Joe Louis pictured just before his fight with Max Schmeling in 1938 (top) and squaring up to his German foe in preparation for their bout (bottom). It took Louis a little over two minutes to win the match which many see as the first time white America rooted for a black person over a white one. This was due to tensions between the United States and the German Nazi Party and years later, Louis would state:
“White Americans, even while some of them were lynching black people in the South, were depending on me to K.O. a German … the whole damned country was depending on me.”Source:
theundefeated.com