For today’s Photo Vault picture we are traveling back to the 1940s, where we’ll find the most iconic combat sport athlete of the era: Joseph Louis Barrow aka Joe Louis, the ‘Brown Bomber’.
The photograph above is by an unknown photographer and is part of the Bettmann Archive. It was taken on January 6, 1942. It shows a 28-year-old Louis raising his fist to figurines representing Adolf Hitler, Emperor Hirohito (in a very racist depiction) and Benito Mussolini. The picture comes with the following caption:
With one mighty blow of his powerful fist, Joe Louis, world’s heavyweight boxing champ is ready to crush Hitler, Hirochito and Mussolini, made of nuts held in his other hand, at his Greenwood Lake, N.