
in your punches--

but if you're hit on the chin,

all those assets
go right down the drain.

VANCE:
At that moment,
Schmeling would later say,

Louis changed from
an indestructible force

to a hurt and bewildered boy.

KAPLAN:
He was out of it,

he... he wasn't himself
for the rest of the fight.

He was fighting on heart
and instinct alone.

After that,
it wasn't Joe Louis anymore,

he was just a punching bag.

VANCE:
For round after round,

Schmeling continued to batter
Louis with his right hand.

Midway through,

Joe's mother, Lilly,
had to be led from the stadium

screaming, "My God, don't
let him kill my child."

There was a pop, pop,

every time one of those
right hands landed.

( crowd clamoring )

It sounded like
a bag full of water

coming down from the second
floor of a building,

pop, pop, pop.

PACHECO:
You just can't get hit

by right hands
by a heavyweight repeatedly.

I don't care who you are,

you get hit enough right hands,
you're going.

And Schmeling could punch.

And Schmeling was a good boxer.

And Joe was slow...
and overconfident

and believed nobody
could beat him.

ANNOUNCER:
Schmeling got over two more
hard rights to Louis's jaw.

VANCE:
Finally, in the 12th round,
the punishment became too much.

ANNOUNCER:
...with hard rights and lefts
to the jaw.

He has puffed up
Louis's left cheek...

And Louis is down!
Louis is down!

Hanging to the ropes,
hanging badly!

He's a very tired fighter;

he is blinking his eyes,
shaking his head.

And the count is done.

The fight is over!
The fight is over!

And Schmeling is the winner!

Louis is completely out!

MAN:
You talk about
after the fight now,

there were throngs of people

coming down
the middle of the street.

Everybody was just as quiet,

and all you could hear was
"Oh, Louis was doped,"

or "Think he was doped."

SMITH:
Everybody was sick.

Usually after Joe Louis
got through fighting,

everybody would be
out in the streets,

driving, honking their horns
and doing...

and not only in Detroit,

Philadelphia, New York
and Chicago, everywhere.

Not that night, no,
it was a sad night.

It was like a funeral, it was.

Nobody came out,
no horns honking, no nothing.

BARKSDALE:
I was sitting
in my husband's lap,

and he was losing the fight.

I was crying because
he was losing the fight.

If I think about it
hard enough, I'll cry again.

READER:
"I just can't help thinking
of the bitter disappointment,

"the shattered hopes,
the tears and the heartaches

"that fell upon an entire race
just before 11:00 last night.

"An idol fell, and the crashing
was so complete, so dreadful

"and so totally unexpected

that it broke the hearts
of the Negroes of the world."

The New York Post.

VANCE:
As fast as Louis had been built
up, he was now torn down.

SAMMONS:
The press denunciations
were vehement, brutal--

that he was a fabrication,

that this was all a kind
of buildup of... of a nobody.

READER:
"This brown god had crumbled
before our eyes

"and his substance
was dross and alloy and clay.

"Louis, the flawless fighter,
was a myth, a delusion

and a legend
that never happened."

Davis Walsh, Hearst Newspapers.

VANCE:
Louis himself
immediately left New York

for the solace of his hometown.

Even there, he hid out,
too ashamed to show his face.

ADAMS:
Joe come on the playground
about a week after,

his head was swoll up,
and dark glasses.

He didn't
get out of the car.

He just sat
in the car,

but his head
was still swoll up.

MAN:
When he finally did
go in the streets,

kids being who they were,
would run up to him and say,

( whispering ):
"Max Schmeling, Max Schmeling."

And I think it got to him
because...

was he still their hero?

Was he still
the "Great Black Hope"?

VANCE:
Max Schmeling could finally
return to Germany

to a hero's welcome.

Upon landing in Frankfurt,

he was greeted by thousands
of his countrymen

lining the roadway for miles.

Always attentive
to the public mood,

the Nazis turned
their cool handshake

into a warm embrace.

Joseph Goebbels, who had tried

to bury the fight
in the German press,

now ordered lavish coverage
of Schmeling's victory,

including a photograph
of himself

listening to the fight
with Max's wife, Anny.

READER:
"Stayed up all night.

"At 3:00 a.m., the fight begins.

"In round 12,
Schmeling knocks out the Negro.

"The white man
defeats the black man,

and the white man
was a German."

Joseph Goebbels.

VANCE:
Within days of his return,

Max was invited
to dine with Hitler.

