to be traveling. that isn't at all unlike bloggers today to send home news. so, they're used to be up until recently one sort of model but a foreign correspondent ought to be like in the last 50, 60 years but now we are going to see multiple models and it's important to understand what that's about because it will help us understand what news we want to read and how we should read the news. >> the author is john maxwell hamilton, the book is journalisms roving eye. .. >> better-known as the sugar ray robinson and the author is wil haygood. >> >> guest: agreed to be here. >> host: it is a worthy of sugar ray robbins said tremendous achievement. you are not a sports bar for her by trade why did you decide to spend five years of your life right to about sugar ray robinson? >> guest: i had two previous batteries when a big congressmen and the other was sammy davis, jr. part by thought if i could find another subject that interested me, i would have a trilogy three major biographies and one is a politician one is the entertainer i wanted a sports figure but i wanted an athlete who transcended their sport and as someone who had a life vest fascinating in the ring because we talk about a boxer equally a fascinating life outside of the ring and i wanted somebody who was known by have a lot of mystery around his life and 4b common that was sugar ray robinson and. >> he is one of the most underwritten boxers of the 20th century considering every major boxing writer would consider him to have the greatest battle of pound for pound fighter of the 20th century. that is quite a title to have. >> it seems there are very interesting common threads of people that you focus on in the biographical career career, made davis, jr., sugar ray robinson, and there are not just very smooth characters but three people who challenged institutional racism with a great deal of style and personal player. why do you think about when you think of these three men? what do see that attracts you to their stories? >> they were all fighters in their own way. they were hungry for success and all had harlem routes in a way come adam paul more so than the other two but all three of them lived in harlem so they all sort of took the smoke from the harlem risen not -- run is on to each man had a sense of poetry, music, a grace and that induced their respective lives. music was important to all three and i same golf three sort of achieved a great deal of notoriety in the so-called quiet 1950. >> is it fair to say all three also represent what is not normally talk about with raise history or popular culture or the adm of being caught somewhere between the ideals of the civil-rights movement or the renaissance or booker t. washington to make it on the basis of your own individual greatness and the ideals of seeing a collective responsibility? i keep thinking of the three of them as belonging almost in that middle passage. >> yes. that is a great observation. i think because they were caught between those two areas, before the 1964 civil-rights act, they were already engaged in their own personal civil-rights and i think all three had a hell bent energy to make themselves successful with the backdrop of segregation in america and i think they thought they could fight their way into the headlines from adam clayton powell and church politics around america with the u.s. congress and sammy davis, jr., nightclubs in the forties and fifties and sugar ray robinson as a peer championship vacillate. >> host: we are very bad teaching history and the civil-rights movement is taught as if it sprung fully from tastefully formed from dr. king as if there was no groundwork laid before that but in all three men the use the evidence of that groundwork and california idea that we will challenge racism in ways that maybe will inspire people with a lot of unintended consequences and with sugar ray robinson there is a brilliant chapter about his experience in the u.s. army and comparing and contrasting his demeanor as a corporal in the u.s. army with the experience of his running buddy joe louis. can you speak about his army experience? he was a young fighter but very famous. what was his experience in the army and how did he bought convention? >> a fascinating experiment the first lady eleanor roosevelt wanted to convey to the american people that racial harmony can exist on the u.s. army base. so she came up with the plan her and the secretary of the army to have to, high-profile blacks core around the u.s. army bases and a engage in physical training with the soldiers. the first person she picked was the heavyweight champion of the world, joe louis and he had a young cat to was a friend of his whom he had known and you had actually road in a boat with joe louis and his girlfriend lee no horn and that person growing the boat was sugar ray robinson and the war comes in there are riots in seven cities of blacks who say they're being asked to go to war to die but can i get equal treatment in the u.s. >> host: democracy abroad fighting for being treated horribly where they are being trained. >> guest: right. joe louis and sugar ray robinson lead this physical training troops from more rebates to army base. up north they are fine and everything goes okay. then they go below the mason-dixon line alabama and mississimississi ppi where all hell breaks loose. one day joe louis is using the telephone to replace 10 alabama and a white guard tells him he should be at the phone booth for black soldiers. lewis gets upset to and young sugar ray known as walker smith in the army thinks officer is going to hit joe louis and sugar ray, like a panther jumped on the white army guard and there is a tussle. why anybody would want to tango with joe louis and sugar ray robinson. >> host: that says something about the times. >> guest: they're both taken to an officer to be disciplined but now the army has a pr nightmare on his throat with two black public-relations figures were engaged to tour the south but the army backed off and did not press charges but it cut to the bone of who each man was. joe louis was willing to