President s in the books featured historians, visit cspan. Org the president s. Available in paperback, hardcover any books. Wherever books are sold. Coming up next, but to be present afterwards. An hour long Interview Program we invite a guest host to interview the author of a new book. This week wil haygood, chicory robertson and sweet butter. Born walker smith junior, the future title holder spent his formative years in harlem. In the happenings of the harlem renaissance. Mr. Haygood relates to many, a generation of africanamericans who found success in the respective fields during the start of a broader Civil Rights Movement. Wil haygood discusses his book, sports columnist for the nation magazine and author of a peoples history of sports in the United States. Welcome to afterwords. Right away. You are not a sports because we are talking out a boxer. Of the ring and i wanted somebody that was known i met big for me was sugar ray roberson. Is most underwritten about boxers skins particular considering every major boxing writer would consider him to have that title of pound for pound tighter of the 20th century. Quite a title to have actually. It seems to me there are very interesting Common Threads with the people you focused on in your biographical career. Adam clayton power, semi davis junior, sammy robinson, i see some very Common Threads there. I dont mean their appropriation of a very smooth hairstyle. I see three people who challenge, you could say it may be challenged institutional racism with a great deal of style and personal flair. What do you think about when you think about these three men . What kind of Common Threads you see that kind of attracted you to their stories . Guest well, they all work, in their own way, fighters. They all were fighters. They all were hungry, hungry for success. They all had harlem roots in a way, adam pal more so than the other two. But both of them, i mean all three of them lived in harlem. So they all sort of sifted some of the smoke from the harlem renaissance. So each man had a sense of poetry of music, a style of grace. And i think that infused their respective lives. I think music was important to all three. Another thing all three sort of achieved a great deal of notoriety in the socalled quiet 1950s. Host do you think its fair to say all three also represent things that are not talked about in terms of race history or popular culture, that idea of being caught somewhere between the ideals of the Civil Rights Movement and the ideals of the harlem renaissance. Or the ideals of booker t. Washington like you make it on the basis of your own individual greatness in the ideals of seeing a collective responsibility. I keep thinking of the three of them as belonging kind of that Middle Passage if you were up to errors. Yes. And they were prayed that is a great observation. And 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. Personal civil rights. And i think that they all three had to sort of a hell bent energy to make themselves successful against the backdrop of segregation in america. And i think, they thought if they could fight their way into the headlines, adam clayton pal in Church Politics around america and the u. S. Congress. Sammy davis junior, night clubs in the 1940s and 50s. And then Sugar Ray Robinson as a pure championship athlete. Host i think we are very bad at teaching history in this country. Often times the Civil Rights Movement is taught as if it sprung fully formed from the head of doctor king in the mid 1950s. As if there wasnt ground work laid before them. And all three men as well, you see evidence of that groundwork. And the idea of we are going to challenge racism in ways that maybe will inspire people. The law of unintended consequences if you will. About to take it to Sugar Ray Robinson you have a Brilliant Chapter in the book about his experience in the u. S. Army and comparing and contrasting his demeanor as i believe a corporal in the u. S. Army with the experience of his sort of a running buddy, joe lewis. Right. Right. Host could you talk about Sugar Ray Leonard army experience. He was a fighter at the time but still famous prewas his experience in the army and buck convention . Guest it was a fascinating experiment. The first lady, eleanor roosevelt, wanted to convey to the American People that there can exist racial harmony on u. S. Army bases. And so, she came up with the plan. Her and the secretary of the army to have two high profile blacks go around to u. S. Army bases and engage in physical training for the soldiers. The first place she picked was a heavyweight champion of the world, joe lewis. Joe lewis had eight young cats, that was a friend of his , who he had known, who had actually rode in a vote. Joe lewis and his girlfriend, lena horne and the person that was rowing the vote was young Sugar Ray Robinson. Anyway the work comes, there are riots in southern cities. Blacks who say they are being asked to go to war and die but they cant get equal treatment in the u. S. That is for democracy abroad of being treated terribly in the very bases were they are being trained. Right. Right so joe lewis and Sugar Ray Robinson lead this physical training troop from army base and army base. Up north of