( man speaking German )

TRANSLATOR:
Hitler sensed
the great enthusiasm

the masses had for Schmeling.

Most of all he was electrified
when he watched the fight.

He immediately ordered
the film to be screened

in theaters throughout Germany

prior to each feature.

It was to be called Schmeling's
Victory: A German Victory--

a title Goebbels had invented.

( announcer speaking in German )

( man speaking German )

it really
brought it all back again.

We were ecstatic
and very enthusiastic.

I remember that there
was wild applause.

VANCE:
The public acclaim
was intoxicating.

This is what Schmeling
had always wanted:

the adulation
of a grateful nation.

But the cheers
also made it easier

for Max to turn away from what
was happening in his country.

For a while, perhaps,
it had been possible

to focus on progress, new jobs
and new optimism.

But by 1935, no one could miss
the giant rallies

new laws evicting Jews from the
professions and civil service,

and the arrests, beatings and
executions of political enemies,

including many
of Max's old circle.

MARGOLICK:
Schmeling writes about how he
would go to his favorite clubs,

and every week there'd be
somebody new who was gone.

But he just... he just looked
the other way.

He just didn't want to...
he just didn't think

about the larger questions.

VANCE:
Occasionally, Schmeling tried
to put in a word

for his Jewish acquaintances.

If he could do that,
he reasoned,

what was wrong with meeting
with Hitler?

How could he, a mere sportsman,

stand in the way
of the Nazi juggernaut?

( man speaking German )

TRANSLATOR:
There were many
German personalities

who secretly did not agree
with the regime,

but they still would have tea
with the Nazi bigwigs.

Why?

Because they thought
that staying alive

was more important.

Everybody who opposed the regime

had to fear that the Gestapo
would come and take them away.

VANCE:
But Schmeling was not like
other Germans.

KLUGE ( translated ):
Schmeling was rich,
he was famous.

He spoke English well.

He had close friends in America
and other countries.

He would have been welcome
anywhere

as the famous man that he was.

VANCE:
Other prominent Germans
had chosen to emigrate

rather than live
under the Nazis.

Actress Marlene Dietrich,

author Thomas Mann,

film director Fritz Lang,
among others,

helped to open the eyes
of the world

to what was going on
inside the Nazi state.

But Schmeling remained silent,

preferring the hero's life
in Germany

to an uncertain fate outside it.

KLUGE:
He was loyal to his government,

but this loyalty had
a high price.

He had to burden his conscience

with the dark sides of the
regime, which were so obvious--

the dictatorship, the camps,

the persecutions,
the discrimination.

He accepted all this

for the sake of his own wealth
and fame.

VANCE:
In later years, Schmeling
would make much of the fact

that he never became a member
of the Nazi Party.

But, in fact, the Nazis had
no interest in recruiting him.

At one point, a friend
of Schmeling's wrote

to the head of the SS,
Heinrich Himmler,

asking if Schmeling
should become a party member.

The responding letter
by Himmler's assistant

states that the Fuehrer
had decided

Schmeling would be more useful
to the German people

if he neither belonged to the
Nazi Party, the SS, the SA

nor any other organization.

It was very pragmatic.

Schmeling was most useful as
somebody who was apolitical.

He was very useful
as being apolitical

because he then
would be believable.

And if he were to come
to the United States

and to start to give
the party message,

that would be the end of the use
of Max Schmeling

( Beethoven's Ninth Symphony
playing )

VANCE:
In the summer of 1936,

Hitler came to collect
on his bargain with Schmeling.

The Olympic Games were about
to open in Berlin,

and Hitler had big plans
for them.

If all went well, they would
become the proving ground

for his notions
of Aryan superiority

and German national resurgence.

But the U.S. Olympic Committee

was threatening to spoil the
party by boycotting the Games.

Hitler looked to Germany's
best-known international athlete

BATHRICK:
They asked that Schmeling
contact the committee

to urge them to understand

that there would be
no difficulties, politically,

for Jews or for blacks if... if
they participated in the games.

VANCE:
Quietly, Schmeling met
with members

of the U.S. Olympic Committee at
the Commodore Hotel in New York.

Committee members
produced clippings

of dark tidings in Germany.

Schmeling assured them
that the reports were false,

that Hitler could be trusted.

Days later, by a narrow vote,

the U.S.O.C. agreed that America
would attend the games.

