a man who paid for being an American hero!

Joe Louis (also known as the Brown Bomber) was a heavy weight boxing champion from 1937 to 1949, he was victorious in his very first 27 fights before he rose to heavy weight campaign.

Famous for his fight against Max Schmeling a heavy weight campaign from Germany, at the time Hitler believed him (since he was German) to be better than every other "race".

He was nearly right when Schmeling beat Louis, but on a rematch Louis beat Schmeling which was remembered as one of the major sports events of the 20th century.

Louis had proved the Nazi race ideology was a load of bullshit!

This earned him the admiration of millions of Americans, after Pearl Harbor was bombed in 1941 Joe had a title fight where he donated his earnings to Navy war relief, he later donated his normal fee to army relief giving away a lot of money to help the Americans in the Pacific war against Japan.



But since the checks were in his name the IRS taxed him full amount, even though Joe never saw a penny of it!

The IRS were charging him $50,000 a year in interest alone on his debt, when his mother died leaving him $600 the IRS immediately seized it, they also confiscated all of his children's trust funds!
He was forced to continue fighting until he was 37 and out of shape just to pay off his ever mounting debt to the IRS which grew to $1,000,000 (a massive debt at the time) just in interest, just before the end of his life he was forced to work as a greeter to a Las Vegas hotel just to make ends meet.

He was humiliated and destroyed, everything he possessed was taken away from him even though he had tried to help his country in a time of need!



When he died his former opponent Max Schmeling paid for his funeral.