Two minutes and four seconds of history
Harlem's Amsterdam News put it like this: "If Joe loses, and no one here even thinks that, so many tears will flow down Seventh and Lenox avenues that it will seem like a Mississippi River flood. On the other hand, if Joe wins, more liquor will be consumed than there is in 'Ole Man Ribber'".
The world heavyweight championship fight on 22 June 1938 in New York between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling was more than a boxing match — it was an event of historical proportions and implications. Some 70,000 were in Yankee Stadium and more than a hundred million people, the largest audience for anything in history, had assembled around their radios.
With "Beyond Glory: Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling and a World on the Brink", David Margolick explores sport, civil rights, New York City, the 1930s, relations between Jews and blacks, Nazism and World War II. Those who doubt that the length of the Louis-Schmeling bout — 2 minutes and 4 seconds — can be an effective vehicle for treating such an array of complex issues should read "Strange Fruit", Margolick's powerful book on the anti-lynching song Billie Holiday made famous. The recording lasts just three minutes, but it opens a big window on a sinister time.
In Plains, Georgia, on the night of the Louis-Schmeling fight, the black field hands came in from the farm and gathered around James Earl Carter Sr's radio. When it was all over, the farmer's son, and future US president, Jimmy Carter, wrote: "Our visitors walked silently out of the yard, crossed the road and the railroad tracks, entered the tenant house and closed the door. Then all hell broke loose, and the celebrations lasted all night." It was only two minutes and four seconds, and it was only a boxing match, but it was history. BTW, when someone called Louis "a credit to his race", sportswriter Jimmy Cannon remarked "Yes, the human race."
