It was one of those days when everything happens. On the morning of Friday, June 19, 1936, more than 50,000 Black visitors descended on Fair Park, in Dallas. They came on chartered trains and buses for a special Juneteenth program at the Texas Centennial Exposition, a world's fair that had opened that month, where they were treated to performances by Cab Calloway's Cotton Club Orchestra, artworks by the famous painter Aaron Douglas, and speeches by Black dignitaries. And then, at 8 p.m., thousands packed into the General Motors auditorium, where they would be treated to a radio broadcast of the biggest boxing match of the year. In one corner at Yankee Stadium, more than 1,000 miles away, stood Joe Louis, 22 years old and at the height of his boxing prowess. Detroit's 'Brown Bomber' was acknowledged at the time as perhaps the most important sporting figure in history among Black fans. A year before, as fascist Italy prepared to invade Ethiopia under explicitly racist rationales,...
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