By the summer of 1936, Schmeling
could no longer pretend

to be living in two worlds.

Through small expediencies,

he had become a servant
of the Nazi government.

TEICHLER:
It needs to be stressed

that a relationship like this
is a process.

In the beginning,
as the naive athlete,

you feel flattered;
then you are used.

But this kind of thing
doesn't happen in a week.

It happens gradually
over a period of several years.

Both sides form
a mutual dependence.

( starter's pistol fires )

( announcer speaking German )

Hitler's Olympic dream
was marred by a sprinter

and long-jumper from the United
States named Jesse Owens.

I am very glad
to come out on top.

VANCE:
Owens' four gold medals
were a salve to black America

in the wake of Joe Louis's
defeat two months earlier.

Here was the vindication
so many had waited for.

Joe was happy for his friend,

but Owens' success only deepened
the shame of his own defeat.

As if to erase the memory,
he fought furiously,

winning a string of seven bouts
in eight months.

( crowd cheering )

All he wanted was a rematch
with the German.

But Schmeling had other plans.

As a reward
for having beaten Louis,

he inked a contract to fight
world champion Jimmy Braddock,

the Cinderella Man.

The prospect of a

panicked the Louis camp.

GOLDMAN:
Mike Jacobs thought

that if Schmeling
won the championship,

and Hitler would actually
take over the title

and use it for his own purposes.

spreading rumors that the fight
would be widely boycotted

by Jewish fans.

Braddock wouldn't earn a dime.

But if Braddock agreed
to fight Louis instead,

Jacobs promised he'd never
have to work again.

MAJESKI:
He started offering more money,
more money, more money.

So finally, he came
up with a deal.

He said, "I'll give you not only
the biggest guarantee,

"but you will have ten percent
of the profits

of Joe Louis's fights
for the next ten years."

VANCE:
This was an offer Braddock
couldn't afford to pass up.

He dropped his plans
to fight Schmeling

and signed on to face Louis
in June 1937 in Chicago.

For the first time
in more than two decades,

a black man would fight
for the heavyweight title.

More than 60,000 fans converged
on Chicago's Comiskey Park

to watch it.

ANNOUNCER:
Here they come.

Jim Braddock steps out fast and
lets go with a hard right hand.

VANCE:
In the first round,
Braddock knocked Louis down.

For an instant, it looked like
a repeat of the Schmeling fight.

ANNOUNCER:
Braddock is pounding him
to the ropes.

VANCE:
But Louis quickly recovered

and in the eighth round,
knocked Braddock senseless.

ANNOUNCER:
And Louis gave him...

And Braddock is down!

VANCE:
The Cinderella Man had to be
carried to his dressing room.

ANNOUNCER:
Eight, nine, ten.

A new world champion!

ANNOUNCER 2:
...and new champion
of the world, Joe Louis.

( crowd cheering )

VANCE:
Louis had scaled the summit
of the boxing world,

becoming the first black man
since Jack Johnson

to attain the heavyweight
championship.

But to Joe, the championship
tasted sour.

SCHULBERG:
Even in a moment of triumph,
knocking out Jim Braddock,

when people
were congratulating Joe--

"You're champ, Joe"--

Joe said,
"No, I'm not the champ.

I won't be the champ
until I lick Schmeling."

VANCE:
Max Schmeling was furious over
the way the world championship

He complained bitterly to the
New York Athletic Commission,

to no avail.

SCHMELING:
I think I got a runaround.

I traveled 25,000 miles to face
Jimmy Braddock for the title.

VANCE:
Now, Schmeling was as hungry
for the rematch as Louis.

Terms for the fight
were quickly agreed upon,

and the date was set for
June 1938 in Yankee Stadium.

From the start, the match was
seen as much more than boxing,

much more than sports.

It was going to pit
whole nations, whole ideologies,

against each other.

NEWFIELD:
This is 1938--

Hitler's intentions were clear
by then,

Hitler's hatred of Jews
was clear,

Hitler's militarism and
expansionism were clear,

and Schmeling is probably
unfairly seen

as an extension of Hitler.

He is seen as a Nazi.

VANCE:
Just three months
before the fight,

Hitler's army rolled into
Austria without firing a shot.

The so-called Anschluss helped
to cement Americans' hatred

of everything German.

When Schmeling arrived
in New York by steamer in May,

he was met at the dock
by hundreds of protesters

and mocking chants
of "Heil Hitler."

