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In Black and White : The Untold Story of Joe Louis and Jesse Owens
WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR, 2002 - the extraordinary biography of two of the world's greatest athletes, Jesse Owens and Joe Louis. Jesse Owens and Joe Louis have been hailed as American icons for the last sixty-five years, yet they were unfailingly human in everything they achieved and as vulnerable as they were courageous; as troubled as they were brilliant; as restless in themselves as they are now rooted in history. IN BLACK AND WHITE will tell, for the first time, the story of the shared political legacy, extraordinary personal links and enduring friendship between 4-times Olympic gold medallist Jesse Owens, and Heavyweight World Boxing Champion Joe Louis, black athletes born in an America demeaned by racism and poverty.
432 pages, Paperback
First published October 21, 2002
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 26, 2021
This is a superb chronology of the lives of two legends. The passion of the author for his book shines throughout the book and is a key reason why I devoured this book so quickly.
McRae brings the subjects of the book, so many other characters and and era they lived in and the changes that happened throughout that era to life in an exciting and thought-provoking way. When reading this book I both enjoyed it and felt I learned a lot about the two subjects, as well as the era they lived through.
You don't have to be passionate about boxing or athletics or even sport to be taken in by this book. That's because this book is so much more than just about athletics and boxing.
The book masterfully brings you in to not just the lives of Joe Louis and Jesse Owens, but so much more. It brings to life their enduring friendship which means that you see how their lives are entwined. It also paints an unflinching picture of the Jim Crow era and the impact it had not just on both these people, but for all black Americans. The writing on how for instance of how in the white American press Joe Louis was frequently described in animalistic times shows the racism of much of the American media in the 1930s. The paragraphs on how Jesse Owens and Joe Louis had to sit in separate train carriages, eat in the car after not being allowed in to restaurants and not allowed in the same hotels as white people when they were at the height of their sporting prowess gives you an insight in to the era of the 1930s.
The book is also very strong in depicting with perfect language and atmosphere the races, the fights and the excitement it generated in people, including the pride it gave black Americans. Every fight, athletics win, troubles with the IRS, jobs, speeches etc has the backdrop of what the USA was going through at that moment and how it related to them.
The book also describes well the tragedy of Jesse Owens athletics career being stopped at 22 and Joe Louis descent in to madness. Indeed, the second part of the book on both their lives after their career ends is just if not more powerful than the first section.
The book writes well on the friction between the more Conservative stance of those such as Jesse Owens and Joe Louis, compared to those such as John Carlos and Muhammad Ali when it came to the 1960s and 1970s and the plight of African Americans.
The book ends well on how the two legends have been remembered since their parting and how Jesse Owens who was so committed to bringing people together did so even in death when two white parents finally see their black son in law.
What is also good about this book is that it is no hero worship of its subjects. Though highlighting their many qualities, it does not hide away from their faults too.
This is a superb book not just on its two subjects, but the era they lived in, the events of its time, the context of it and the impact even now of the two men on contemporary America.
McRae brings the subjects of the book, so many other characters and and era they lived in and the changes that happened throughout that era to life in an exciting and thought-provoking way. When reading this book I both enjoyed it and felt I learned a lot about the two subjects, as well as the era they lived through.
You don't have to be passionate about boxing or athletics or even sport to be taken in by this book. That's because this book is so much more than just about athletics and boxing.
The book masterfully brings you in to not just the lives of Joe Louis and Jesse Owens, but so much more. It brings to life their enduring friendship which means that you see how their lives are entwined. It also paints an unflinching picture of the Jim Crow era and the impact it had not just on both these people, but for all black Americans. The writing on how for instance of how in the white American press Joe Louis was frequently described in animalistic times shows the racism of much of the American media in the 1930s. The paragraphs on how Jesse Owens and Joe Louis had to sit in separate train carriages, eat in the car after not being allowed in to restaurants and not allowed in the same hotels as white people when they were at the height of their sporting prowess gives you an insight in to the era of the 1930s.
