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Seelie Samara

CTL-P-0895 · Person · 1950s

STRONG EVIDENCE evidence grade — master store (canonical CSV)

Combined Graph record U-02718 · provenance: canonical master store (CSV), record CTL-P-0895. Master record source: CTL seed 2026-10-16 — UNVERIFIED, verify before public citation.

African headliner on the American Black wrestling circuit of the 1950s

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African headliner on the American Black wrestling circuit of the 1950s

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Evidence note (master store)

Professional wrestler Seelie Samara, real name George Hardison, a Georgia-born former boxer and carnival strongman; headlined in Boston from December 1937, challenging Steve 'Crusher' Casey for the AWA title at Boston Garden on March 13, 1938 in what contemporary newspapers called the first Negro challenge for the World Heavyweight Championship; billed as champion of Ethiopia and a claimant to the World Heavyweight Championship; described by Slam Wrestling's researched multi-part history as the first true 'Black World Heavyweight Champion' of professional wrestling (Slam Wrestling, tier 4 specialist press).

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Record CTL-P-0895 · Combined Graph record U-02718 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 1 source.
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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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Cite as: CultureTechLens, “Seelie Samara (CTL-P-0895),” CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-p-0895/

Chicago: CultureTechLens. “Seelie Samara (CTL-P-0895).” CultureTechLens Combined Graph. Chicago, IL: CultureTechLens, 2026. https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-p-0895/
APA: CultureTechLens. (2026). Seelie Samara (CTL-P-0895) [Entity record]. CultureTechLens Combined Graph. https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-p-0895/
MLA: CultureTechLens. “Seelie Samara (CTL-P-0895).” CultureTechLens Combined Graph, 2026, https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-p-0895/

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