the army bases they are fine. Everything goes okay. Then they get below the masondixon line. Alabama and mississippi and all hell breaks loose. One day, joe lewis is using a telephone on an army base in alabama. Aye officer, aye guard tells him he should be at the phone booth for black soldiers. Lewis gets upset. Young Sugar Ray Robinson known as walker smith in the army thanks that the officer is going to hit joe lewis. And sugar ray, like a panther, jumps on the whites army guard why anyone would want to tangle with joe lewis and Sugar Ray Robinson on an army base is unimaginable. Host it tells something about the times. Guest it does. So theyre both taken to an officer to be disciplined. But now, the army has a pr nightmare at its throat. Whether the two black Public Relations figures, who were being engaged to her the south are arrested. Because they opposed segregatio segregation. Segregation policies. So the army backed off. And didnt press any charges. But, it really cut to the bone of who each man was. Joe lewis was willing to accept it. Sugar ray robinson came from a different, newer era. He was not willing to accept it. Joe lewis could not keep emotional control of Sugar Ray Robinson. It was more theory, he was more prone to react very quickly of his pride was insulted. So when thats an interesting Common Thread of all political africanamerican athletes. They tend to not come from the south of the United States. They tend to be refugees from the south project he robinson going from georgia to pasadena, california. Or curt flood you came from oakland, california. I was just talking with someone about that the other day. The way when Marvin Muller was looking for someone to challenge the reserve clause he was looking for an africanamerican athlete who is not from the south but was influenced by the broader tenor of the time. Sufficient rights. Right to civic and. Host and Sugar Ray Leonard was what it was like to live in harlem. And harlem is in many ways a character in the story part is not a typical biography. Certainly not a typical sports biography. You have personifications of Parliament Jazz music in esquire magazine. In effect become characters in the story. Why is it important to understand harlem to understand Sugar Ray Robinson . Guest well, people always say a statement. They always say he had such style. Or she had such style. What does that mean . I was intrigued with that. What is style . s boomac i just didnt want to write the book and tell the reader that Sugar Ray Robinson had style and class without giving them an explanation of how it grew within him. And he grew up in detroit when he was about 12 years old. His mother moved him to harlem. Civic. [inaudible] guest s father stayed behind her he was always estranged from his father just like joe lewis. That is a good point. I think that both they looked for father figures. With the jasmine theyre going in and out of harlem. Because harlem was that one place was the one place in america where there was black, political muscle. There was a great pride left over from the harlem renaissance. And that was still flowing up and down the street. Blacks they could go up town and go to some of the black all nightclubs. In later Sugar Ray Robinson owned a nightclub. They all felt barely comfortable in harlem. Wallace thurman they were not still around their friends were still around. So it was a mecca. I think it informed Sugar Ray Robinson greatly. Host it gave him a certain confidence not to mention a certain style. He carried into the ring and popularize and why they havent seen before. Guest right, right. Host you think style is a form . Guest yes, i do pretty style that Sugar Ray Robinson loved flowed out of arnold gingrichs esquire magazine. There was a jazz book that was printed in 1944. And it was huge amongst harlem heights. It was that way than american readers really saw black and white musician sidebyside on the printed page. And it was a huge success in harlem. I think to Sugar Ray Robinson, his mindset was i am going to win in the ring. But i aim to be more than just an athlete. And i am going to let style and class and grace inform how i conduct myself as an athlete. I think that was huge to him to get to know Lionell Hampton and earl hines, and woody herman. Langston hughes, those kind of people gave him a sense of self. In that sense of self gave him a sense of something that is far too for lack of better term cannot be screwed by the system. What was that informed by . And how successful was he in the mob up red light district of a boxing of carving out space for himself he was, i dont want to say wasnt exploited because that doesnt exist in boxing praise exploited less than a typical fighter when he turned pro he was feared because of his left hook. Hed been feared he was a near Golden Gloves champion you were a fighter other organizations had shadowy figures running them. People like franky carbone. You had to navigate that terrain. And it upset Sugar Ray Robinson. Which he had a reputation where if he didnt like host palm truck, he would pull out of the fight after hit already been announced in the newspapers. That was his way of saying i dont want to blow the mob cats. Wow. Not playing with the mob