Mike Jacobs Was Reluctant To Match Louis With Black Challengers

Joe Louis in his autobiography "Joe Louis My Life ," said his promoter Mike Jacobs was reluctant to match him with black challengers.Louis stated the reason was purely financial as Jacobs did not think 2 blacks fighting for the heavy crown would draw.
According to Louis, it was himself pushing for a title defence against John Henry Louis which finally convinced Jacobs to agree to the match.
"Gus Greenlee Lewis' manager,was driving Mike crazy wanting to make a match.
Greenlee was saying that I was afraid to fight John Henry.But I wanted the fight everybody did only Mike was hesitating about it.
Remember Greenlee's black,and so is John Henry.
Mike had no prejudice about a man's color,so long as he could make a green buck for him,but Mike had doubts about two black fighters drawing a big gate."

"John Henry was a good friend of mine and I wanted the match .
The black press was pushing for it too.
Hell ,let some other really good black fighter make some money too.
John Henry,his manager and everything around him was black.
That means they were almost automatically kept away from the big money.
But believe me, now I had got the power and the glory,neither Mike Jacobs nor anybody else was going to refuse me.
I told Mike sign it up and Mike signed it up."

The following is interesting I think.

"Another reason I wanted the fight was because John Henry was suing the NY Boxing Commission.They had vacated his title because he refused to fight any of the challengers they had offered.
At that time the NY State recognized a southpaw ,name of Melio Bettina as champion.Mike, who was good friends with the guys in the commission,covinced them that he could stop the legal action by giving John Henry a money making fight with me,so it was green lights all the way."

Let's look at Jacobs reluctance to match 2 blacks for the title ,and his stated reason that they would not draw a big gate. For comparison
In the 1930's ,in the middle of the Depression Louis got the following purses.
1935
June 25 Primo Carnera.$60.433
August 7 King Levinsky.$53,742
Sept 24 Max Baer.$240,833
Dec 13 Paulino Uzcudun .$39.612

1936
Jun19 Max Schmeling .$140,959
Aug 17th Jack Sharkey.$36, 506
Sept 22 Al Ettore. $52,897

1937
Jan27 Bob Pastor,$ 36,000 This fight became known as "Bobs bicycle act," Pastor ran all night just happy to last the distance.Here are the score cards. 8-2,6-3,8-1.
The above were all non title bouts and all the opponents were white.

1937
All title defences.
Aug 30th Tommy Farr.$102,578

1938
All title defences
Feb 22 Nathan Mann.$40,522
Jun22 Max Schmeling.$349,228

1939
All title defences
Jan23 JOHN HENRY LEWIS. $34,313
April 17 Jack Roper. $34,850
Jun28 Tony Galento, $114,332
Sep 20 Bob Pastor.$118,400
Obviously these are just a few of Louis' defences but I think they illustrate that ,regrettably Jacobs had a point.
Moving forward to;
1941
All title defences
May 23 Buddy Baer.$36,866
Jun18th Billy Conn.$ 152,905
Sep29 Lou Nova $199,500

1942 Louis defends his title twice for training expenses ,donating his purses to the Army and Navy Relief Funds.
Jan9 Buddy Baer.$65,200
Mar 27 Abe Simon.$45,882
Louis inactive in the Army,his title frozen
1946
All title defences
Jun18 Billy Conn.$ 625,916

1947
Dec 5 JERSEY JOE WALCOTT.$75,968 Black Challenger

1948 JERSEY JOE WALCOTT.$252 ,522 Black Challenger. Rematch of a their first fight which featured a highly controversial decision in Louis' favour.
1949 March 1st Louis retires.

1950 Louis makes comeback.
Sep27 Ezzard Charles.$102,840 Black Champion v ex black champion

1951
Oct26 Rocky Marciano.$132,736 Non title fight.Louis' last fight
Apologies for such a long post ,but I feel it is necessary to examine the circumstances and reasons for the decisions Mike Jacobs made regarding Louis and defences against black challengers.

NB Both Richard Bak's book on Louis,"The Great Black Hope." and Louis own autobiography classify the Roscoe Toles 1935 April27 bout as a real fight ,Louis ko'd Toles in 6rds for a purse of $1,250.
A side note.
Louis gave exhibitions with many black fighters, here are just some of them.
Harry Wills
Tiger Jack Fox
Jimmy Bivins
Big Boy Brown
Nino Valdes Louis ko'd Valdes in their 2nd exhibition
Bill Gilliam
Curtiss Sheppard
Clarence Henry
Elmer Ray Louis ko'd Ray in the 4th rd of their 3 rd exhibition Louis was retired by then.

 

And many other heavyweight champs!

 

As usual cogent questions.

 

Anyone seeking to disparage Louis' defence against John Henry Lewis on the grounds of Lewis' eye problem,might do well to recall that when Wladimir Klitschko fought Lamon Brewster in2007 Brewster's licence was suspended in the US on medical grounds because Brewster was suffering from impaired vision.The fight was held in Cologne Germany
Source Thomas Hauser. "Boxing Is"

 

See my later post on Lewis and his eye problem.