Joe Louis

CTL-E-5933 · Person · other · 1914–1981

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07176 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-5933.

Joe Louis (born Joseph Louis Barrow, May 13, 1914, LaFayette, Alabama; died April 12, 1981, Paradise, Nevada) was the world heavyweight boxing champion from 1937 to 1949 and the most consequential Black athlete of his century. Raised in Detroit, he won the 1934 national AAU light-heavyweight title and took the heavyweight crown from James J. Braddock on June 22, 1937, at Chicago's Comiskey Park, knocking Braddock out in the eighth round. Louis had lost to Germany's Max Schmeling in 1936; their rematch on June 22, 1938, before 70,043 at Yankee Stadium, ended in two minutes and four seconds of the first round and was read worldwide as democracy's answer to Nazi racial doctrine. Louis defended the title 25 times, a division record, and his reign made him a unifying national hero and the standard against which Black athletic greatness was measured for a generation.

The record

• Also known as: Joseph Louis Barrow, The Brown Bomber

Notes

Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (Scan Tail Wave 2 — 747 Program, Wave 9; second Scan Tail packet at the founder's 40-record size). Gate A (2026-10-16): no Joe Louis entity in the live graph at 3,603 entities (exact / normalized / alias + token containment); ID CTL-E-5933 free. Supply: 747 Supply Ledger, Tier 4 — Scan Tail Wave 1 packet ordered reserve, position 8 of 20 (corpus-gap-candidates-2026-10-15.json ranked clean survivor #494). The scan supplied the NAME STRING ONLY; no fact in this record is sourced to it (CTL-GOV-004). SCOPE GATE: PASS — won his title in Chicago and anchored the East-West Game's own contemporary comparison ("except a Joe Louis fight"); national-canon core scope. Vital status: DECEASED — died April 12, 1981 (History.com; IBHOF). Tribute treatment in the Curator's Judgment. STATISTICS (sourced, dated): Title won June 22, 1937, Comiskey Park, Chicago (eighth-round knockout of James J. Braddock); Schmeling rematch June 22, 1938, won in 2:04 of the first round before 70,043 at Yankee Stadium (History.com). Twenty-five title defenses, the heavyweight record (IBHOF). CONFLICT SHOWN, NOT BLENDED: career totals differ by source — History.com gives 71 matches with 68 wins (54 by knockout) and 3 losses, while Simple Wikipedia's entry (read 2026-10-16) totals 69 fights at 66–3. The record carries the 71-match line with the variant shown. MEDIA: photo HELD (Joe Louis in the 1938 Schmeling rematch named as candidate; no file-page verification in this pass); chart FILLED (charts/chart-ctl-e-5933-joe-louis.svg); video HELD (no matching-entity CTL Short or verified-rights archival video staged); audio HELD (no rights-cleared matching-entity audio staged). MEDIA LAYER (staged 2026-10-16; full per-asset PHOTO-001 records + embed specs in the packet's staged JSON, Drive packet folder): map = N/A (Non-place record; no map attaches at the entity layer.) | visual_assets = HELD: | chart = FILLED (CTL-created SVG (black / deep red / gold) built only from this record's sourced facts) | video = HELD (No matching-entity CTL Short in the Shorts Link Map catalog (checked by name and variants), and no official/em) | audio = HELD (No audiobook excerpt or author recording with a CTL rights basis was staged in this pass.)

Referenced by

• Jack Blackburn — related to → this record
• John Henry Lewis — related to → this record

Sources

• International Boxing Hall of Fame, "Joe Louis" inductee page (accessed 2026-10-16) — the Hall's career record of Louis's title win, defenses, and standing — http://www.ibhof.com/pages/about/inductees/modern/louis.html (primary source · build store)
• History.com, "Joe Louis" (accessed 2026-10-16) — 1934 amateur title path, the June 22, 1937 Braddock win, the 1938 Schmeling rematch before 70,043 settled in 2:04 of round one, and the career line of 71 matches, 68 wins, 54 by knockout — https://www.history.com/articles/joe-louis (primary source · build store)
• Premier Boxing Champions, "Celebrating Black History Month: Joe Louis" (accessed 2026-10-16) — the boxing promoter's history: the reign from June 22, 1937 to 1949, the 25 title defenses, and the 1938 rematch's first-round technical knockout — https://www.premierboxingchampions.com/news/563597 (build store)

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Record CTL-E-5933 · Combined Graph record U-07176 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 3 sources · 2 mapped relationships.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

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