Heroes Without a Country America's Betrayal of Joe Louis and Jesse Owens

"Black men look like they rule sport in America today. It was nothing like that in the 1930s. America was white and that was that. It didn't do you no good to dream of making it to the big time. It was impossible. And then, y'know, along came Jesse and along came Joe." -- Ruth Owens, Jesse's late wife n the summer of 1935, within weeks of each other, Joe Louis and Jesse Owens emerged as the first black superstars of world sport, and their subsequent political and social impact on America was nothing short of sensational. To fans (and even critics) the world over, they seemed larger than life, and yet in their endeavors they were unfailingly human: as vulnerable as they were courageous; as troubled as they were brilliant; as unsettled in themselves as they are now fixed in history. Scrupulously researched and written in spare, eloquent prose, Heroes Without a Country vividly re-creates some of the most dramatic sporting events of the past century. In August 1936, in front of Hitlerand an imposing phalanx of Nazi commanders, Jesse Owens, "the fastest man on earth," won an unprecedented four medals at the Olympic Games in Berlin. Two years later, in "the fight of the century," his great friend Joe Louis crushed Germany's Max Schmeling to signal the end of white supremacy in boxing. Like Jesse, Joe had been born to black sharecropping parents in a country demeaned by racism; together their victories became a rallying point for the disenfranchised blacMcRae, Donald is the author of 'Heroes Without a Country America's Betrayal of Joe Louis and Jesse Owens' with ISBN 9780060002282 and ISBN 006000228X.