cats brings its own cost. Do you think he was able to dance that dan successfully . Guest later. Not in the early years. And remember, from 1940s to 1946 to get his championship bout. Even though he was winning all of his fights. And the powers that be that ran the sport never gave him a title shot until six years into his career as a pro. He had a very difficult time getting that title shot. Do you think that some of these circumstances by which he left the army may have played a role in his inability to get traction or public support for that title fight . On the guess that is also a segway if you could talk a little bit about something that did sort of follow him like a great cloud, the shadowy circumstances by which she left the armed forces. Guest yes. Sugar ray robinson was very, very afraid of dying. He had it imagined in his mind that if he went overseas, even on a Goodwill Mission that he could be killed. And so on the eve of him and joe lewis and some other soldiers going overseas with a Goodwill Mission, robinson left his barracks and long island. He disappeared. And he woke up in the hospital in new york. And he claimed amnesia. Army officials thought it was laughable. They thought he had gone awol just to escape staying in the army. Robinson wanted to get out of the army. He wanted to fight again. He thought that 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. But there were many, many sportswriters in new york. There were eight or nine newspapers. Many sportswriters. Many of the sportswriters had gone to war. And went robinson was honorably discharged, there had been stories about him leaving the barracks and being found and being taken to the hospital. And he told the doctors he didnt know what happens pretty didnt know how he got on the street. These sportswriters really came after him. They called him a coward. They absolutely thought he was faking and that he was lying. And that did haunt him for years. Spin if you think some of that had to do with the sort of low frequency history that did exist about African Americans and patriotism. There is that tradition of African American or resistance that existed during world war ii as well, refusing to fight. That of course was 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 really had fought to get a championship fight. I think he was miffed at the shadowy powers that be that ran the sport. I think he felt that if he didnt 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 sought the army after that experience in the south as being a very unfair place. So i think he thought of a way to escape and flee the army. Thats a vivid scene of what you paint for robinson to actually be in the American South at that time. I kept thinking of this line from Roberto Clemente said he did not know he was black until he visited the American South. Guest yes. Yes. Sue went and the feeling of not been sugar ray anymore just walker smith. Guest right. Host you feel the insecurity bubbling within him. Guest especially coming from a championship fighter. Doors are always open for that person. Royalty in your city. And now he is in the south. There are places he cant go. He is in the u. S. Army. He is looking around seeing his friend, joe lewis who he looked up to greatly. He looked up and he sought joe lewis treated almost as a secondclass citizen. I think that had done something to his psyche. Soon xo robinson eventually comes a champion. He becomes the kind of fighter who was praised from coasttocoast is really being the best in the business, pound for pound. What kind of fan base that 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. Guest tough fighter. C1 my grandfather 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. It has a pride in the immigrant it has pride in the underdog. As of being a black fighter from rural georgia does not make you an underdog. It outplays itself theres something that talks about robinsons acceptance or lack thereof among the white fans wanted to see knocked off his pedestal . Guest so many of the fighters in the 20th century were immigrants. Ethnic fighters. Then you had black fighters. Who automatically seemed to be fighting not only for themselve themselves, but for the race as a whole. And so, with robinson there was great 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 he could go over to esquire and be one of the mail fashion models. Of course esquire that time did not have any blackmail fashion models. But he gave you that sense he was doing more for boxing than boxing was doing for him. And i think that made some folks jealous. And he won with style. He won with something approaching beauty in the ring. He was very sharp. He was not loud. He thought about his punches. And after his fights, his crowd became a crowd of poets, writers, horn players, lena horne, miles davis, he just attracted a whole another crowd. Host theres always this kind of disconnect we have any black community, he saw the certainly with the young caches clay, a willingness to speak of yourself as being pretty. To look pretty and stylish when, this is a broad generalization, but among white fans almost getting homophobia the results are met. And with the black community has seen issue are pretty tony. You