The book is also very strong in depicting with perfect language and atmosphere the races, the fights and the excitement it generated in people, including the pride it gave black Americans. Every fight, athletics win, troubles with the IRS, jobs, speeches etc has the backdrop of what the USA was going through at that moment and how it related to them.
The book also describes well the tragedy of Jesse Owens athletics career being stopped at 22 and Joe Louis descent in to madness. Indeed, the second part of the book on both their lives after their career ends is just if not more powerful than the first section.
The book writes well on the friction between the more Conservative stance of those such as Jesse Owens and Joe Louis, compared to those such as John Carlos and Muhammad Ali when it came to the 1960s and 1970s and the plight of African Americans.
The book ends well on how the two legends have been remembered since their parting and how Jesse Owens who was so committed to bringing people together did so even in death when two white parents finally see their black son in law.
What is also good about this book is that it is no hero worship of its subjects. Though highlighting their many qualities, it does not hide away from their faults too.
This is a superb book not just on its two subjects, but the era they lived in, the events of its time, the context of it and the impact even now of the two men on contemporary America.
August 14, 2008
There are few biographies that opt to feature a parallel chronology of the lives of two people. Such are the demands placed on the author to deliver a meaningful enough summation on one character that the addition of a second seems at once a daunting, near impossible concept. In many ways such an undertaking will lack a central focus unless both protagonists are linked inextricably in their raison d'etre or their rivalry or other binding phenomena as were say Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin. Both of the subjects must be similar yet paradoxically they must be sufficiently dissimilar, if not discordant, in order for the author to wax and weave grandiloquent on coincidences and ironies which will litter the narrative.
Award winning sports author, Donald McRae chooses this format for his recently released treatment of the life and meanings of two of the greatest sporting icons of the twentieth century; Joe Louis and Jesse Owens. For if Muhammad Ali and Pele bear the mantle of greatest athletes in the second half of that century, then as surely Louis and Owens bestride the first fifty years.
Joseph Louis Barrow and James Cleveland Owens were born eight months and a few miles apart in the southern state of Alabama. They would die a year apart, Owens in 1980 and Louis in 1981. Both had antecedents enmeshed in the brutal history of slavery and the painful world of sharecropping. Both men rose virtually from the depths of nothingness to ascend the dizzyingly, rarefied heights of world fame by virtue of their athletic prowess, Louis with the crushing fury of his fists and Owens with the velocity of his legs. One quiet and seemingly diffident, the other ebullient and never complete without a trademark smile. One was a phenomenal boxer while the other was a peerless athlete but both were linked in the maelstrom of the social and political evolution of African-Americans for they both transcended the veneer of being mere sportsmen to bear the burdens of and inhabit the sort of status reserved in the past for political figure's. Although McRae does not mention it, both men were known better to the white American public than black intellectuals like W.E.B. DuBois. What McRae reminds us of, is just how important these men were.
But although McRae's title refers to the 'Untold Story,' there is little here that the discerning boxing aficionado does not already know about Joe Louis. From his glorious, record setting title reign to his inglorious descent into tax difficulties and mental maladies. It is Owens who probably is the lesser known of the two and McRae does well to focus, diary style, on both men's highest points in the 1930's. For Owens, it was his extraordinary performance at the summer Olympic games held in Berlin in 1936 where before the Nazi elite, then in the midst's of fashioning an idealized racial state, he conquered all opposition to win a then unprecedented four gold medals. Louis, who just weeks earlier had been shockingly defeated by the German fighter Max Schmeling, would vindicate himself two years later by battering Schmeling in a single round. By their deeds both men finally put to rest Hitlerian notions of Aryan superiority and Black inferiority. Yet as McRae, a man of white South African origin recounts, both lived in a racially segregated America, which perpetuated and reinforced assumptions of Black inferiority. It was Louis and Owens, we are reminded, who paved the way for the unbanning of blacks from baseball, basketball and American Football. Yet, these truly revolutionary figures were not revolutionary enough for their sporting descendants of the 1960's who derogatorily labelled them as 'Uncle Toms;' pacified stooges of the white establishment never mind that the circumstances of the times in Louis and Owens heyday dictated that militant stances within the sporting field were virtually impossible to contrive.
