In his career with the happenings of the harlem renaissance. Mr. Wil haygood connections to the hughes and lena horne. A generation of africanamericans found success in their perspective fields during the start of a broader Civil Rights Movement. Wil haygood discusses i his boos with an agent magazine. Another of the peoples history of sports in the united states. Host welcome my name is dave and i am the Sports Editor for the nations magazine and im absolutely thrilled at the interview, to be interviewing a man who has written a tremendous biography about the greatest pound for pound boxer of the 20th century. That boxers name is walker, smith junior. Better known as Sugar Ray Robinson. And the author, is wil haygood. How you doing. Wil im good and its good to be here. Host it is great to be here. Dave i really do think this book is worthy of Sugar Ray Robinson. As a great achievement. So congratulations right away. You are not a sports biographer by trade right. Why did you decide to spend five years of your life writing about this man. Wil i had written to previous biographies. One of Adam Clayton Powell jr. The new york congressman and the other was sammy davis junior. And i started to think, if i could find another subject that interested me, i would have a trilogy. Three major biographies. And i wanted Adam Clayton Powell jr. Of course a politician, and sammy davis junior. And i wanted to sports figure. But i wanted an athlete to transcend is the sport. And someone who had a life that was fascinating in the ring. Because we are talking about a boxer. Yet equally fascinating life outside of the ring. I wanted somebody who is known still have a lot of mystery runs life. That figure for me was Sugar Ray Robinson. Dave absolutely. I think is one of the most underwritten persons. Considering every boxing major would consider him to have the title of greatest pound for pound fighter of the 20th century. Quite entitled to have actually read seems to me that there are a lot of very interesting Common Threads between the people you focus on in your prayers. Your bio career. Semi davis junior, Adam Clayton Powell jr. , Sugar Ray Robinson. I see him in threads here. I dont just mean the appropriation of a very Smith Comcast style. I see people who challenged these institutional racism with a great deal of style rated and personal flair. What you think about when you think of the three men. What sort of Common Thread you see that attracted you to the stories. Wil they all were in their own way, fighters. They all were. They were all hungry for success. They all had harlem roots. And the way that Adam Clayton Powell jr. More so than the other two both of them, while three of of them lived in harlem. They all sort of shifted some of the smoke from a harlem renaissance. Each man had a sense of poetry, music, style and grace. And i think that infused there, their perspective lives. I think music was important to all three. And i think all three sort of achieved a great deal in the socalled bites 1950s. Speech of do you think it is fair to say that all three also represent archives and arch normally talked about in terms of race history or popular cultt idea that youre caught somewhere between the ideals of the Civil Rights Movements. In the ideals of the harlem renaissance and the ideals of booker t. Washington. I can make it on the papers of your own individual greatness and the ideas of seeing some sort of collective responsibility. He keep thinking of the three of them as belonging and that kind of almost middle package between two eras. Wil and they were. Thats a great observation. I think because they were caught between those two errors, before the 1964 civil rights act, they were already engaged in their own civil rights. In any that they all three and sort of a hellbent energy to make themselves successful against the backdrop of segregation. An american i think they thought if they could fight their way into the headlines, Adam Clayton Powell jr. In Church Politics around america in the u. S. Congress. Semi davis junior, nightclubs in the 1940s and 50s. Then Sugar Ray Robinson as a pure championship athlete. Dave and i think we are very bad at history in this country. Often times the Civil Rights Movements on as if it sprung fully formed from the head of doctor king in the mid 1950s. As if there was no groundwork laid before then. And all three men as well, you see evidence of that groundwork. The idea that we are going to challenge racism in ways that may be will inspire people. For the unintended consequences if you will. And about to take it to Sugar Ray Robinson. This Brilliant Chapter the book about his experience in the u. S. Army. In comparing and contrasting his demeanor. As a believer corporal in the u. S. Army. With the experience of the sort of running buddy john lewis. He just speak a little bit about Sugar Ray Robinson and his army experience. It was still young fighter at the time. A very famous. What was his experience in the army and how did he for the lack of better way of saying it. Wil was fascinating thing. Eleanor roosevelt wanted to commit to the market people that you can exist with racial harmony on the u. S. Army basis. So she came up with the plan. Burn the secretary of the army to have two highprofile blacks, go around to u. S. Army basis and engage in physical training with the soldiers. The first person she picked was heavyweight champion of the world joe lewis. Andy young cat he was a friend of his who had actually wrote about in his girlfriend, the person was rowing the boat, was young Sugar Ray Robinson. Anyway, there are riots in southern cities of blacks who say they are being