PERSPECTIVE ON JOE LOUIS : Celebrating an Unsung Legacy : He got people’s attention with boxing; then, he worked on their hearts. Battling racism was his heroic achievement.

Today is the 55th anniversary of my father’s 1938 rematch with Max Schmeling. The U.S. Postal Service has chosen this historic date to issue the Joe Louis commemorative stamp.

This is the first stamp created in honor of a professional boxer, and thus a meaningful milestone for the boxing community. More important, it is an undeniable statement of the powerful influence that one black man had on our society and the world--as was the presidential order that resulted in Joe Louis being buried in Arlington National Cemetery, just below the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Thousands of visitors stop at his grave every year, to remember Joe Louis and keep his story alive.

All my life, I have been told how much my father meant to people. Black, white, rich and poor, everyone has memories of how he directly or indirectly influenced their lives. Just as members of my generation know where they were when we heard that President John F. Kennedy had been shot, folks of my father’s era know where they listened to the 1938 Louis-Schmeling fight, the 1941 encounter with Billy Conn or any one of Joe Louis’ more than 70 professional fights.

I have researched and written a book documenting his impact. Simply stated, Joe Louis made the difference in the lives of an entire generation of African-Americans. He provided them with a sense of pride, dignity and self-worth while they fought to survive in a tormenting and unrelenting segregated United States.

Uniquely, Joe Louis was also a hero to a white America badly in need of an emotional lift during the Depression ‘30s and wartime ‘40s. He was the first black American who challenged the country to view blacks in a different light, to admire, take pride and share in the accomplishments and victories of someone of another color--a phenomenon for those times.

What shaped such a man? Was it his poor beginnings, being born into a large sharecropping family in Chambers County, Ala.? Maybe it was the fact that he started his climb to the pinnacle of his profession from the unlikely ghetto of Detroit. Perhaps it was his stunning first-round defeat of German Max Schmeling in politically tense 1938; the donation of two championship purses to the Navy and Army relief funds; or his volunteering for the Army, conducting 96 exhibition fights as he entertained and boosted the morale of more than 2 million troops. Whatever the reason, Joe Louis was loved and admired by millions of Americans and much of the world. He held his title as he lived his life--with dignity and grace.

I often go to Arlington National Cemetery and stand near his grave, observing the many who walk by. Three stories always come to mind:

* The black man who told me he was one of those who banged pots and pans through the streets of Pittsburgh to celebrate yet another Joe Louis victory. He said that he is now a college dean in New York, not a worker in the steel mills, because my father inspired him to strive and do more than what was expected of him.

* The Polish Jew now living in Denver who told me that he survived four years in the concentration camps because he kept the faith and never lost hope. The Germans would be defeated; they were not invincible. They could not win, he knew, because Joe Louis had already beaten Max Schmeling.

* The white president of a Rotary Club who grew up in a poor, segregated town in Texas and recognized my father as a unifying force. To listen to a Joe Louis fight, blacks and whites had to gather in the same location because there was only one radio in town. It was the first time he remembers interacting with blacks. Furthermore, when the white boys would re-enact the fight the next day, they had to emulate a black man because my father always won. “It was unheard of, in those days, for whites to want to be like a black” he said. “Your father started us viewing blacks in a very different context.”

A friend recently said to me, “Joe Louis was a true hero. Too many celebrities today are considered heroes, but not so. Your dad was indeed a hero, because he changed peoples’ lives, thoughts and ambitions.”

If one man, such as my father, could have such depth and breadth of influence, just imagine what would occur if, on a daily basis, we would all strive to make a positive difference in the lives of others. Think of the exponential impact we might have. We would be a country of champions, not merely contenders.

I am proud and privileged to be Joe Louis’ son. He changed the lives of countless people for the better. It’s my hope that this commemoration will rekindle a sense of pride and meaning for a new generation and that they will share that legacy with the next generation.

Joe Louis is my father, but he belongs to America as a hero who touched the world.