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.