If by 'Untold Story' McRae is referring to the personal friendship between both men, then only few would be impressed by the revelation that Louis introduced Owens to his high class tailor or that both men were inducted simultaneously into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame. Nevertheless, it is as a sympathetically written record of the lives of both; sporting gods on the one hand and fallible men on the other, that McRae's book succeeds. There is Owens, impecunious even after his Berlin victory, and hounded out of amateur athletics by the despotic machinations of Avery Brundage, the patrician chairman of the International Olympic Committee and aptly referred to as 'Slavery Avery.' Owens was forced over the next few years to race trains and horses in a series of grotesque exhibitions. Which reader can fail to travel in time forty years ahead and then weep at the thought of lesser men earning million dollar cheques? Read about Louis combating the American Inland Revenue for a spiralling amount of income tax back payment and empathize with the man who donated whole portions of his ring earnings to an Armed Service of the United States military which employed persons of his race only as cooks and mess boys. The reader, however, can hardly fail to chastise Louis for his childlike ineptitude in taking care of his finances when his earning power was at its zenith. There are anecdotal vignettes like where Owens steps in front of Louis who is being confronted by a redneck who wants to add the 'Brown Bomber' to his self-styled 'Hit-a-Nigger-a-Week' list. It is Louis who has to hold his friend back when the normally calm Owens takes umbrage at his slurs and smashes a bottle on a table in anticipation of 'glassing' his foe.
'In Black and White: The Untold Story of Joe Louis and Jesse Owens' ultimately is an expertly crafted narrative of the lives of two of the foremost sportsmen of recent times and although it unearths little of which is unknown about both subjects, it melds the stories of two icons from a bygone age whose excellence in their chosen professions and wider importance in terms of the development of race relations in the United States cannot be dimmed by the passage of time.
Award winning sports author, Donald McRae chooses this format for his recently released treatment of the life and meanings of two of the greatest sporting icons of the twentieth century; Joe Louis and Jesse Owens. For if Muhammad Ali and Pele bear the mantle of greatest athletes in the second half of that century, then as surely Louis and Owens bestride the first fifty years.
Joseph Louis Barrow and James Cleveland Owens were born eight months and a few miles apart in the southern state of Alabama. They would die a year apart, Owens in 1980 and Louis in 1981. Both had antecedents enmeshed in the brutal history of slavery and the painful world of sharecropping. Both men rose virtually from the depths of nothingness to ascend the dizzyingly, rarefied heights of world fame by virtue of their athletic prowess, Louis with the crushing fury of his fists and Owens with the velocity of his legs. One quiet and seemingly diffident, the other ebullient and never complete without a trademark smile. One was a phenomenal boxer while the other was a peerless athlete but both were linked in the maelstrom of the social and political evolution of African-Americans for they both transcended the veneer of being mere sportsmen to bear the burdens of and inhabit the sort of status reserved in the past for political figure's. Although McRae does not mention it, both men were known better to the white American public than black intellectuals like W.E.B. DuBois. What McRae reminds us of, is just how important these men were.
But although McRae's title refers to the 'Untold Story,' there is little here that the discerning boxing aficionado does not already know about Joe Louis. From his glorious, record setting title reign to his inglorious descent into tax difficulties and mental maladies. It is Owens who probably is the lesser known of the two and McRae does well to focus, diary style, on both men's highest points in the 1930's. For Owens, it was his extraordinary performance at the summer Olympic games held in Berlin in 1936 where before the Nazi elite, then in the midst's of fashioning an idealized racial state, he conquered all opposition to win a then unprecedented four gold medals. Louis, who just weeks earlier had been shockingly defeated by the German fighter Max Schmeling, would vindicate himself two years later by battering Schmeling in a single round. By their deeds both men finally put to rest Hitlerian notions of Aryan superiority and Black inferiority. Yet as McRae, a man of white South African origin recounts, both lived in a racially segregated America, which perpetuated and reinforced assumptions of Black inferiority. It was Louis and Owens, we are reminded, who paved the way for the unbanning of blacks from baseball, basketball and American Football. Yet, these truly revolutionary figures were not revolutionary enough for their sporting descendants of the 1960's who derogatorily labelled them as 'Uncle Toms;' pacified stooges of the white establishment never mind that the circumstances of the times in Louis and Owens heyday dictated that militant stances within the sporting field were virtually impossible to contrive.
