The grotesque display of corruption and bigotry hosted on the White House grounds this past weekend was a reminder of the ways combat sports have been used throughout American history as a vehicle for propaganda.
The politics of paid punching have not always been what they are today. In fact, as hard as it may be to imagine with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office, there was a time when America’s president glommed onto the fight game and its surrounding machismo as a means to fight — rather than fuel — global fascism.
That’s the crux of a new History Channel documentary on iconic boxer Joe Louis called “The Clash of Nations,” which may come as a bit of a palate cleanser in the aftermath of Trump’s UFC event. The film documents the story of Louis, the Black American known as the “Brown Bomber” who garnered support from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and his two bouts against German boxer Max Schmeling, whom Adolf Hitler and the Nazis saw as the epitome of Aryan dominance. It also chronicles the personal bond the two established years after their iconic fights.
The two fights, held at Yankee Stadium, unfolded in as cinematic a fashion as one can imagine. Schmeling won the first via knockout, giving Hitler a propaganda victory so great that he mandated German theaters show footage of the fight. The loss also devastated many Americans, particularly Black Americans, who had viewed Louis as an avatar for democracy and a symbol of American dominance over Nazism. Louis’ son, Joe Louis Barrow Jr., is featured in the film and told me the loss and the feeling of utter failure that weighed on his father.
“This world, this country particularly, does not treat Black people the way they should,” Barrow said, observing that the U.S. experiences “peaks” and “valleys” in racial progress. “We’re now in a valley because people don’t respect the Black man the way they should, and that distinguishes Joe Louis, because everyone wanted a hero at the time to defeat the Germans.”