Joe Louis: The Man Who Desegregated the Army Before Jackie Robinson
How did the Heavyweight Champion of the World defeat Jim Crow without saying a word?
While history remembers April 15, 1947, as the day Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball, the foundations of that moment were built years earlier by Joe Louis. In this episode of The Optimistic Beacon, Dr. Ray Calabrese uncovers the "quiet strength" of the Brown Bomber during his service in the U.S. Army.
At the height of his career, Joe Louis enlisted as a private, famously stating, "Hitler ain't going to fix" the problems in America. But Louis didn't just fight the Axis powers…
The skinny
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