are styling in the White Committee all of a sudden is seen as suspect. Something to keep it armslength for you always hear i cant that disconnect very fastening man at the times he had vanity as well. It takes the his wife had a hair salon. This is what robinson said to the world i look good, no doubt. Stu and going to go to break right now Sugar Ray Robinson is a fascinating feature and the second thing is we have not saved the words of jake lamotta yet. Bring speak about that after the break. We are back on after words we are speaking with wil haygood. The author of the new book sweet thunder prayed the life and times of Sugar Ray Robinson. How you doing sir . Guest i am doing good. Host now there are a couple characters in the book who we have not mentioned yet. Miles davis and lena horne. That is one the things that makes it so interesting it is about Sugar Ray Robinson but is also about a. An eight political era. Why did you feel like it was important to make miles davis and lena horne such a part of the story . For several reasons. Because when he started doing the book i come across is interconnecting people in sugar raise life. That miles davis first came to new york city, and got hooked on drugs, he wanted to get off the drugs and find someone and help him physically trained. And they became friends up until sugar raise a death. Lena horne, would always be at joe louis training camp. And that is where she met sugar rate robinson. Langston hughes, the poet, lived right down the street from sugar raise nightclub. And Langston Hughes in the 50s started writing with hope in mind that sugar ray would be able to take a part in some of those plays. Therefore its with those three people there were steady customers of sugary robinsons nightclub. I just thought it was fascinating. I kept coming across links between all four of them. And i decided to write it as a group portrait. And so it becomes not just a book about fighters, its also a book about Langston Hughes and other jazz artists its about culture. Its about the un known america that doesnt usually get into the headlines of the mainstream newspapers. Or didnt always make it onto the arts pages in the 40s and the 50s. Host how do you explain to the young people today how important and to broader resistance, how do you explain that . Guest that jazz was its own language. Jazz brought people together. Jazz is one of the first art forms, you might say was accepted on a racially integrated level. And i think that the jazz that flowed out of the harlem renaissance had such a fixture in the mind are people in other cities like los angeles, kansas city, seattle. I think jazz at such a staying power. And jazz was its own artform that it became a kind of language that lena horne could speak to pray that Langston Hughes could speak to that miles davis lived, and that Sugar Ray Robinson loved. Now, lets get to the opera in six brutal acts. He spent considerable time in the book speaking about these fights between sugar rate robinson and jake. Why have these fights so deeply entered the fever dream of the american imagination . Before i answer that i want to make one correction it is wil haygood. I knew that soon as i said i it. I even wrote it down here. Im so embarrassed, i am sorry. I misspoke. Guest but those fistfights between robinson and jake lamotta. They seized the imagination of the american populace. Because they fought six fights. They fought, starting with the administration of truman. And they went into the administration of eisenhower. So that was thoroughly amazing. One was italian, lamotta. One was black. There were street gangs in new york that had ethnic rivalries italian black, there were two titanic figures that they had different disabilities. Robinsons thought jake lamotta was a rough house x convict thug. Jake lamotta thought robinson was more playboy than tough fighter. Suspect there is that issue again the toughness issue because he had style. Guest because he had style. Because he had slicked back hair. Because he had a pink havoc not of lou cadillac the color of a flower. And so, those fights, became to me very important in the book. And i was sort of confused at how to write about them. Because i did not want to keep taking the reader backandforth, backandforth britto hes fighting, lamotta again parties fighting jake lamotta again. And so i decided to put all of the fights in one chapter. And i think it works. Host it is a very intense experience though. Because you do this great job in the book. Sort of during the fight did this large tableau. In the chapter hit you like a bolo punch. Because it is all about the fighting. When you almost forget when you read about ray robinson exactly how violent his trade is. Its almost like lamotta reminds us. But this is not a dandy he was sort of a model but also a fighter, also loves jazz and has a nightclub. He somebody must engage in the art of boxing. Guest for some reason it seared into the american mindset that they split those fights three three. There is the martins movie raging bull, it didnt leave you with the impression that Sugar Ray Robinson 15 out of six of those fights. They were tough. Mr. Lamotta, who i interviewed for this book, contends to this day that