The son of a sharecropper, Joe Louis (1914-1981) rose up through the ranks of amateur and professional boxing to become the world heavyweight champion, a title he held from 1937 to 1949. Louis is perhaps best known for his legendary matchups against German boxer Max Schmeling. Schmeling defeated Louis when they first fought in 1936, and in the runup to their 1938 rematch, the press imbued the bout with international political significance, portraying the match as an epic battle between Nazi ideology and American democratic ideals (even though Schmeling was never a member of the Nazi Party). When Louis defeated Schmeling by knockout in the first round, Louis became an American hero.
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