Many Americans channeled
their antipathy for Max

into affection for Joe.

Confronted with a choice

between a white Nazi
and a black American,

all but the most hardened
racists backed Louis.

ROOSEVELT:
This nation is asking...

VANCE:
Even President Roosevelt
enlisted Louis

in the war of propaganda
against Nazism.

Squeezing Joe's arm, he said,

"These are the muscles we need
to defeat the Germans."

But Joe had little use for
the hypocrisy of geopolitics.

NEWFIELD:
I think Joe Louis understood

that while he was being held up
as the symbol of democracy,

black people couldn't vote,

black people did not have
equal rights,

the army was segregated.

VANCE:
For Joe, the motivation
was simpler.

Quoted in one New York
newspaper, he said:

"I am out for revenge.

"All I ask of Schmeling
is that he stand up and fight

People think that I'm going
into the ring gun-shy.

Why should I go into the ring
gun-shy

when Schmeling's two years older

and I'm two years smarter
in boxing?

( camera flashes popping )

VANCE:
By the day of the fight,

bookies had set the line
at two-to-one in Louis's favor,

but doubts lingered.

Could Joe handle the pressure?

Had he found a defense
for Schmeling's right hand?

Most expected a long,
punishing fight.

( crowd talking )

The evening of June 22
was hot and sticky.

More than 90,000 fans,
white and black,

one of the largest crowds ever
to pass through the turnstiles.

GOLDMAN:
It is a sea of humanity.

It is something out
of a tremendous political event.

There is a rush,
there's an excitement

which it is almost impossible
to describe today.

ANNOUNCER:
The huge crowd, the shifting,
ever-changing scene--

winking pinpoints of light from
50,000 cigars and cigarettes,

for all the world like fireflies
in the blue-black night,

reaching back, back, back

till the last rows are lost
in black obscurity.

The crowd makes you catch
your breath.

MAN:
So now it is June 22, 1938...

VANCE:
In a nation of 130 million,
some 70 million

would tune in to the fight
on the radio that night,

the biggest audience ever
for a single program.

MARGOLICK:
The country was immobilized
when this fight was on.

Dances were interrupted
to broadcast the fight.

Wrestling matches,
movies in movie theaters--

the movie was stopped
in the middle

and the fight was
broadcast over the loudspeaker.

JARRETT:
I remember walking
down the street

and people were sitting
on their front porches

and they had their little radios
ready.

as though there was just
something out here saying,

"We are about to experience

an indescribable event
in our lives."

Everybody stopped and they went
to whoever had a radio,

There wasn't anybody--
there wasn't any street traffic,

I think even the streetcars
stopped.

Everybody stopped and listened
to the fight.

It was like that moment.

( speaking German )

VANCE:
It was 3:00 a.m. in Germany

when Nazi broadcaster
Arno Helmis

finally took the microphone.

TRANSLATOR:
They woke us up at 2:30
in the morning.

We came into the room
with a big speaker.

We were all sports fans;
the others had stayed in bed.

After awhile the radio started,
and you could hear,

"This is Yankee Stadium,
New York."

Then there was the static...

( imitates static )

because the transmission came
over the telephone.

And then, "The Yankee Stadium
is sold out with 70,000 people."

The noise is unmistakable.

Then, the static again.

VANCE:
In Austria, the young Jewish boy
Fritz Mandelbaum stayed up late

to listen with his father.

MAN:
The fight was ballyhooed
in Germany

as... well, as the fight
of the century.

There was the Negro...
an inferior race,

and the man, Joe Louis,
who represented the Negro--

all brawn and animal brutality

versus German noble strength.

It is amazing to me
in retrospect

how much the Nazis really
gambled on a victory.

The gamble was: if you hype it
that much, what if you lose?

( crowd clamoring )

VANCE:
Schmeling made his way
to the ring under a bombardment

of banana peels,
cigarette packs and spit.

There was something about him--
you could smell it, you know.

you... you can get killed here,
as they say.

The roar that began was just
an unimaginable, constant roar.

You couldn't hear the subway
coming out, nothing--

the roar up into
that Bronx night.

If you had any imagination,

you felt the whole country
watching.

ANNOUNCER:
Joe Louis in his corner,

prancing and rubbing his feet
on the rosin.

Max Schmeling standing calmly,

getting a last word
from Doc Casey.

And they're ready, with the bell
just about to ring.

