G
JO
LOUI
the ecretly visualized moments of retaliation, and he had wont
Good Gawd Almighty! Yes, by Jesus, it could be done! Didn't
Joe do it? You see, Joe w the consciously-felt symbol. Joe wu
the concentrated essence of Black triumph over white. And it
comes so seldom, S<? seldom. And what could be weeter than lona
nourished bate vicario Iy gratified? From the ymbol of one'.
strength they took strength, and in that moment all fear, all
obstacles were wiped out, drowned .
They stepped out of the mire of he itation and irresolution and
were free! Invincible! A merciless victor over a fallen foe! Yes,
they had felt all that-for a moment ....
The right hand of Joe Lou "Inner and tID ch mplon," Is ra ed after the June 22, 1938, ODe-ro ad knockout ofMu ScbmeDna.
UNCOVERS DYNAMITE
A,OUllrBlackwrll.r,nc.rrtt,o"to/Misslulppl,tUscrlb.dtMSC.,..iltCltlcaro's
rlNlto wlt.1I tit. YOUllr JM Louis bwckH out Max Ba., au COIItm.llcM Itls
,..1," lIS H "''7w.',,,, Claamploll om •• World; tit. usar GPp!lU'ed III N.,., Mass.s.
By Richard Wright
.
"Wun-tuh-three-fooo-five-seex-seven-eight-niine-thuun!"
Then:
"JOE LOUIS-THE WINNAH!"
On Chicago's South Side five minutes after these words were
yelled andJoe Louis" hand was hoisted as victor in his four-round
go with Max Baer, Negroes poured out of beer taverns, pool rooms,
barber shops, rooming house and dingy flats and flooded the
streets.
"LOUIS! LOUIS! LOUIS!" they yelled and threw their hats
away. They snatched new papers from the stands of astonished
Greeks and tore them up, flinging the bits into the air. They wagged
their heads. Lawd, they'd never seen or heard the like of it before.
. They shook the hands of trangers. They ,clapped one another on
the back. It was like a revival. Really there was a religious feeling
in the air. Well, it wasn't exactly a religious feeling, but it was
something, and you could feel it. It was a feeling of unity, of
oneness.
Two hours after the fight the area between South Parkway and
Prairie Avenue ori 47th Street was jammed with no less than
twenty- five thousand Negroes,joy-mad and moving to they didn't
know where. Clasping hands, they formed long writhing snake­
lines and wove in and out of traffic. They seeped out of doorways,
oozed from alleys, trickled out of tenements, and flowed down the
street; a fluid mass of joy. White storkeepers hastily closed their
doors against the tidal wave and stood peeping 'through plat glass
with blanched faces.
Something had happened, all right. And it had happened so
confouridingly sudden that the whites in the neighborhood were
dumb with fear. They felt - you could see it in their faces-that
something had ripped 100 e, exploded. Something which they had
long feared and thought was dead. Or if not dead, at least 0 afely
buried under the pretence of good-win that they no longer had
need to fear it. Where in the world did it come from? And what
was worst of all, how far would it go? Say, what's got into these
Negroes?
And the whites and the Blacks began to fee! themselves. The
Blacks began to remember all the little lights, and discriminations
and insults they had suffered; and their hunger too and their misery.
And the whi tes began to search their souls to see if they had been
guilty of something, sometime, somewhere against which this
wave of feeling was rising.
As the celebration wore on, the younger Negroes began to
grow bold. They jumped on the running boards of
automobiles going east or west on 47th Street and demanded of the
occupants:
"Who yuh fer-Baer or Louis?"
In the stress of the moment it seemed that the answer to the
question marked out friend and foe.
A hesitating reply brought wave of scomfullaughter. Baer,
huh? That was funny. Now, hadn't JOe Louis just whipped Max
Ba�r?
Didn't think we had it in us, did you? Thought Joe Louis was
scared didn't you? Scared because Max talked loud and made
boast. We ain't scared either. We'll fight too when the time
comes. We'll win,too.
A taxicab driver had his cab wrecked when he tried to put up
show of bravado.
Then they began stopping street cars. Like a cyclone sweeping
through a fore t, they went through them, shouting, tamping.
Conductors gave d backed away like children. Everybody had
to join in this celebra n. Some of the people ran out of the cars
and stood, pale and trembling, in the crowd. They felt it, too.
In the crush a pocketbook snapped open and money spilled on
the street for eager-Black fingers.
"They stole it from anyhow," they said as they picked it up.
When an eld�rly Negro-admonisbed them, a fist wa shaken in
his face. Uncle Tomrrung, huh?
"What in hell yuh gotta do �i it?" thoy wanted to know.
Something had popped loose, all right. And it had come from
deep down. And nobody could have said just what it w , and
nobody wanted to ay. Blacks and whites were afraid. But it w a
sweet fear, at least for the &lackS. It was a mingling of fear and
fulfillment. Something dreaded and yet wanted. A something had
popped out of a dark hole, omething with a hydra-like head, and
it w darting forth its tongue.
You tand on the border-line, wondering what' beyond. Then
you take one step and you feel a strange, sweet tingling. You take
two steps and the fe�ling become keener. You want to feel some
more. You break into a run. You know it's dangerous, but you're
impelled in spite of yourself. .
Four centurie of oppressio f frustrated hopes, of Black
bitterness, felt even in the bones of the bewildered young, were
rising to the surface. Ye , unconsciously they had imputed to the
brawny image of Joe Louis all the balked dreams of revenge, all
. '
And then the cops came.
Not the carefully picked white cops who were used to batter the
skulls of white workers and intellectuals who came to the South
Side· to march with the Black workers to show tbeir solidarity in
the struggle gainst Mussolini' impending invasion of Ethiopia;
DO, no. Black cops, but trusted Black cop nd plenty tough. Cops
who knew their business, how to handle delicate situations. They
piled out of patrols, swingina clubs. .
·Oit back! Oawdammit, git back!"
But they were very careful, very careful. They didn't hit
anybody. Tbey� too, sensed sonmething. And they didn't want to
trifle with it. And there'. no doubt but that they had been instructed
not to. Better go easy here. No telling what might happen. They
swung clubs, but pusbod the crowd back with their hands.
Finally, the street can moved again. The tax and automobil
could go through. The whites breathed easier. The blood came back
to their cheeks.
The Negroes stood on the sidewalks, talking. wondering, look­
ing, breathing hare!. They bad felt something, and it had beenswcet
. tbat fcelina. They wanted some-more of it, but they were afraid
w. The spell w brobn.
And about midnight down the street that feeling ebbed, seeping
home-flowing back 10 the beer tavern, the pool room, the cafe, the
barber sbop, the dingy Oat. Ute a ullen river it ran back to its
muddy cbanne), carryi 'a confused and sentimental memory on
its urr.ce, like a water-soaked driftwood.
Say, Comrade, here's the wild river that' got to be harnessed
• and directed. Here' that something, that pent-up folk conscious­
DeS • Here '. a fleeting glimpse of the heart of the Negro, the heart
that beats and uffers and hopes-for freedom. Here's the fluid
IOmcthin that' like iron. Here's the real dynamite that Joe Louis
uncOvered!
. N..,MtlfH6, Odober 1935; XVII, 11-19.
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