Sugar Ray Robinson was not only one of the most iconic figures of the
fight game; almost all sportswriters agree that he was the greatest
boxer of all time. This illuminating biography grounds the spectacular
story of Robinson s rise to greatness within the context of the fighter
s life and times. Born Walker Smith Jr. in 1921, Robinson s early
childhood was marked by the seething racial tensions and explosive race
riots that infected the Midwest throughout the twenties and thirties.
After his mother moved him and his sisters to the relative safety of
Harlem, he came of age in the vibrant post-Renaissance years. It was
there that--encouraged to box by his mother, who wanted him off the
streets--he soon became a rising star, cutting an electrifying,
glamorous figure, riding around town in his famous pink Cadillac. Beyond
the celebrity, though, Robinson would emerge as a powerful, often
controversial black symbol in a rapidly changing America. From Robinson
s gruesome six-bout war with Jake Raging Bull LaMotta and his lethal
meeting with Jimmy Doyle to his Harlem nightclub years and thwarted
show-biz dreams, Haygood brings the champion s story, in the ring and
out, powerfully to life against a vividly painted backdrop of the world
he captivated."