And there we are.
( bell rings )

And they got to the ring
right together

with Arthur Donovan
( indistinct ).

And Joe Louis is in
the center of the ring,

Joe Louis led quick with two
straight lefts to the chin,

both of them ( indistinct )
as the men clinch.

Joe Louis tries to get over
two hard lefts

and Max ties him up
on the breakaway cling.

On the far side of the ring now,
Max with his back to the ropes,

and Louis hooks a left
to Max's head quickly

and shoots over a hard right
to Max's head!

Louis, a left to Max's jaw,
a right to his head.
( crowd roaring )

Max shoots a hard right
to Louis.

Louis with the old one-two,
the first...

PACHECO:
Almost in the first 30 seconds

you could see the way
it was going to go.

ANNOUNCER:
And watching for the champ.

PACHECO:
You see his desire
just boring in on him.

ANNOUNCER:
His face is already marked...

It's a spider,
and the fly ain't got a chance.

ANNOUNCER:
He's landed more blows
in this one round

than he landed in five rounds
of the other fight...

GOLDMAN:
He pressed-- he drove Schmeling
back, he rained punches.

Schmeling tried to defend,
he tried to counter,

ANNOUNCER:
Fighting from the clinch
and rope ( indistinct ).

Back against the ropes
again there.

Not too close to the ropes...
And Louis misses!

VANCE:
At just over a minute
into the first round,

Louis struck Schmeling with
a ferocious blow to his side.

ANNOUNCER:
Again, a right to the body!

RODNEY:
And Schmeling emitted a scream.

I think everybody went,
you know, sort of like this.

They had never heard
a fighter scream

in a high-pitched voice
in agony.

GIBSON:
Screams like a woman screams.

The scream just went
all through the stadium.

ANNOUNCER:
And again, a right to the body!

A left hook,
a right to the head,

a left to the head, a right!

Schmeling is going down!
( crowd roaring )

But he held to his feet,
held to the ropes--

looks to his corner
in helplessness.

And Schmeling is down!
( crowd roaring )

Schmeling is down!

And he's up!

And Louis, right and left
to the head!

A left to the jaw,
a right to the head!

( crowd roaring )

And Donovan is watching
carefully.

Right to the body,
a left up to the jaw

and Schmeling is down!

VANCE:
In a meaningless gesture,

Schmeling's corner
threw in the towel.

Arthur Donovan threw it back,
where it hung on the ropes

as "limp as the German himself,"
one writer put it.

ANNOUNCER:
The count is five...
five, six, seven, eight...

The men are in the ring,

the fight is over
on a technical knockout!

Max Schmeling is beaten
in one round--

in less than a round!
( bell clanging )

RINGSIDE ANNOUNCER:
The time...!

VANCE:
It was "two minutes
and four seconds of murder,"

the second shortest heavyweight
title fight in history.

RINGSIDE ANNOUNCER:
The winner and still champion:
Joe Louis!

RODNEY:
People are hugging each other,

and... black and white
embracing.

You know, women and men,
and strangers.

And the scenes were wild;

jubilation and tears,
people crying.

ACUNTO:
It was tremendous.

we had defeated the Nazis
there and then.

( German announcer speaking )

VANCE:
In Germany, millions
had listened to the fight

in growing disbelief.

HOFFMAN:
Acht, neun, zehn!

Aus! Aus!

TRANSLATOR:
The fight is over,
the fight is over.

Schmeling is KO'd,
Schmeling is on the ground.

( German announcer
describing scene )

HOFFMAN ( translated ):
And we looked at each other.

"This cannot be true!

This cannot be!"

The first round
had only been half over.

To suddenly hear on the air

that, uh... the announcer,
very confident,

saying, "Maxie, tut da?!
Und Maxie tut da?!"

"Und jetzt bekommt einen...

"Und jetzt kommt einen zur?ck,

"und jetzt... und jetzt...

"Maxie?

"Maxie machte...

"Maxie?

Maxie was ma..."

It was a sense of jubilation
that we had, my father and I,

and for the first time
there was an inkling

that Hitler might somehow
be stopped.

( bluesy jazz playing )

MAN:
? Big Joe Louis
from Alabam'... ?

VANCE:
In Harlem, news of the victory

sent 100,000 people
into the streets.

"This is their night,"
the police commissioner said,

and closed off 30 blocks
for the celebration.

MAN:
? Hooks a left
with all his might... ?