asked to go to war died. But they cant get equal treatment in the u. S. Dave for fighting for democracy abroad. Being treated fate terribly in the very army bases they are being trained. It. Wil right. So joe lewis and Sugar Ray Robinson lead this physical training troop from army base. Two army base. Up north, the army bases are fine. Everything is okay. You get down to alabama and mississippi be this when all breaks loose. One day, joe lewis is using a telephone on an army base in alabama. In a white officer, a white guard tells him he should be at the phone booth for black soldiers. Lewis gets upset, young sugar make robinson in the army thinks that the officer is going to hit joe lewis. And sugar ray like a panther jumps on the whites army guard and there is a tussle. Now why would anybody want to tangle with joe lewis and jimmy ray robinson, on the army base is unimaginable. Dave are said something. Wil so they were both taken to an officer to be disciplined. Now the army has his pr nightmare in his throat. The two blacks Public Relations figures, hoping engaged to the south are arrested because they opposed segregation policies. So the army backed off. It didnt press any charges. But it really think cut to the bone and who each man was. Joe lewis was willing to accept it. Sugar ray robinson came from a different newer era and he was not willing to accept it pretty joe lewis cannot keep emotional control of sugary robinson. He was more theory, it was more prone to react very quickly in his pride was insulted. Dave that is an interesting Common Thread of all of the groundbreaking political africanamerican athletes. It tended to not come from the south of the united states. We tend to be refugees. Jacky robinson going from georgia to pasadena, california. After plan who came from oakland california. Not just talking to somebody about that the other day about the way that mark miller was looking for somebody to challenge. He was looking for an africanamerican athletes it was not from the south but who was influenced by the broader tenor of the time free to Sugar Ray Robinson was very influenced by what it meant to live in harlem. And harlem, in many ways a character in the story. I people should know that this is not a typical biography. Certainly not a typical sports biography. You have the marvelous personifications of Parliament Jazz music. Of esquire magazine. In effect become characters in the story. Why is it important to understand harlem. And to understand Sugar Ray Robinson. Wil people always make a statement, he had such style. Well what does that mean. I was intrigued with that. What was inside. I did want to just write the book and tell the reader that Sugar Ray Robinson had silent class about giving them explanation of how it grew and him. He grew up in detroit when he was about 12 years old. His mother moved him to harlem. Father stayed behind. He was always estranged from his father like joe lewis. But i think is important. I think that both of them later Sugar Ray Robinson, lived for father figures. And i think of them found father figures in the jazz and who were going in and out of harlem. In the cell, he was unexploited. So in other do you think he was able to dance that danced successfully . Later, not in the early years. And remember it took him from 1940 to 1946 to get championship bout even though he was winning all of his fights. The powers that be that ran the sport never gave him a title shot until six years into his career. Host had a very difficult time getting that title shots. You think some of the circumstances by which he left to the army may have played a role in his inability to get traction or public support for that title fight . I guess that is also a segway if you could talk a little bit about something that followed him for which she left the armed forces. Guest Sugar Ray Robinson was very, very afraid of dying. He hadnt imagined in his mind that if he went overseas, even though it was a Goodwill Mission he could be killed. And so on the eve of him and other soldiers were going overseas, on a Goodwill Mission, robinson left his barracks in long islands, he disappeared. And he woke up in the hospital in new york. And he claimed amnesia. The officials thought it was laughable. They thought he had gone awol, just to escape staying in the army. But robinson wanted to get out of the army. He wanted to fight again. He thought if he stayed in the army much longer he was going to start losing some of his skills which, as we now know certainly did not happen. There were many, many sportswriters in new york, there were eight or nine newspapers and many sportswriters. I many of those sportswriters had gone to war. Went robinson was honorably discharged, there had been stories about him leaving the barracks and being taken to the hospital and told the doctors and did know how he could get on the street they came after him and called him a coward and they absolutely thought he was faking and lying. That did haunt him for years. So do you think some of that had to do with the sort of low frequency hysteria that did exist about African Americans and patriotism . There is that tradition of africanamerican or resistance that existed during world war ii as well, refusing to fight. That of course is the origin of the Goodwill Mission to begin with with louis and robinson. Do you think they were particularly hard on him . Were they too hard on him . What you think happened there . I think robinson i think he really thought he was ticked at the powers that be who ran the sport. I think he felt if he did not get back out there and get back into the lime light and start winning again, he feared he