Joe Louis & Legacy Naming

[EastsideAl]

How about the renovated Brewster Wheeler Recreation Center? At least.

That would seem to be gimmie, given Joe Louis' history at that center. But I do like the riverwalk idea. Certainly for that part of the walk that goes past old Black Bottom.

There's the large Black Power fist downtown. That's pretty noteworthy.

Why do people post such disgusting crap? Do you even have a clue who Joe Louis was?

[Bigdd]

Why do people post such disgusting crap? Do you even have a clue who Joe Louis was?

Yes,.. and why do you consider truth to be crap?

The fist was donated by a big sports mag of the day to commemorate the second fight between Joe and Max Schmeling. At the time Hitler and the Nazis were touting the superiority of the Aryan race,..and Max had beaten Joe pretty badly in 1936. While Max was never a member of the Nazi party,.. the Nazis touted it none the less as proof of Aryan superiority thing.

When Joe beat Max 2 years later,.. it was touted here as a blow to that ideology.

The fist represents black power beating the white Aryan race superiority idea. It's the 180 degree opposite of the Nazis / Aryan thing.

It was put here in Detroit because Joe was from Detroit.

It IS NOT simply a monument to the Brown bomber. If it were,.. they would have made a statue of him,... so that passers by would know who it was a monument to,.. and what the fella looked like.

[bust]

Yes,.. and why do you consider truth to be crap?

The fist was donated by a big sports mag of the day to commemorate the second fight between Joe and Max Schmeling. At the time Hitler and the Nazis were touting the superiority of the Aryan race,..and Max had beaten Joe pretty badly in 1936. While Max was never a member of the Nazi party,.. the Nazis touted it none the less as proof of Aryan superiority thing.

When Joe beat Max 2 years later,.. it was touted here as a blow to that ideology.

The fist represents black power beating the white Aryan race superiority idea. It's the 180 degree opposite of the Nazis / Aryan thing.

It was put here in Detroit because Joe was from Detroit.

It IS NOT simply a monument to the Brown bomber. If it were,.. they would have made a statue of him,... so that passers by would know who it was a monument to,.. and what the fella looked like.

I agree the artistic intention was probably intended to evoke a black power fist. But I strongly disagree the black power movement is the 180 opposite of Nazism. Tell me if I'm wrong, but I believe that while some among the black power movement thought violence was a legitimate method of self-defense, the defense part is key. Nazism was a blatantly offensive movement. Individuals will each have their own opinion but I believe black power was more of an AND operation: black people deserve a share of power too. Just like "black is beautiful" doesn't mean only black is beautiful, it means black is beautiful too.

[Bigdd]

I agree the artistic intention was probably intended to evoke a black power fist. But I strongly disagree the black power movement is the 180 opposite of Nazism. Tell me if I'm wrong, but I believe that while some among the black power movement thought violence was a legitimate method of self-defense, the defense part is key. Nazism was a blatantly offensive movement. Individuals will each have their own opinion but I believe black power was more of an AND operation: black people deserve a share of power too. Just like "black is beautiful" doesn't mean only black is beautiful, it means black is beautiful too.

I didn't mean it that in depth,.. or to say it was the opposite of Nazi'ism,.. just that the pushing of Black Power by "The Fist" was the opposite of the "Aryan superiority" propaganda that the Nazis espoused. Obviously the National Socialist Party had a lot of other agendas going on along with that.

I think The Fist is a shame. I feel for Joe Louis. Pretty much no one going by there knows whose fist it is. And if you told them,.. most people these days don;t know who he was,.. or what he looked like. And having it there has meant that no one else did a proper memorial to Joe. Would be nice if they scrapped it and put up a 20' statue of Joe somewhere. People would know what the man looked like at least.

[SDCC]

Yes,.. and why do you consider truth to be crap?

