Joe Louis
The man behind The Fist: A racial analysis of the monument to Joe Louis directly in the middle of one of Detroit’s busiest intersections lies a small but powerful statue-small in terms of the surrounding skyscrapers and other monuments, but powerful in its symbolism. The sculpture is formally called Monument to Joe Louis and was given to the city as a gift, made to commemorate the life of native Detroiter and world-champion boxer Joe Louis.
However, The Fist is more than just a tribute to Joe Louis, but a lasting symbol of racial justice and black power. To understand why the statue is important to the city of Detroit, one has to understand who Joe Louis was and what he stood for. As an African-American man, he was already faced with many hardships in then-segregated America. But boxing was one of the only sports where black men were allowed to complete with white men for the same positions, and Joe Louis took full advantage of that. Fighting his way to the top, he was world heavyweight champion from 1937 to 1949, which included the infamous Louis vs. Schmeling II fight, …show more content…
To many other Detroit residents, they see the same thing, but to different degrees. For example, in 2004, two white American men painted The Fist white in protest of two white police officers killed recently while on duty. They left a sign saying, “courtesy of fighting whites”. To those men, The Fist did not represent “Joe Louis, the boxer”; it represented “Joe Louis, the proud black man”. It represented something they were against, or even scared of, and that something is more than just Joe Louis himself, with all of these different reactions to the memorial, the conclusion that we can come to is that sculpture is deeper than just representing one man-it represents and
The man behind The Fist: A racial analysis of the monument to Joe Louis directly in the middle of one of Detroit’s busiest intersections lies a small but powerful statue-small in terms of the surrounding skyscrapers and other monuments, but powerful in its symbolism. The sculpture is formally called Monument to Joe Louis and was given to the city as a gift, made to commemorate the life of native Detroiter and world-champion boxer Joe Louis.
However, The Fist is more than just a tribute to Joe Louis, but a lasting symbol of racial justice and black power. To understand why the statue is important to the city of Detroit, one has to understand who Joe Louis was and what he stood for. As an African-American man, he was already faced with many hardships in then-segregated America. But boxing was one of the only sports where black men were allowed to complete with white men for the same positions, and Joe Louis took full advantage of that. Fighting his way to the top, he was world heavyweight champion from 1937 to 1949, which included the infamous Louis vs. Schmeling II fight, …show more content…
To many other Detroit residents, they see the same thing, but to different degrees. For example, in 2004, two white American men painted The Fist white in protest of two white police officers killed recently while on duty. They left a sign saying, “courtesy of fighting whites”. To those men, The Fist did not represent “Joe Louis, the boxer”; it represented “Joe Louis, the proud black man”. It represented something they were against, or even scared of, and that something is more than just Joe Louis himself, with all of these different reactions to the memorial, the conclusion that we can come to is that sculpture is deeper than just representing one man-it represents and