two of the fights were stolen from him. So in his mind even breaks down three three. But in reality, sugar ray 15 fights. And jake lamotta 11. Host there is this famous scene in raging bull that he falls into the cord and said you never knock me down ray, you never knock me down ray. As if that is lamottas victory to the camera work of martin scorsese. Ray robinson is almost a spectral figure in the movie. There are even scenes we cannot see his face. Theres just smoke and the hand pulled back. What is it say about hollywood the this movie about jake lamotta praised as a great movie of the 1980s. And there is no movie about ray robinson . Suspect there is a film critic david tomlinson. Who wrote on the 20th anniversary of a rerelease of raging bull. He said, and i write about this in the book. He said something very funny has gone on in that movie. He says, course ac missed the Sugar Ray Robinson story. People watching the movie you would leave with the feeling that jake lamotta got the best of sugary robinson. Hardly so, hardly so. I think in a weird way it affected our memory of sugar rate robinson pray the Cultural Impact of that movie is that he is more spectral than he should be as a person who is considered the best pound for pound fighter of the h century. Guest rights. Rights. Host it is such an interesting subject matter, sugar ray prayed there so many questions to keep coming back to you. Lets try to flush out a little bit more about the tableau going on around him. So sugar ray is entering sorted the end of his fights career as a Civil Rights Movement explodes around him. What was his posture, if you will, first towards a Civil Rights Movement and into fighters like muhammad ali who were making even more bold challenges . Where was sugar ray in this . Guest first, theres also a gap. 1952 to 1959, he leaves middleweight boxing to become of all things a tap dancer. And travels to nightclubs in the usa. He goes to europe not very good nightclub act, because he is sugary robinson he gets awesome pretty big names. Travels with good different bands its amazing. On so he comes back and regains his middleweight belt again. An astonishing, an astonishing comeback. Just a fierce fighter. And he tries to move up to heavyweights. To take on joey maxim. And he loses. His fights career starts to go downhill. The 60s hit, he loses his nightclub. He and his wife, edna mae divorce. And so you have riots in america, he retires moves out to l. A. In 1963 there is the march on washington, he doesnt go. Robinson did not like cliques. He thought unwisely that may be all of these socalled hip people were going to go to the march on washington. I think if he had it all to do over again, he would have went. But he didnt. He wasnt actively involved in civil rights. He thought his civil rights took place in the middle of the ring. He did campaign for senator robert trent robert f kennedy. Of course he was assassinated. And that broke his heart. Host did the sanity and jan Kennedy Campaign seeks sugar ray out . Was it something volunteered for . With a proud to have a part of the campaign . Seven cultural cachet . Guest yes he did. See what this is interesting. It something that occurred to me as we are speaking. If i knew nothing about boxing but just had a basic knowledge of american history, and i was reading a biography of jack johnson, i would think to myself this will not end well. He is challenging power at a time when White Supremacy was beyond violence. This will not end well. I was reading a biography of joe louis i would say this will not end well, look at his overbearing handlers. Look at how people are managing them in such a way in treating him as a childhood this will not end well. But if i was reading an article Sugar Ray Robinson i would think this could end well. Why didnt end well for sugar ray . Guest i think in his mindset it ended well. He wasnt broke. He wasnt out in the streets. Mind you, at one point he had been a poor kid on the streets of harlem. Hustling pop bottles and stealing fruit off of fruit stands. So he went out to california and started the Sugar Ray Robinson youth foundation. And he no longer had his pink cadillac. They had a little red pinto pretty little small pinto, squeezing himself and prayed going over to see movie mongols, asking them to make contributions to his youth foundation. And so, in a way he went back to his former self. He went back to the poor kid he became walker smith junior again his eyes lit up in detroit when he first saw his first rec center. Guest exactly. He wanted to recreate that expense for young people. He did part i titled that chapter saving all of those walker smith juniors. And so he really, in his mind at the end of his career he thought his amount olympus was saving children. Getting up there on the mountaintop and reaching back down and pulling the children up. And i think that gave him i think that gave him great joy in life. See you think by the time it was time for him to pass this world he was a happy man . Be back. Guest yes very separate i really do. He was living with the woman he loved, he could walk on two his youth center and the children would see him and they would hop up in his lap. I dont think anything made walker