If by 'Untold Story' McRae is referring to the personal friendship between both men, then only few would be impressed by the revelation that Louis introduced Owens to his high class tailor or that both men were inducted simultaneously into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame. Nevertheless, it is as a sympathetically written record of the lives of both; sporting gods on the one hand and fallible men on the other, that McRae's book succeeds. There is Owens, impecunious even after his Berlin victory, and hounded out of amateur athletics by the despotic machinations of Avery Brundage, the patrician chairman of the International Olympic Committee and aptly referred to as 'Slavery Avery.' Owens was forced over the next few years to race trains and horses in a series of grotesque exhibitions. Which reader can fail to travel in time forty years ahead and then weep at the thought of lesser men earning million dollar cheques? Read about Louis combating the American Inland Revenue for a spiralling amount of income tax back payment and empathize with the man who donated whole portions of his ring earnings to an Armed Service of the United States military which employed persons of his race only as cooks and mess boys. The reader, however, can hardly fail to chastise Louis for his childlike ineptitude in taking care of his finances when his earning power was at its zenith. There are anecdotal vignettes like where Owens steps in front of Louis who is being confronted by a redneck who wants to add the 'Brown Bomber' to his self-styled 'Hit-a-Nigger-a-Week' list. It is Louis who has to hold his friend back when the normally calm Owens takes umbrage at his slurs and smashes a bottle on a table in anticipation of 'glassing' his foe.
'In Black and White: The Untold Story of Joe Louis and Jesse Owens' ultimately is an expertly crafted narrative of the lives of two of the foremost sportsmen of recent times and although it unearths little of which is unknown about both subjects, it melds the stories of two icons from a bygone age whose excellence in their chosen professions and wider importance in terms of the development of race relations in the United States cannot be dimmed by the passage of time.
October 30, 2025
A model of research and written with passionate verve. The meticulous insights and foci are astounding, and you learn a great deal about both sports. I read the version with the updated appendices, which I thought were muddled and middling (great pieces on Obama and Billy Johnson, less convinced about Reggie Bush and LeBron). Masterful overall.
January 18, 2014
Two men find greatness at a young age in very different sports. That both became friends is perhaps not surprising, especially considering their very similar backgrounds. That both should have an enormous cultural impact, achieve iconic status despite growing up in a segregated and often rascist country, and still be well known almost 80 years after reaching the top, is extraordinary.
Jesse Owens broke four world records in the space of 45 minutes in 1935 and then rubbed Hitler's nose in his theory of Ayran dominance in Berlin the following year, claiming four golds as a 22 year old superstar of the sport. Mere weeks later he was banned from ever competing again by his own Amateur Athletic Union and was reduced to earning a living by racing against horses.
Joe Louis became World Heavyweight Champion in 1937, aged just 23, and held the title for the following 12 years. He wasn't' the first black world champion, but it was almost miraculous he had the chance to claim the title, as black boxers had been prevented from fighting since Jack Johnson shocked the establishment. A carefully crafted public persona was cultivated for Joe Louis to avoid comparisons with Johnson.
Both men had money problems, Owens because athletics was amateur and he was unable to exploit his talents to earn money; Louis because most of his substantial winnings went to his advisers, his finances were mismanaged, and he ended up with a vast IRS tax bill whose interest accumulating each year was an enormous sum of money alone. His subsequent problems with drugs and mental illness foreshadowed problems that affected other boxers in years to come.
