Joe Louis: American Hero - Betrayed
HBO Documentary Revisits America’s Mistreatment of Patriotic Pugilist
Joe
Louis: American Hero’ Betrayed
Rated TV-PG for violence and adult content.
Running time: 75 minutes
Studio: HBO-TV
Film Review by Kam Williams
Excellent (4 stars)
On January 10, 1942, a month after Pearl Harbor, Heavyweight Champ Joe
Louis (1914-1981) enlisted in the Army at the height of his boxing
career. Not only did he volunteer to serve in a still segregated army,
he also donated the entire purses of his prior two fights to the war
effort.
That ill-advised altruistic overture would come back to bite The Brown
Bomber in the butt, because the country he loved would never love him
back. Instead of appreciating the fact that he had taken a pay cut from
six-figures per bout down to a GI’s salary of about $50 a month, the IRS
decided that Joe still had to pay taxes on the $200,000 he had so
generously given the government.
Meanwhile, his financial manager, Mike Jacobs, was no help either. He so
mismanaged the champ’s finances for the next four years that Joe was an
additional quarter million dollars in debt by the time he was honorably
discharged from the military in 1945. Things got so bad, that the IRS
even seized the $64,000 Louis had put into a trust fund for his kids.
Broke and desperate, Joe ended up continuing to fight in the ring far
past his prime, since he didn't have any other way to make the sort of
money the U.S. was charging him interest on and hounding him for. After
all, he was born in rural Alabama the son of sharecroppers and the
grandchild of slaves, and he had no formal education to fall back on.
So, after he could no longer box, he had to turn to professional
wrestling to make a few bucks.
To add insult to injury, when he died, his widow was denied permission
to bury her patriotic veteran husband in Arlington National Cemetery
until the president intervened on her behalf. And she was only able to
afford to give him a fitting send off because Joe’s former foe, Max
Schmeling, offered to pay for the funeral.
This disgraceful chapter of U.S. history is the recounted in Joe Louis:
American Hero ’ Betrayed, a heartbreaking HBO documentary. Given that we
presently have an African-American leading in the race for the
Democratic Presidential nomination, it’s fitting reflect upon how far
we’ve come since these sort of racist shenanigans were par for the
course during the heyday of the so-called ’Greatest Generation.’
Perhaps the best way he ought to be remembered is how sportswriter Jimmy
Cannon eulogized him: ’Joe Louis, a credit to his race ’ the human
race.’