smith junior more happy. Host while part while. We need to explain this for people tooting and halfway through. And i apologize for that huge discursive back to the beginning here. I just love the story so much but how did walker smith junior become Sugar Ray Robinson . Can you speak about how that name change even happen . It is a terrific story. Sugar ray joined the Salem Methodist Church boxing team. I mean walker smith junior did. And george again for was the team manager. End date travel upstate new york. And they were and watertown, new york in 1937. Walker smith junior did not even have a uniform. He was trying to get on the tea team. He was like say the last man on the football squad. Only this was like a ten member aau boxing league. Boxing program. So walker smith have been training at the church, hoping at some point that george again for we give him a chance. He was just 16 years old. One day and watertown, new york, ray robinson, he was a fighter didnt show up. Did not make the trip. And gain furred did not want to miss that fight. He wanted to have four bouts in that town. And right robinson wasnt there. The more he thought about it he had Young Walker Smith that was harassing him sink come on coach, please, let me have a chance coach, come on, i just went to show you what i have been doing in the basement. Please. Im begging you. George gain furred said right smitty, go downstairs and put on some gloves. Walker smith junior came back up, fought and knocked the guy out. The Sports Editor at the watertowns newspaper, a member that an object case asked george gain furred what is that fighters think . Gain furred had the card that he had given walker smith junior. The card said ray robinson. Danford told the boxing official his name is ray robinson. A lady next to the sports writer, jack casie, said that is a sweet fighter right there. By the time check case it got back to the newsroom and some sugar. Wrote in the paper the next day Sugar Ray Robinson knocked out his opponent last night and that started going on the radius and there is a fighter out of harlem by the name of Sugar Ray Robinson and he is out of sight. He is so dynamic and hes going to be back and watertown in a few months. And so jack case and watertown really made that name stick. There are people who believe that names our destiny. John kennedy would not of been john kennedy if he wouldve been mortimer. [inaudible] now if ray robinson, walker smith junior, do you think this somehow had a profound effect on his destiny as a fighter . Guest yes. I believe he started living the name, Sugar Ray Robinson. Sue went terrific alliteration, style, all of the style resistance issues with spoke about in the first halfhour. They shine through in your name is Sugar Ray Robinson and away walker smith junior, which is a name that sounds a little bit as they say a little country. It does. It is a little different. Guest but look at sugar ray prayed he would walk down the street, fifth avenue, madison avenue, harlem, anywhere. Women would spot him and say sugar. Hey sugar ray . You know, real sweetly. You know he just had the name and he knew the name had a stylish cachet to and he played that. He really did. When you think boxers like sugar ray joe Louis Muhammad ali, joe frazier why do you think particularly africanamerican but not solely africanamerican enter the american psyche so much as political symbols political symbols that really transcend other sports . I think because i think because boxing is still a mystery. It is still a sport were very few can rise to its highest levels. It is very violent. And i think in a way, muhammad ali got a lot of his, you might say style from Sugar Ray Robinson. I think we tend to follow boxers a lot. It is the ultimate one on one sport. It is just you and your gut and your courage facing somebody across the ring who is trying to hit you with such fierceness that you might think that person is trying to kill you. Host in the days of our smoking bans or have the smoke rising up in the front row. Thered been a mystery and an allure to it. You think theres something also about boxing has been almost like a canvas where our conception of the level Playing Field of americas put to the test . The people then project this political importance . Will muhammad ali good shot the champion after his belt was strip sprayed with the right to oppose the war . Find out and he goes in the ring against frazier. Or is or even basically biological quality will jack johnson will answer that question. Jill is fighting max milling world war ii accident taking long trip towards what is most symbolic that was it with lamotta, elizabeth carmen, was it the tragedy fight with the doyle . Guest jimmy doyle who killed in the ring. I think robinson had a steady rising art of style. I dont think it was one moment that fascinated the american public. I think he put in their mindset, i am your stylish arbiter. I am the person who you look to for grace and elegance and style in the ring. And i will never let you down. By the way, i am on my way to paris and just watch how i carry through in europe. You will see how the people there who loves style love me as well. I dont think robinson looked at boxing with the idea