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Joe Louis
   
There are many tales told of or attributed down through the years about the late and great Joe Louis, the legendary heavyweight boxing Champion.
   
And despite all the stories, the folks who knew or worked around Louis tell, I recall two little known or maybe forgotten stories I know of which occurred to me when I was a reporter for the Atlanta Daily Worlds and later the Pittsburgh Courier.
  
On all the releases I read after Joe's demise only one reporter, Les Matthew of the Amsterdam News recalled that it was Louis who integrated the press section at Madison Square Garden, in New York, making it possible for Black writers to ply their trade from the Press section at the Garden.
  
The incidents I refer to happened all in one day when Louis told Harry Marksen, the P.R. man for Mike Jacobs, the Don King of his day, that he was not going to fight, unless Black writers were admitted to the Press section to cover his fight with Primo Canera.
  
In those days, as I recall the incidents, contenders to fight in New York were usually weighed in with pomp and ceremony in the rotunda of the Old Garden, at 50th Street and 8th Avenue. After the fighters were weighed in around noon the day of the fight they were whisked off to hide until ringtime that evening.
  
After the fighters were weighted in on the afternoon of this fight, a black reporter, Me, and a photographer from the Afro-American and a Black photo service based in Washington, complained to Louis that we were given press accommodations but we would be seated on the top row of the Old Garden. We thought this was a disservice to the Black press because it made it impossible for us to do our coverage so we asked Young Joe to say something about it.
  
Joe, immediately told Harry to inform Mike Jacobs, the promoter, that if the Black reporters were not admitted to ringside he would not fight that evening.
  
When Harry informed Mike, who like Don King, today, was an outside promoter fighting, Madison Square Garden from rented desk space in the Brill Building of what young Louis had said, Mike almost had a heart attack. Mike asked Harry if Joe was serious and Harry assured him that Joe was so Mike took the bull by the horns and ordered the ushers to allow us into the ringside press section. Which was ruled by the New York boxing writers of that day. And from that day forward Negro sports writers were admitted into the press section at boxing in New York. The year was 1936.
  
The other story I recall also happened on the same day when Joe's security provided by some Detroit friends of his managers John Roxborough & Julian Black drove Joe uptown to hide him out until ringtime.
  
The practice of the Era was to weigh in the fighters and then whisk them off to a selected spot to wait until time to come to the fight site.
  
Well after they weighted in Louis at the Garden Joe's security thought they would hide him out in the hotel, two blocks from the Stadium where he was to fight that night.
  
Well when the Joe Louis party arrived at the Concourse Plaza Hotel, two blocks away from the Yankee Stadium and the hotel the New York Yankee baseball team used; they were told that the hotel did not accommodate Negroes.
  
Joe's security sensing a plot, because in those days boxing was influenced by the mob, thought the refusal a ploy. Nevertheless, not wanting to be compromised the boys decided to hide Louis out in a hotel in the heart of Harlem located on 125th & Seventh Avenue. The Hotel Theresa. When they arrived they were told that the Hotel Theresa. did not accommodate Negroes either; the boys went into action.
  
They informed the desk clerk that they were not going to leave and enforced their requests for accommodations by opening up their violin cases which they had with them. The clerk on seeing the musical instruments immediately booked the Louis party on the ninth floor of the hotel-and this was the first time the Hotel Theresa took in Negroes.
  
The next day the hotel management went and hired a Negro manager from the desk of the 135th Street Y and hired a Negro waitress to work in the restaurant of the hotel. And from that time forward Blacks were accommodated at the Theresa Hotel.

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