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I'm a big boxing fan but I had just a little idea how much this guy meant to black America. His story has everything. Racism, Hitler, sex, drugs, etc. Just name it. He was really something. In those days a black hero for all the people! Watch this show and tell me if you don't feel every range of emotion...

walrusjk,
i think he was blinded for a few minutes like in the third round or somthing of the Schmeling fight....however somebody did it they had linament on the gloves of Schmeling...an through jabs it got in the eyes of Louis an he wasnt like Ali...who had the same thing happen when he fought Liston....Ali got on his bicycle an stayed away till his head cleared an then proceeded to whup Liston up...well Louis was not like Ali an took several roundhouses from Schmeling an got stunned an then knocked out....but so i think in the rematch that Schmelin did look like a beaten fighter even before the fight....an Louis was out to avenge himself an knew he was going to win....but Schmeling did renounce Hitler an Germany an became Louis's freind and eventually live in the US.....ok an so i respect the number that comes after twelve post thing on the Elvis thing....yeah i think someone should focus on the talent Elvis had when he was young...not the end.....like Deniro in the Raging Bull....when he gained forty pounds to finish the Lamotta character....i hate when actors now gain thirty pounds to do a character in a movie...specially when its Pinochio or somthing like that....

Appaloosa,
I was at Arlington National Cemetary and all I wanted to do was visit the grave of Joe (My Hero) Louis....on the way in we stopped at Pres. Kennedys grave and Jaqueline had just passed away the week before and they had one of those little plastic card holders stuck in the ground identifying her grave...went around the corner and saw Robert Kennedys grave then heard they was conducting the ceremony for the tomb of the unknown soldiers so went to watch that...very awesome....after the ceremony they said that the cemetery was closing and we had to leave...so never got to see Joe Louis grave.

hellifiknow,

same here. Arlington seems never ending and I thought I'd be in and out even with a map. but the unknown soldiers area was endless. all I got to see was the Kennedy grave site, and missed Joe Louis' too, as well as Medgar Evers and quite a few others I really wanted to see. will have to make a special trip just to cover that area.

but I enjoyed the movie Joe and Max. I didn't even know about Max Schmeling until the movie and was touched by the friendship that developed and saddened by the end of Joe Louis' life. Schmeling even paid for Louis' funeral. I would have though the black community would have rallied behind Joe Louis if no other groups so that he didn't have to live hand to mouth. he was a simple man who lived with dignity in spite of, yanno.

and sad to hear Joe Louis' sister was recently found dead, frozen to death outside a nursing home a couple weeks ago. she suffered from alzheimer's.