RODNEY:
I took the subway down to
Harlem-- place was going wild.

Little kids, you know,
they're dancing,

and old, elderly people
hobbling on canes,

you know, they...
they were looking like,

"Oh, boy, good, good," you know?

It's the most wonderful thing
that ever happened.

MAN:
? Then they all forget
to duck... ?

VANCE:
Every saloon in Harlem
was packed to the rafters.

People who'd never had a sip
of beer in their lives

were closing down the town.

CLARKE:
Everybody was so elated
by Louis winning and everything.

I got just as high...
everything was spinning around,

( laughing softly )

You'd have thought
I was in a fight.

I went back to the bathroom,
man, I'm walking on back there,

and walked right dead
into the ladies' room.

( exhales, laughing )

Ooh, I walked right...

READER:
"There never was a Harlem
like the Harlem of last night.

"Take a dozen Christmases,
a score of New Year's Eves,

and maybe, yes, maybe, you get
a faint glimpse of the idea."

The New York Daily News.

( lively music playing )

VANCE:
The celebration wasn't confined
to black America alone.

For the first time, blacks and
whites, even in the deep South,

had rooted with all their hearts
for the same guy.

JARRETT:
Right after Joe Louis's victory,
we got to work ahead of time.

And I will say this
for this fellow where I worked,

he says, "Well, looks like
your man won."

I said,
"He sure did, didn't he?"

He says, "Maybe that'll teach
Hitler a lesson."

MAN:
? Big Joe Louis from Alabam',
he don't play... ?

VANCE:
Joe had shattered the mask
of the "Good Negro"

once and for all.

All Americans loved him--

not because he was docile
and unassuming--

but for the opposite reason:

when they were at their weakest,

he had reminded them
of their strength.

PACHECO.
I think the word is
appreciation.

( voice cracking ):
appreciated what he had done
for them.

Not only had he saved
the honor of the country,

but he gave them a tremendous
moment of relief

from this drudgery of pain that
we were in, in the Depression.

That night, everybody forgot
the Depression, everybody.

My mother even gave me a nickel
to go get an ice cream cone.

That was unheard of, a nickel,
to celebrate--

to go get an ice cream cone.

REPORTER:
Going to take you over
to Max Schmeling...

Schmeling had been helped
to his dressing room.

REPORTER:
Max, will you say a word
to the NBC audience?

SCHMELING:
Well, ladies and gentlemen,
I have not much to say.

I'm very sorry,
but I won't make any excuse,

but I got such a terrible hit

the first hit I get
to the left kidneys.

I was so paralyzed
I couldn't even move.

After, it was
all over, you know.

REPORTER:
Well, Max, I'm sorry,
that's all I can say.

VANCE:
When Schmeling
finally recovered enough

to return to his native soil,

there was no berth of honor
on the Hindenburg,

no Luftwaffe escorts,

or personal meetings
with Hitler.

REIMANN:
They dropped him
like a hot potato.

Never even consoled

or "Poor Max" and so... no, no.

He was... he... he... they had
lost every interest in him.

VANCE:
Schmeling's career
was all but over.

He fought a few more times,
but never again in America.

Freed from his entanglements
with the Nazi government,

Schmeling felt able
to take risks

he'd never been willing
to take before.

In November, during the national
pogrom called Kristallnacht,

he sheltered two small Jewish
boys, the sons of an old friend,

hiding them in his hotel room
while Nazi gangs roamed outside.

MAN:
And that man,
known all over the world,

did this for us
is an unbelievable thing.

This man has done for us...
what God didn't do.

What... how can
you explain it better?

VANCE:
During the war,
Schmeling was conscripted

into the German army.

After it was over, he was
cleared by British authorities

of any complicity
in Nazi crimes.

Schmeling rebuilt his life
one more time.

The Nazi idol earned a fortune

as a bottler for the Coca Cola
company in Germany.

BATHRICK:
He adapted in the Weimar Period,

he adapted in the Third Reich,
and he adapted in 1945 and on.

I mean, he... he rose again
from the ashes.

VANCE:
Joe Louis went on to become

the greatest heavyweight
champion in history,

defending his title
24 more times

over the course of 12 years.

His opponents
were so overmatched,

they earned the title
"Bum of the Month Club."

NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER:
Joe Louis answers Uncle Sam's
call to arms.

OFFICER:
What's your name, Joe?

My name is
Joe Louis Barrow.

VANCE:
Joe served his country honorably
during World War II.

