Brooks, Mrs Lilly; Mother of Joe Louis. with Eloise Black

Description:

Portrait of Lillie (Reese) Barrow Brooks, the mother of heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis (the Brown Bomber), sitting in chair next to radio. "Joe Louis Barrow was born in Chambers County, Alabama, at the foot of Buckalew Mountain on May 13, 1914, his father, Munroe Barrow, was a hardworking sharecropper, but was committed to an asylum when Joe was 2 years old and died when Joe was 4, his mother Lillie, after taking in washing to support the family, married Patrick Brooks when Joe was 7 and merged her family of eight with his eight ... when he was 16, Joe's mother gave him money weekly for violin lessons, but Joe used the money to pay for a locker at the Brewster Recreation Center, where amateur boxers gathered and trained, amateur boxing was extremely popular in the '30s. It even overshadowed high school sports, when Lillie Barrow found out what her son was up to (the violin teacher had come by looking for him) she was disappointed, but told him to do the best he could at it," from Detroit News article.

Notes:

Collection located at the Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan. To schedule an appointment to view the original image, order high resolution copies, or seek permission to use an image, contact the Walter P. Reuther Library Audiovisual Department at reutherreference@wayne.edu., Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University, and This metadata was created by Wayne State University Library system based on original description by the Walter P. Reuther Library

Data Provider:

Wayne State University. Libraries and Walter P. Reuther Library

Collection:

Virtual Motor City

Subject Topic:

African American mothers and African American boxers

Subject Name:

Louis, Joe and 1914-1981

Format:

photographs

Rights:

Copyright Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University

URL:

http://digital.library.wayne.edu/item/wayne:vmc62646