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Joe Louis
(1914-1981)
Who Was Joe Louis?
Joe Louis became boxing's heavyweight champion with his defeat of James J. Braddock in 1937. Nicknamed the "Brown Bomber," his knockout of Germany's Max Schmeling in 1938 made him a national hero, and he established a record by retaining the championship for nearly 12 years.
After boxing, Louis endured financial problems while working as a referee and a casino greeter. He died of cardiac arrest in 1981.
Early Years
Joseph Louis Barrow was born on May 13, 1914, in a shack outside of Lafayette, Alabama.
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The grandson of enslaved people, he was the seventh of eight children born to a sharecropper father, Munn, and wife Lillie, a laundress.
Louis' early life was shaped by financial struggles. He and his siblings slept three and four to a bed, and Louis was just 2 years old when his father was committed to an asylum.
Shy and quiet, his development was stymied by limited education, and he eventually developed a stammer.
Not long