![]() Schmeling, 1938Īll Max Schmeling wanted to be was a fighter. ![]() “Now Hitler really knows who the Superman is!” people seemed to say. When Louis won the fight, most of America went crazy. The fight had become a proxy battle between Nazism and Democracy. In that fight, Louis, a black American who couldn’t travel safely in many parts of his own country, was fighting a supposed Nazi, and both people and governments imbued the fight with a symbolism far beyond a contest between two athletes. People who lived during the time (my New York City-born and bred mother being one of them) will tell you that on the night of the Louis-Schmeling fight in 1938, not only NYC, but most of the United States came to a standstill – city blocks went quiet except for the sounds of radios blasting the voice of the fight announcer from every window, and for the cheers when Louis was doing well.
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