His country didn't return
the favor.

He was relegated to a segregated
unit and hounded for back taxes

on money he had donated to
the Army and Navy Relief Fund.

To pay his debt,
he fought on too long.

His career finally ended
for good in 1951

by a young Rocky Marciano,

who wept in his dressing room
after the fight.

Louis's stature in black America
also suffered.

New, more assertive
black leaders were ashamed

of what they regarded as
Joe's "accommodationism"

and were eager to dismiss him.

I wish he had been
a vocal leader.

But he did enough for me
by stimulating hope

and causing me as a boy
to fantasize victories

and that despite everything,

nobody is going to stop you
from winning

if you really
set your mind to it.

That was enough; I didn't need
anything else from Joe Louis.

When Joe Louis knocked out
Max Schmeling,

he opened a door of history
for every great black athlete

in the coming generations
who could be themselves,

who did not have to mask
their feelings,

who did not have to hide
their emotions,

did not have to say "Yes, sir"
and "No, sir" to reporters.

( fanfare playing )

SHOW HOST:
Well, it took three years
and 35 fights

for you to get a crack
at the world title, Joe.

VANCE:
Halfway through the broadcast
of This Is Your Life in 1960,

there was a surprise guest.

SCHMELING:
I won that one on June 19, 1936
at Yankee Stadium in New York.

HOST:
Yes, he's here, Joe,

himself a former world
heavyweight champion

the Black Uhlan of the Rhine,
Max Schmeling!

( chuckling ):
Fine. How are
you doing?

( applause,
indistinct conversation )

VANCE:
It had been more than 20 years

since the two fighters
had seen each other

in the heat and chaos
of Yankee Stadium,

but it would mark another stage
in their relationship.

They would meet
a dozen more times,

always with a great show
of warmth.

Schmeling assisted Louis
with money,

and when Joe died in 1981,
Max helped pay for the funeral.

Much of the world came to
believe Hitler's favorite boxer

and America's great black hope

had finally
come to love each other.

MARGOLICK:
We all love happy endings,

and it's become convenient
in a way to say

that Joe Louis and Max Schmeling
ended up as great friends.

I don't think they were
really great friends.

I think they were
barely friends--

They spent only 40 minutes
together in the ring.

But history tied
these two men together.

History brought Joe Louis
and Max Schmeling together,

and in history
they'll always be together.

RINGSIDE ANNOUNCER:
Now in the center of the ring

they're measuring each other
with left hands

and doing little damage.

So far Schmeling has done

as much leading with his left
as Louis...

( announcer fades )

( fight crowd cheering )

MAN AND CHORUS:
? Let us talk about
the Brown Bomber ?

? Joe Louis
was a fighting man ?

? Well, let us talk about
the Brown Bomber ?

? Tell the nation a story ?

? Let us talk about
the Brown Bomber ?

MAN:
? Well, now, stop,
let me tell you this story ?

? And I hope
you will understand ?
( chorus harmonizing )

? I want to talk about
a mighty great fighting man ?

? He fought
with the master's hands ?

? In the low land,
in the state of A-L-A ?

? He's a farmer boy,
so I was told ?

? He had Mother
within his heart ?

? Until one day
he's thinking hard ?

? Thinking about the things
involved ?

? He packed his bag,
kissed his mother in the door ?

? And headed for old Detroit ?

? And there he started
to work a train ?

? He never did have any fun ?

? Until one day,
to his surprise ?

? Up walked Mr. Blackburn ?

? Then Joe Louis started
his career ?

? His future was at stake ?

? He fought from the bottom
through the Golden Glove ?

MAN AND CHORUS:
? Now, let us talk about
the Brown Bomber ?

? Oh, tell the nation
his story ?

? Talk about the Brown Bomber ?

? Joe Louis
was a fighting man. ?

? Well, let us talk about
the Brown Bomber ?

? Oh, tell the nation
the story ?

? Let us talk about
the Brown Bomber ?

? Joe Louis
was a fighting man. ?

? Now, let us talk about
the Brown Bomber ?

? Oh, tell the nation
his story ?

? Talk about the Brown Bomber ?

? Joe Louis
was a fighting man. ?

( song ends )

There's more about the fight
at American Experience Online.

Explore what Americans knew
about Nazis in the 1930s,

find out more about Joe Louis
and black athletes

and revisit the dramatic
Schmeling-Louis bouts.

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