
Ezzard Charles Johnny's Round-Up - May 04, 1962
Ezzard Charles Johnny's Round-Up - May 04, 1962
Dear Mr. Liston, we would like you to come to our Christmas party at the hospital. I am 10 years old. I had polio when I was a baby. I’m having the doctor fix my leg. Then I can walk with my crutches and new braces. Please come and see me and the other children and see our hospital. It is nice. Your friend, Michael Morris.
No one was more surprised than Michael when Charles “Sonny” Liston, the world’s heavyweight boxing champion, came to the hospital in December 1962. The visit was unannounced, and totally unexpected. He met all the kids at Children’s Hospital and signed autographs for them. Liston brought $500 worth of toys with him and every child got one. “Find something you love and follow that dream,” he said. “Stay close to the church and pray. Listen to your parents and make good decisions.” Afterward he went to the Milwaukee County Orphan’s Home and did the same thing. Sonny Liston loved kids and instinctively understood what they needed, having once walked in their shoes.
Black boxers came to Milwaukee beginning in the mid-1890s. Heavyweight champions such as Peter Jackson, Bob Armstrong and others visited Milwaukee on several occasions. Jackson was here as the star of Uncle Tom’s Cabin at the Academy of Music. The next day in the papers, reporters hailed him as the “big Uncle Tom.” While his activities in town were not fully documented, it’s likely the Australian-born boxer visited one or two churches in the neighborhoods north of Downtown. When Bob Amstrong came here, reporters called him “the black Hercules” and “the dusky giant.” Armstrong fought in several non-championship bouts before meeting residents of a tenement slum on Wells Street called “n__ alley.”
Hard Work, Determination

Photo Courtesy of topclassboxing.co.uk
Joe Louis - 1938
Joe Louis - 1938
In 1944 Joe Louis toured the European, African, and Asian war zones to “raise morale among white and colored servicemen alike.” He attended the annual Milwaukee Music Industry party just to hear the local jazz bands. A year earlier he met with teenagers at St. Joseph Orphanage. He stressed the value of hard work and determination.
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“My mother wanted me to be a violin player,” Louis said. Instead, he went to a gymnasium for boxing lessons. “She gave up on the violin and let me become a fighter.” When he defeated James Braddock in 1937 for the world championship, thousands of people poured into Walnut Street for a loud, boisterous celebration with music and dancing. White police officers joined the party, enjoying themselves as well.
Sugar Ray Robinson appeared at the Ron-De-Voo ballroom at 12th and North with a similar message. Jersey Joe Walcott was asked to speak at the 1956 Milwaukee Metropolitan Youth Rally. “Help your family. Stay close to the church. Don’t drop out of school. Become a soldier. Learn a trade or vocation,” he said.
Black and Tan
At the time there weren’t many programs or events for teens, and men could make 10 times the money earned from delivering groceries, digging ditches or unloading trucks. The racketeers needed drug runners, lottery ticket messengers and spotters to alert them when the police were outside one of their taverns. Young women became prostitutes or “shake artist,” street slang for nightclub dancers. White men who went to the black-and-tan nightspots also enjoyed having sex with underage black women.
Archie Moore lost his first fight in Milwaukee but became the World Light Heavyweight Champion six months later. Fifteen years later Moore was in town to promote Any Boy Can, a motivational boy’s club designed to reduce juvenile delinquency. “Never, ever give up”, he told an audience of 1,000. “I’ve spent too much of my life building what I’ve got just to let some bigot take it away.” When Moore closed his presentation by quoting Scripture, a heckler in the crowd shouted, “How is this going to get us our freedom?” Moore responded, “You have your freedom now but don’t know it.”
Undertaker’s Book
Joe Frazier, one of the greatest heavyweights in modern history, encouraged kids to pursue something other than boxing. “Your brains get shook, your money gets took, and your name winds up in the undertaker’s book,” he said.
George Foreman attended the 2009 Milwaukee Fatherhood Summit at St. Marcus Lutheran Church. “When I discovered boxing, it changed my life,” he said. “Now, maybe a couple of you will become boxers, and that’s fine, but I’m talking about the importance or setting goals and achieving them”.
In 1965, Muhammad Ali spoke to an audience of Black Muslims. White people were turned away at the door. “Submitting to white persecution is not gonna change anything,” he said. “There’s 100 years of proof it doesn’t work.” Ali’s stories of growing up on the streets of Louisville, Kentucky may have had a positive effect on some of the kids here. But there’s no evidence he shared them.
By contrast, Sonny Liston, ferocious in the ring, was a humble, soft-spoken man who came here just to meet the kids in the hospital.