accept the sugar ray robinson came from a different era and was not willing to accept it. joe louis could not keep emotional control of sugar ray robinson. he was more theory and more prone to react very quickly if his pride was insulted. >> that is an interesting comment to all ground breaking american athletes that they tend to not come from the south of the united states where they tend to be refugees and jackie robinson going to california were coming from california i was talking about that the other day the way mark miller was looking someone to challenge a reserve clause he was a few for the african-american athlete who was influenced by the broader 10 or of the times and sugar ray robinson was very influenced and harlem is in very wade -- menu is a character this is not a typical biography. also may not a typical sports biography. you have marvelous personifications of harlem, a jazz music, "esquire" magazine and they become characters in the story. why is it important to understand harlem to understand a sugar ray robinson? >> guest: people always said they had such style. what does that mean? what is style? i just did not want to write a book and tell "the reader" that without giving an explanation of how i grew within him and he grew up in detroit when he was 12 years old and his mother moved him to harlem. the father stayed behind they were always estranged but that is a good point* but the hem and walker smith looked for father figures in both of them found father figures in the jazzmen who were flowing in and out of harlem. >> host: harlem itself almost becomes a father figure to sugar ray. >> guest: right. is that one place in america at the time where there was black political hustle and a great pride left over from the harlem renaissance that was still flowing up and down the streets and black owned nightclubs and they may not have been welcome downtown but they could come up town and come to the all nightclubs in joe louis phoned a nightclub, louis armstrong and later sugar ray robinson owned a nightclubs so they all felt very comfortable in harlem. it was the black mecca were you could go and meet langston hughes, wallace thurman, all of the poets and writers of the harlem renaissance. if they were not still around, their friends were. it was in mecca and i think it informed sugar ray robinson in great the. >> host: and gave him a certain confidence not to mention style which she carried into the ring and popularized in the way people have not seen before. do you think style is a former resistance in the right setting? >> guest: that is a great point*. yes. i do. the style that sugar ray robinson loved flowed out of a "esquire" magazine and there was a jazz book that was printed in 1944 and it was huge amongst the harlem harlem -- harlemites the first time musicians were side by side on the printed page and it was a huge success in harlem and to sugar ray robinson and his mindset was i will win in the rain but i seem to be more than just an athlete and i will let style and class and greece and form how i conduct myself as an athlete. that was a huge two him to get to new-line know hampton -- final hampton and langston hughes and those people gave him a sense of self. >> host: and that gave him a sense of some things that few boxers historic we add as a desire to not be screwed where was that informed by? and how successful was the in the district of boxing carving out a space where he was not exploited because that is not excuse but less than a typical fighter. >> guest: yes. it was very difficult because when robinson turned pro, he was feared because of his left hook. he was absolutely feared he was in new york golden gloves champion and his reputation had grown east coast to the west coast. yet to if you were a fighter in the early forties many of the box saying organizations had a shadowy figures like frankie car broke and you had to navigate that terrain and it upset sugar ray robinson and he had a reputation if he did not like his contract he would pull out of the fight after it had already been announced in the newspaper and that was his way of saying i do not want to play with the mob katz. >> host: and then that brings its own cost. did she think she could dance that dance successfully? >> guest: later not in their early years. remember, it took him from 1940 through 1946 to get his championship bout even though he was winning all of his fights and the powers that be never gave him a title shot until six years into his career as a new professional. >> host: that he had a difficult time getting the title shot. do you think some of these circumstances by which he left the army played a role in his inability to get traction or public support? >> guest: yes. >> host: can you talk about what it did follow him why a gray cloud the shadow we circumstances how he left the armed forces. >> guest: sugar ray robinson was very, very afraid of dying. he imagined in his mind even if he went overseas on a goodwill mission that he could be killed. on the eve of him and joe louis on a goodwill mission mission, robinson left the barracks in and long island and disappeared. and he woke up in a hospital in new york and he claimed am mischa -- and the shipper, army officials thought it was laughable and thought he had gone a wall just two vicks vaporub 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 you could lose his skills which we now know certainly did not happen but there were been the sports writers in new york teenine newspapers and many of those had gone to war and when robinson was honorably discharged there were stories about him leaving the very sin been taken to hospital and telling the doctors he did not know what happened. the sports writers came after him and called him a coward and absolutely thought he was faking and lying and that did haunt him four years. >> host: did that have to do with the low frequency hysteria that did exist about africa and americans and patriotism? there is that tradition of african american resistance that existed during world war ii, refusing to fight and that was the origin