From Nazism, racism, glory, in the fists of two men:
On June 22, 1938, America and Europe were more caught up in a sporting event than they had ever been before or were ever likely to be again. The heavyweight champion, Joe Louis, a black sharecropper’s son from rural Alabama, was fighting a rematch with former champion Max Schmeling, the man chosen by the Nazi party to carry the banner of Aryan supremacy. The world, or at least that portion of it ready to plunge into war, held its collective breath.The triumph of the racehorse Seabiscuit has been touted by revisionists as the most inspiring sporting event of Depression-era America, but as David Margolick points out in his epic retelling of the Louis-Schmeling saga, ‘Beyond Glory,’ on the night the two men stepped into the ring at Yankee Stadium there were more people listening — perhaps 20 million more — than tuned in later that year to follow Seabiscuit in his famous race with War Admiral. Perhaps half the population of the United States heard the fight, more than would hear any of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s fireside chats. Someone estimated that more journalists covered the fight than had been present at Versailles to cover the end of World War I.