It was the boxing match of the decade, perhaps even the century. In the summer of 1938, it was a symbol of freedom versus dictatorship. The heavyweight championship of boxing was held at Yankee stadium and was the second meeting for the two pugilists. African American Joe Louis and Caucasian German Max Schmeling faced off in front of a crowd of 70,000 with many more listening on the radio. In fact, the famous fight drew the largest radio audience in history at that time. 
But of course, it was far from wonderful in Nazi Germany for a large minority population. Since Hitler’s rise to power German Jews had felt the full weight of economic discrimination and social isolation. In the five years before the famous match in New York, and just one year before the outbreak of World War II, ghettos, restrictive laws, concentration camps, secret arrests and disappearances was commonplace in the German Jewish community. American Jews were well aware of the racism that was spreading like a virus across Europe.
70 million tuned in to hear the blow by blow account of the short match consisting of a single round that lasted only two minutes and four seconds. Because Joe Louis had wanted revenge and he got it. The pounding began almost immediately after the starting bell rang. Perhaps Joe was remembering everything Schmeling had said about him after that first meeting. Calling him amateur in his style and mocking his inexperience, Schmeling was unprepared for the man he met in the ring on June 22, 1938. 
The fight was quick because Louis didn’t give Schmeling the chance. Americans both black and white, Jewish and non Jewish cheered Louis on as he struck the German with blow after powerful blow. Each time Schmeling tried to get back up, Louis knocked him down again and the crowd cheered for an American hero as they booed and hissed at the German. The fight was a distraction from the heavy burden of the depression and a focus for the growing resentment against Nazi Germany. And Joe Louis did his job well, forcing Schmeling into a knock out count situation he couldn’t return from. The referee reached “10,” the fight was over and the crowd roared in the stadium and across the land. 
Racism in American history is no secret, but sometimes we need a reminder of just how far we have come. Slightly over 100 years before the inauguration of the first African-American president, the invitation of an African-American man to dinner at the White House with the president and his wife was enough to cause a scandal that embarrassed the nascent Roosevelt Administration and threatened to derail its early plans.
Theodore Roosevelt was swept into office unexpectedly upon the death of his predecessor, William McKinley, in September 1901. As a newcomer upon the national scene, Roosevelt lacked a broad base of support within the Republican Party and hoped to bolster his standing among the black voters of the American South. Despite the fact that the South had recently disenfranchised most of its African-American population, blacks still retained an important level of influence within the Republican Party through their control of Southern delegates to the national convention every four years. As such, Roosevelt thought nothing of inviting African-American educator and activist Booker T. Washington to a dinner at the White House to discuss the issues relevant to Southern blacks.
Roosevelt was fairly progressive for his time in his views regarding race, but the popular social Darwinist ideas of the period had inculcated him with some prejudice towards blacks. Still, Roosevelt recoiled from the legal and social discrimination to which African-Americans were subjected and wished to use his presidential authority to ameliorate their condition. The dinner invitation to Washington was designed as a way to gauge how that might be possible.
When news of the dinner got out, Northern newspapers politely and quietly applauded the president, African-Americans reacted with joy and anticipation, and Southerners were sent into a paroxysm of rage that evoked memories of 1860. Roosevelt’s temerity in entertaining a black man at the same table as his genteel wife was enough to evoke fury from all levels of Southern white society. Southern newspapers rained rarely-printed racial epithets at Roosevelt. A river of hate mail and death threats flooded the White House. Senator Benjamin Tillman of South Carolina threatened open violence against blacks in retaliation for the dinner. Things looked bleak for the young president’s plans.
| Effective governance and adroit public relations enabled Roosevelt to move past the furor over the Washington dinner, but never again would he so publicly thumb his nose at racial animosities in America. Despite that, he used his executive power when he could to further the cause of black equality in America. As it turned out, America was not ready to confront the tough issues of racism and discrimination in his time, but he helped to move the process further along. As the history of the last 100 years shows, change frequently comes through the courage of taking small steps and Theodore Roosevelt took one in the cause of racial harmony. |
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