Donald McRae has written another well researched, compelling, enjoyable and readable book. The contrast between two friends, their immense and lasting achievements, and their poor treatment by their own countrymen is captivating, and it is not hard to see why this won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year.
Jesse Owens broke four world records in the space of 45 minutes in 1935 and then rubbed Hitler's nose in his theory of Ayran dominance in Berlin the following year, claiming four golds as a 22 year old superstar of the sport. Mere weeks later he was banned from ever competing again by his own Amateur Athletic Union and was reduced to earning a living by racing against horses.
Joe Louis became World Heavyweight Champion in 1937, aged just 23, and held the title for the following 12 years. He wasn't' the first black world champion, but it was almost miraculous he had the chance to claim the title, as black boxers had been prevented from fighting since Jack Johnson shocked the establishment. A carefully crafted public persona was cultivated for Joe Louis to avoid comparisons with Johnson.
Both men had money problems, Owens because athletics was amateur and he was unable to exploit his talents to earn money; Louis because most of his substantial winnings went to his advisers, his finances were mismanaged, and he ended up with a vast IRS tax bill whose interest accumulating each year was an enormous sum of money alone. His subsequent problems with drugs and mental illness foreshadowed problems that affected other boxers in years to come.
Donald McRae has written another well researched, compelling, enjoyable and readable book. The contrast between two friends, their immense and lasting achievements, and their poor treatment by their own countrymen is captivating, and it is not hard to see why this won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year.
November 22, 2015
What a book! The incredible life stories of Joe Louis and Jesse Owens have been put into words in an impeccable manner by writer Donald McRae here. We may all know their achievements: Joe Louis, a boxing champion for 12 years & Jesse Owens, winner of four Gold medals in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. But the inspiring, fascinating, worth-reading story is to know how they reached the zenith in their careers, and where did they go afterwards. In Black and White gives us that untold tale, following these two great athletes through the course of their careers and their personal lives.
Both Louis and Owens had to face difficulties due to segregation of races, for such were the days in the USA then. Being black, they carried added responsibilities on their shoulders, the weight of expectations of an entire race. Both were different personalities, Jesse Owens the smiling eloquent one, while Joe Louis the tough non-talker. But both were hailed as heroes for their sporting achievements, and as they started crossing each other's paths, their mutual respect and admiration made them into great friends.
Donald McRae writes this book as if he was there, in that period, in the heads of his two protagonists. Instead of simply telling us what happened back then, he makes us feel it. The pain and suffering that came along with the glory for both the athletes, everything is well researched and then expressed in his own style. This is a story worth knowing, an inspiring tale of two of the world's greatest athletes who have left behind a legacy which is difficult to match even now.
Both Louis and Owens had to face difficulties due to segregation of races, for such were the days in the USA then. Being black, they carried added responsibilities on their shoulders, the weight of expectations of an entire race. Both were different personalities, Jesse Owens the smiling eloquent one, while Joe Louis the tough non-talker. But both were hailed as heroes for their sporting achievements, and as they started crossing each other's paths, their mutual respect and admiration made them into great friends.
Donald McRae writes this book as if he was there, in that period, in the heads of his two protagonists. Instead of simply telling us what happened back then, he makes us feel it. The pain and suffering that came along with the glory for both the athletes, everything is well researched and then expressed in his own style. This is a story worth knowing, an inspiring tale of two of the world's greatest athletes who have left behind a legacy which is difficult to match even now.
December 25, 2010
The story of Joe Lewis and Jessie Owens is not only remarkable in what they achieved, but the backdrop against which they achieved it - American racism and the rise of the Nazis. At one point the author points out that there was real and valid debate over who was worse off - a Jew in Germany in 1936 or a black in the Deep South. Some of the accounts the author manages to unearth about lynching, Jim Crow-ism and the entrenched hatred of middle America for the blacks verges on the incredible - was America really like that? Evidently.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews