Joseph Louis Barrow, the owner of boxing's greatest championship reign and the athletic catalyst for racial healing in America during the post-slavery era, was born 101 years ago in Lafayette Alabama, and moved to Camp Hill Alabama as a young child, where he went to school, and spent many a day in what was then a bustling small town along the rail line. Joe Louis' Life was one of supreme achievement, personal tumult, and enormous influence, and by the time he died in April 1981 he was arguably his sport's most beloved figure, not just because of his feats inside the ropes but also because of who he was and what he meant to so many.
Joe Louis was born May 13, 1914, the seventh of eight children of Munroe and Lillie Barrow. Living in the heart of cotton country, Munroe and Lillie made their living alternating between sharecropping and rental farming. The ravages of mental illness caused Munroe to be institutionalized from 1916 until his death in 1938. Lillie eventually married Pat Brooks, a widower with his own children, and settled in Camp Hill Alabama. There are still persons alive in Camp Hill today with relatives who worked with, or knew young Joe Louis personally.