was going to end up a broken down has been fighter. I think he became very paranoid. And i think he saw the army after that experience in the south as being a very unfair place. I think he thought of a way to escape and fleet the army. There is a vivid seeing you paint and what it was like for robinson to actually be in the American South at that time. I think about this line and said he did not know he was black until he visited the American South. The sense of not being sugar ray anymore but just walker smith. And that you feel that insecurity bubbling within him. And especially coming from a championship fighter were looking at new york city, he was in new york city and now he is in the south. There places he cant go hes in the u. S. Army hes looking around seeing his friends, joe lewis who he looked up to greatly and he seen joe lewis treated as a secondclass citizen. Think that done something to his psyche. Civic robinson eventually becomes a champion. He becomes the kind of fighter who is praised from coast to coast as being the best in the business. What kind of fan base did he have from coasttocoast . This is a little story for you here. My grandfather wrote an acacia about the time he saw Sugar Ray Robinson against carmen. And my grandfather, a first generation american who taught himself english and all of this stuff, there is almost a glee on the page of my grandfathers acacia which has a racial edge undeniably. There is pride in immigrants and pride of the underdog as if being a black fighter from rural georgia does not make you an underdog is very interesting. Is there something about that acacia and fights like the ones that tell us something about robinsons acceptance or lack there of . Was he always the guy who fans wanted to see knocked off the pedestal . Guest fighters, so many fighters in the 20th century were immigrants. Ethnic fighters. And then you had black fighters who automatically seem to be fighting not only for themselves, for the race as a whole. And so with robinson there was great to jealousy because he looked good, he was a very handsome man, he was suave, he dressed elegantly. He gave you the impression that he did not have to box. That he boxed by choice. He gave you a feeling that he could go over to esquire and be one of its mail fashion models of course esquire at that time did not have any black mail fashion models. He gave you that sense that he was doing more for boxing than boxing was doing for him. I think that made folks jealous. And he one with style. Something that approached beauty in the ring. He was very sharp, he was not wild, he thought about his country and after his fight his crowd became a crowd of poets, writers, horn players, he attracted a whole other crowd peers vectors always this cultural disconnect that you have in the black community, he saw this certainly with the young caches clay and willingness to speak of yourself as being pretty. And a willingness to look pretty and stylish. This is a broad generalization but among white fight fans you almost get a homophobia to get results from that in the black community is seen as you are pretty tony, you are styling and the Whites Community is suspect. Something to keep it arms length. You always hear why cant they be more like joe lewis . Which means more humble. There is that disconnect which also makes Sugar Ray Robinson a very fascinating man of his tim time. Guest writes. He had vanity as well. But takes a vain person to purchase a pink cadillac. He had a nightclub, his wife had a lingerie business, and he had a hair salon. These are things that robinson was saying to the world i look good. So no doubt. We are going to go to break right now if youve been listening to this interview you know two things. The first is that Sugar Ray Robinson is an absolutely fascinating figure and the second thing is we have not talked about jake yet we will be talking about that after the break. We are back on after words. We are speaking with the will haygood the author of the new book sweet thunder, the life and times of Sugar Ray Robinson. How are you doing sir . Guest im doing good. So excellent. There are a couple characters in the book we have not mentioned yet. Miles davis and leah horn those of the things that make so interesting it is about Sugar Ray Robinson but its also about a. And cultural era of political air its really terrific stuff. Why did you feel like it was important to make a miles davis and lena horne so much of the story . For several reasons. When i started doing the book, started researching the book five years ago started coming across all of these interconnecting people and sugar raise life miles davis first came to new york city and got hooked on drugs. He wanted to get off drugs and he wanted to find somebody who could help him physically train and introduced himself to Sugar Ray Robinson. They became friends up until sugar raise death. Horne would always be at davises camp nasser she met Sugar Ray Robinson. Used the poet whose down the street from sugar raise nightclub from the 50s started writing with the hope in mind that sugar rate would be able to take part in some of those play plays. There were friendships forged with those three people and they were steady customers at Sugar Ray Robinson nightclub. I thought it was fascinating, i kept coming across links between all four of them. And i decided to write it as a Group Portrait so becomes not just a book about fighters is also a book about news, lena horn, miles davis, other jazz artists and other fighters who have links to Sugar Ray Robinson. It is a book about cultural about culture its about dreams its a book about the un known america