The fist was donated by a big sports mag of the day to commemorate the second fight between Joe and Max Schmeling. At the time Hitler and the Nazis were touting the superiority of the Aryan race,..and Max had beaten Joe pretty badly in 1936. While Max was never a member of the Nazi party,.. the Nazis touted it none the less as proof of Aryan superiority thing.

When Joe beat Max 2 years later,.. it was touted here as a blow to that ideology.

The fist represents black power beating the white Aryan race superiority idea. It's the 180 degree opposite of the Nazis / Aryan thing.

It was put here in Detroit because Joe was from Detroit.

It IS NOT simply a monument to the Brown bomber. If it were,.. they would have made a statue of him,... so that passers by would know who it was a monument to,.. and what the fella looked like.

Thank you for sharing this snap shot in history...interesting, and certainly worth a plaque honoring him, and his place in time. I would include the history of the match, not just the boxing match.

[Honky Tonk]

Thank you for sharing this snap shot in history...interesting, and certainly worth a plaque honoring him, and his place in time. I would include the history of the match, not just the boxing match.

There is/was a statue of Joseph Louis in the Cobo Hall lobby. In fact, it was there before the Sports Illustrated Fist.

[SDCC]

There is/was a statue of Joseph Louis in the Cobo Hall lobby. In fact, it was there before the Sports Illustrated Fist.

I don't know if the statute is still there, I trust it is. I like the location, as visitors, or attendees at Cobo can see his likeness. The stone base is inscribed as well, can't find an image of the words etched in the stone [[granite) base.

[FlyingJ]

you guys should Google Robert Graham, the artist who made the Joe Louis Fist. He's always been controversial, from the '84 Olympics Statues out here to his androgynous, multi-ethnic Virgin Mary for L.A.'s re-booted Cathederal that one group of nuns referred to as "Our Lady Of The Costco"

[EastsideAl]

Yes,.. and why do you consider truth to be crap?

The fist was donated by a big sports mag of the day to commemorate the second fight between Joe and Max Schmeling. At the time Hitler and the Nazis were touting the superiority of the Aryan race,..and Max had beaten Joe pretty badly in 1936. While Max was never a member of the Nazi party,.. the Nazis touted it none the less as proof of Aryan superiority thing.

When Joe beat Max 2 years later,.. it was touted here as a blow to that ideology.

The fist represents black power beating the white Aryan race superiority idea. It's the 180 degree opposite of the Nazis / Aryan thing.

It was put here in Detroit because Joe was from Detroit.

It IS NOT simply a monument to the Brown bomber. If it were,.. they would have made a statue of him,... so that passers by would know who it was a monument to,.. and what the fella looked like.

How ridiculously disingenuous. Yes Joe Louis was black, and, yes, he was definitely pretty powerful. And, yes, his many victories, especially over Schmeling, were felt as empowering by many black people all over the country and the world in a time of ascendant white supremacy. The monument was certainly intended by the sculptor, by his own words, to reflect all of those things.

But Joe Louis had nothing at all to do with the Black Power movement, as I'm sure you know. And calling the monument to Joe Louis that stands in the middle of our downtown a "black power fist" is more than a little reminiscent of the ludicrous white panic controversy that surrounded its construction. The wild accusations that Mayor Young had erected some sort of "black power fist" as an anti-white symbol to scare whitey out of downtown. Like it was a monument to Huey Newton or someone, rather than Joe Louis. Or that it was some specific message in the pernicious racial divide here in the Detroit area. As if building a monument that symbolized a struggle against racism, as a memorial to a man who himself stood as a powerful symbol against racism, was somehow anti-white.

Of course, this crap was mostly said by the same large group of suburbanites who would scream for the next 30 years about the mayor "sending black criminals" across 8 Mile to victimize white folks. Never mind the fact that that accusation was based on taking something the mayor said completely out of context, or that the scary black fist was commissioned by Sports Illustrated [[you know, all those black radicals at Time Life Corp.!!), and designed by an extremely well-known Mexican-American artist from California. But, yeah, it's still a "black power fist" to you. Stupid crap.