Denigrating the “other” is one of the necessities of racism, and in the U.S. this often took the form of emasculating depictions of African American men. I Fight for a Living shows that representations of black men as servile or childish was questioned by the rise of professional black boxers in the 19th century. Pouring over contemporary newspapers and sports columns, Louis Moore, history professor at Grand Valley State University, reconstructs a lost prize-fighting subculture that saw blacks beating whites in the ring—until interracial boxing was banned in many jurisdictions. I Fight for a Living also illuminates attitudes of the black middle class, which at first saw boxing as playing into white stereotypes of black savagery but began to embrace the sport for reinforcing “their belief in racial equality” and as “an exercise in merit and manhood.”
