Volume 52, Number 1 · January 13, 2005
Marketing Joe Louis
By Richard Nininger, Reply by Joyce Carol Oates
In response to 'The Man with the Golden Smile' (November 18, 2004)
To the Editors:
In reference to Joyce Carol Oates's re-view ["'The Man with the Golden Smile,'" NYR, November 18, 2004]: Joe Louis was shrewdly managed by black men, not whites.
Richard Nininger
Joyce Carol Oates replies:
Joe Louis was skillfully managed by two black men (Black, Roxborough) and financed by Mike Jacobs, a Jewish boxing promoter who built a financial empire on Louis. I had been thinking of the legendary Mike Jacobs when referring to the strategic ways in which Louis was marketed to appeal to a white audience.
