Joe Louis "The Brown Bomber"
Joe Louis was born and raised in Detroit Michigan. Although throughout his life he lived in many places including Las Vegas and Chicago, he still always considered Detroit home.
Officially Joe Louis Barrow, Joe was born in the foothills of Alabama to his mother Lillie and father Muroe Barrow on May 13, 1914. Munroe was a sharecropper, but was committed to an asylum when Joe was only two, and died when he was four. Following this his mother got a job doing washing to support her eight children, but eventually married Patrick Brooks when Joe was seven. Their large family, Lillie's eight children and Patrick's eight children, moved into an eight room house on Detroit's Macomb street in 1926. Here Joe began to go to school at first Duffield and then Bronson, two vocational schools, until he was seventeen.
While he was going to school, Joe also held two jobs, one before class and one after. Before school he worked at Detroit's Eastern Market, and after at Pickman and Dean an ice company. Joe credited much of his upper body strength and muscularity to this job saying that carrying the ice blocks (up to fifty pounds a piece) developed him.
When he was sixteen, his mother would give him money for violin lessons, which he would turn around and use to rent a locker at an amateur boxing club. Although not happy when she found out what he had been using the violin lesson money on, Lillie simply encouraged Joe to do his best. His abbreviated name of Joe Louis began when he filled out his first set of paperwork to fight and did not have enough room for Barrow. Thus, Joe Louis became a legend instead of Joe Louis Barrow.
After being defeated early on in his career, Joe got a job working at Ford, but soon quit when his amateur boxing career took off. After being trained for a while his coaches encouraged him to pair up with a more experienced, connected coach so Joe found George Slayton who was manager of the Detroit Athletic Club. Under his direction, Joe made it to Detroit's Golden Gloves competition in 1933, but was defeated by Max Merak, a Notre Dam football star. Three months after winning his next decisive victory, the National AAU light-weight championship in St. Louis, Joe went pro. In his 54 amateur fights, Joe had won fourty-three by knock-out, seven by decision and lost four by decision.
After a friend introduced Joseph to boxing at Brewster's East Side Gymnasium, he fell in love with it. To keep his mom from finding out about his boxing, he shortened his name to Joe Louis, eventually she found out. A couple years later with his success in the amatuer boxing scene, Joseph met John Roxborough who became his lifelong manager. As a result of joining forces with John Roxborough, Julian Black was hired as a fight promoter and Jack Blackburn as Joseph’s trainer. His first fight was scheduled on July 4, 1934, where he kayoed his opponent Jack Kracken. Hereafter until the end of 1935, Joseph had already been in 14 fights. Those 14 fights helped Joseph rack up nearly $370,000 in prize money.
Bonnie was born on October 1st, 1910, in Rowena, Texas, her mom was Emma Parker and Charles Parker.1 Clyde Barrow was born on March 24th, 1909, in Telico, Texas. His parents were Henry Barrow and Cumie Walker. Clyde was born into a poor family living in the slums of Telico, Texas. 3
Joe Oliver was born on May 11th, 1885. It is said that he was born on the plantation that his mother worked for as a cook near Donaldsonville, Louisiana, although there are not very many actual documents of him of that time. During Oliver’s childhood, it is said that his mother would often move to different locations for work. When he was 17, he found work as a butler to a white family. He
Michael Joseph Jackson was born on August 29, 1958 in Gary, Indiana to parents Katherine and Joseph Jackson. He was the eighth child born out of ten living in a two-bedroom home. Jackson 's father, Joseph Jackson, a former boxer, worked as a crane operator in the steel mill. His father also played the guitar in a rhythm and blues with a band called The Falcons to support the family.
Born November 27, 1942 as Johnny Allen Hendrix (Who later changed it to Jimi Hendrix) in the town of Seattle, Washington. There, he lived with his mother
Clyde Chestnut Barrow was born on March 24, 1909, into a family of four children. Ironically when the midwife told a local physician of his birth, the physician incorrectly recorded it as “baby girl Barrow'; in the Vital Statistics volume of the Ellis County Courthouse at Waxahachie.
John Brown became a legend of his time. He was a God fearing, yet violent man and slaveholders saw him as evil, fanatic, a murderer, lunatic, liar, and horse thief. To abolitionists, he was noble and courageous. John Brown was born in 1800 and grew up in the wilderness of Ohio. At seventeen, he left home and soon mastered the arts of farming, tanning, and home building.
... drunk. He received his nickname in 1908, he bought a new set of spikes for his shoes that wore right through his shoes and gave him blisters, and he played the game in his socks. In the seventh inning, Joe hit a triple and was running to third base when a fan jumped up and yelled, “You shoeless son of a gun.” He only played that one game in his stockings, but the nickname stuck with him forever. He openly admitted to not liking the nickname.
Joe Montana was born on June 11th, 1956. (Channel) He was born in New Eagle, Pennsylvania. He was an only child and showed unsurpassed physical attributes. His mother once said “He nearly destroyed his crib by rocking it back and forth and managed to get out of it from time to time and ran to Joe’s and I bed”. Joe started playing sports all year long when he was only 10 years old. Even though he was a Multi- Sports Star, football was his main sport. He lived in a port of the state where use to be coal producing tough-minded people that believed in “hard work pays off” which he learned very quickly. “Joe Montana showed he was a leader on and off the field” said his peewee coach. (Ramen 15)
Throughout his life Johnny Cash had many experiences that he had to learn to cope with. You can see this in his behaviors at an early age and on and off throughout his life. In the beginning of his life Johnny Cash was born the fourth of seven children. He was raised in the backwoods of Arkansas on 20 acres of land in a small shack for a house. He had to work very hard as a boy. He plowed the land, and picked cotton all day long. They lived in poverty and often had very little money to afford anything (Cash, Johnny, 1987).
At age 11 he dropped out of school and joined a quartet of boys who sang in the street for money. Louis also worked for a Lithuanian-Jewish immigrant family, who had a junk-hauling business and often gave him odd jobs. They knew he lived without a father so they took him in and treated him as family.
Breaking many records, Joe DiMaggio’s talent was unbelievable. In 1969 he was voted baseball’s greatest living player in a nationwide poll. (Scavone 1) He married the most iconic star off all time, Marilyn Monroe. His skill level prevailed higher than anyone in his time, which was filled with Hall of Famers. This talented hard worker went from a fisherman’s son, to an American hero. Joe DiMaggio was one of the best, most impactful, all-around players to play the past-time sport of baseball.
Michael Joseph Jackson was born in Gary, Indiana on August 28, 1958. He grew up in a small scale two bedroom house that was within a substandard neighborhood with this eight brothers and sisters, along with their parents
The son of two Black Panther members, Tupac Amaru Shakur was born in New York City. His parents had separated before he was born, and his mother moved him and his sister around the country for much of their childhood. Frequently, the family was at the poverty level, but Shakur managed to gain acceptance to the prestigious Baltimore School of the Arts as a teenager. While he was at the school, his creative side flourished, as he began writing raps and acting. Before he could graduate, his family moved to Marin City, CA, when he was 17 years old. Over the next few years, he lived on the streets and began hustling.