Apparently Boxing Quora has been shown to claim that Joe Louis “ducked” black fighters such as Obie Walker, Elmer Ray, Bivins, Lem Franklin, etc. Of course if you guys are on Quora, you’d know who makes those comments about him. Hint: it starts with a J and his last name is an M.
I’m not on that site who J and M. Anyway Joe Louis fought Roscoe Toles in what many people believed was officially sanctioned bout - leading up to his bout with Carnera. You can see the frequency gap in timeline on boxers of his bouts just before the Carnera bout. He fought John Henry Lewis crushing him in 1. Walcott, Charles, Omelio Agramonte (spelling) Willie Davies. And lots during exhibition including besting Elmer Ray 3x.
The only one that ever got to #1 contender was Elmer Ray very briefly. No ducking. Still, some of them would have been great fights!
Theres this misconception John Henry Lewis was gifted a HW title shot as the LHW champ because he was Louis's friend. In truth he had been campaigning at both LHW and LHW for years before fighting Louis and health issues or not had earned a shot based on what he'd done up to that point. Remember John Henry Lewis had lost to Braddock before Braddock won his belt in what most considered an egregious robbery on Braddocks behalf. With Braddock, Farr and Schmeling defeated Henry Lewis was the last HW with any sort of claim to the HW crown and while he might not have had a HW belt 4 of Henry Lewis's HW fights in this period were scheduled for 15 rounds indicating how important they were considered. Ironically one of these fights was the only 15 rounder of a young Elmer Rays career. Henry Lewis earned his shot. Besides Ray and Lee Murray most black HW fighters of Louis's generation and the next one were pretty small(as were increasingly the white fighters). Obie Walker was 5 ft 9. If the final "colored champions" had been someone dominant like Willis or even a Godfrey Louis probably would have fought them. Instead Walker lost his belt to an old Larry Gains who wasn't really a contender for any non British honors. A few years later Elmer Ray got the aformentioned fight with Henry Lewis by beating......Obie Walker. Obie wasn't even the best black HW with the name Walker with that being Buddy Walker. After that Bivins and Murray were the next black contenders for Louis's belt and they only emerged after Louis left. Franklin started losing in 1942 and was out of boxing by 1944. Bivins's 4 year winning streak only started after Louis had stopped defending his title in anticipation of war. In June 1942 Bivins was actually 3-4 in his last 7 fights. Just 3 wins later Louis handed Bivins the duration belt(old meaning of interim title)after his fight with Mauriello endorsing him as his replacement when he was away during the war. This scheme was done away with when it became clear WW2 would be over in a few years. Rays peak came during those years and when Louis returned his 2nd black title opponent Jersey Joe Walcott earned that shot by beating Ray who at this point was in his late 30s. Walcott had previously ended Bivins streak . Then after the first fight was controversial Louis and Walcott had a rematch before Louis retired the first time. And while Ray was out of the picture when Louis returned he eventually did fight Bivins after winning that alphabet belt in 1951. While Louis waited almost a decade to fight him Bivins was 5 years younger than Louis so I don't think time was really on Louis's side there. Another note in regards to Louis's reign between Henry Lewis and Walcott when he defended his title against only white fighters in the years 1939-1942. This group was referred to Louis as the "bum of the month" club. Theres a misunderstanding here that Louis's level of competition was bad. That phrase was meant to refer to Louis literally defending his title every month for 7 months in a row and 8 months out of 10. Compared to someone like Larry Holmes who had a similar amount of defences Louis SOS was very high. Louis had 25 title defences. If you take the non elite opponents out of his resume who probably didn't deserve shots he still has about 20. He wasn't really ducking people. White or black alike whenever Louis's fights were close or controversial he did a rematch usually within a few months with the exception of the Conn one which was delayed by WW2. Louis was not hiding from anyone. Now out of 25 title defenses could he have fought more than 2 black fighters? Sure. At various points were there probably black HWs ranked higher than who Louis ended up fighting? Sure. Is there a Sam Langford or Harry Willis in this story Louis was refusing to fight? No.