that he would be compared to other fighters. I really think he thought he was a solo voyager. I really think he thought he set his own style. He set his own musical notes. The great sportswriter said that robinson lived in his own world. That he was almost on knowable. That he was read smith called him quote a brooding genius. Debussy hides the greatest sportswriter you quote is calling him a con artist. Guest yes. Host were you followed this . Guest i am more in the red smith camp that i am in the hines camp. I think he was a genius. And i think he was an original. I dont think, there is not a Sugar Ray Robinson before Sugar Ray Robinson. There were other fighters who tried to exude style. But nobody could approach it like robinson. He believed in style. He wore a suit just right. He wore a hat just right. Host do you think this book has relevance today . Would you like to discuss this book on espn for example . And for a modern sports audience to speak about what style can bring to an athletes game . Because there but all kinds of debates about style and sports and having a dress code in the mba for example. The question of how an athlete, particularly africanamerican athletes should or should not have to comport themselves in everything from instant celebrations to the way they interact with coaches. Now, when you see someone like allen iverson. You say to yourself, that man has 21st century style . Or do you say it would be nice if they knew the history of robinson so they could see what style really is. Were you followed that . Guest i would love for athletes today to read the book. To read this book. Because there is something about Sugar Ray Robinson is very humbling. If he hurt somebody he would go to the locker room to see how that person was doing. If you get somebody in the ring and knocked out their mouthpiece, he would pick it up. I mean he was a very gracious fighter. And he cared about what the public thought about he really did i think just the way he carried himself. Could really teach athletes. Host he showed he didnt say it. I keep expecting of the book to pull a young caches clay just that he was the prettiest probity almost in half two. Guest you are exactly right. He did not like rudeness. He didnt like loudness. He didnt like bold garrity. He was a very elegant, gracious i think he has been too long forgotten and not appreciated enough what he contributed to the cultural swirl of this country. Use the word genius several times in the last hour to describe sugar rate robinson. I really think this book is touched by ginas part i you did a brilliant job of bringing his life to the page. And making his life really seemed like something that was living and breathing right in front of you with every page. So wil haygood just a tremendous accomplishment. Just thank you for writing it. Thank you very much. Book worthy of a pound for pound of the 20th century this has been after words i am david siren. The book is called sweet thunderbird you need to buy it for you need to buy five copies to give to your friends because it will teach you something. Not just about boxing but about this country. You are watching book tv on cspan2. Every weekend with the latest nonfiction books and authors. Cspan2, created by americas Cable Television company as a public service. And brought to you today by his television provider. Book tv on cspan2 has top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. Saturday 8 00 p. M. Eastern, binge watch programs with the late author Christopher Hitchens his books include no one left to lie to, the missionary position, and the trial of henry kissinger. And on sunday at 9 00 p. M. Eastern on after words, Yale University professor edward ball with his book life of a classmen which looks at White Supremacy through the lens of his greatgreatgrandfather, a member of the ku klux klan and post civil war louisiana. He is interviewed by author and georgetown University Professor of law, civil rights and social justice. And then at 10 00 p. M. In her book how i lead, Susan Eisenhower examines the leadership style of her grandfather president eisenhower and the important decisions he made during his presidency. Watch book tv this weekend on cspan2. The president s, available in paperback, hardcover and ebook from Public Affairs presents biographies of every president. Inspired by conversations with noted historians about the leadership skills that make for a successful presidency. In this president ial election year, as americans decide who should lead our country, this collection offers perspective into the lives and events that forged each president s leadership style, books featured historians visit cspan. Org the president s wherever books are sold. Coming up on cspan2 book tv author, samantha had identity body image and her writing style the book of essays is while, no thank you. And then Douglas Murray associate editor of the spectator talks about brexit the culture wars the United Kingdom and the impact of covid19 on the uk. And later, barbara erin right on economic equality and the United States the wake of the pandemic. Thank you. we recommend, the video will be available immediately following. 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