of the goodwill mission to begin with with louis and robinson and. do think they were particularly hard on him or were they too hard and what do you think happen the? >> i think robinson federally fought to get a championship fight he was upset at the powers that be in this for and he felt if he did not get back out there and back into the limelight winning again, he feared he would end up a broken down has been fighter. i just think he became very paranoid and he saw the army after that experience in the south as an unfair place so he sought as a way to escape. >> they are vivid scenes of what it is like for robinson to be in the american south that that time rite aid of the line that said he did not know he was black until he visited the american south. it is a sense of not being -- being sugar ray but walker smith hall you feel that insecurity bubbling within him. >> guest: especially coming from eight championship fighter doors are always opened. realty in new york city, and now he is in the south, places you can to go even the u.s. army. he looks around and sees his friend joe louis who he looked up to greatly and sees joe louis treated almost like a second class citizen did something to his psyche. >> host: robinson becomes a champion and becomes a kind of fighter that is praised from coast to coast as being the best in the business pound for pound. what type of fan base did he have? this is a little story for you by my grandfather wrote an essay about the time he siop day she saw sure ray robinson fight. my grandfather, a first-generation american antonovich self english, there is an almost lee on the page of my grandfather's s.a. which has a ratio a rich undeniably coming a pride in that in madrid and the underdog as being a black fighter from rural georgia does not make use the underdog it is interesting. but is there something about that s.a. and fights that tell us something about robinson's acceptance or lack there of? was the always the guy that the white finns wanted knocked off the postal? >> guest: so many of the fighters in the 20th century were immigrants ethnic fighters and then you have plaque fighters who automatically seem to be fighting not only for themselves but for the race as a whole. so with robinson, there was great jealousy because he looked good and was a very handsome man, a suave, and dressed elegantly and gave you the impression that he did not have to box he did so by choice and gave you a feeling he could go to "esquire" and be a fashion model that is why at that time there was no fashion models but gave you the sense that he was doing more for boxing ban boxing was doing for him and that made some folks jealous. and he won with something approaching beauty in the ring. hebrew is very sharp, and after his punches his crowd was horn players come up writers, lena horne, he attracted another crowd. >> host: there is always a cultural disconnect with you have in the black community that you saw with the young cassius clay, a willingness to speak of yourself as being pretty and look pretty and look stylish. where it is a broad generalization among the white man you almost get to a homophobia results and in the black community is seen as you are pretty but the white community is suspect and something to keep at arm's length. you hear why can't they be more like joe louis and a more humble? there is that disconnect which also makes sugar ray robinson and a very fascinating man of his time. >> guest: right to. he had vanity as well. it takes day in vain person to purchase a pink cadillac. he had a nightclub and his wife had a lingerie business and a hair salon. these are things that robinson said to the world i looked good. >> host: we will go to daybreak. to have been listening to this interview the first is sugar ray robinson is an absolutely fascinating figure and a second come a we have not said the words of jay gould body at. we will talk about that after the break. >> host: we are back on after words with wil haygood and the author of "sweet thunder" the life and times of sugar ray robinson." however you? >> guest: i am excellent. >> host: there are a couple of characters we have not mentioned miles davis and lena horne those are one of those that makes the book so interesting it is about sugar ray robinson but also about a point* and a cultural and political era. is terrific stuff why you feel it is important to make miles davis and lena horne so much a part of the story? >> guest: for several reasons because when i started to do this but i started to come across the interconnected people in sugar ray's life. when the first came he wanted to get off drugs and find somebody that could help him physically train and so he introduced himself to sugar ray robinson and they became friends up until his death. be no more and would always be at joe louis training camp and that is where she met sugar ray robinson. langston hughes, the poet lived right down the street from sugar ray's nightclub and in the fifties he started to write plays with the hope in mind that sugar ray could take apart some of those plays. there were friendships forged with those people and they were steady customers that sugar ray robinson's nightclub. i thought it was fascinating to keep coming across links of all four of them a and i decided to write it as a group portrait. it is not just a book about fighters but also a book about langston hughes and lena horne and miles davis and other artists and other fighters who have links to sugar ray robinson in. it is about to culture. keeping your dreams. it is a book about the unknown america that did not always make it into the headlines of that mainstream newspapers or did not always make it into the art scene in the forties and fifties. >> host: how do i explain to young people how important jazz music was to that area -- era? how do explain that? jazz was its own language was one of the first hour forms you might say accepted on a racially integrated level and i think the jazz that's came out of the renaissance had sex shade picture like kansas city and seattle, i think it had such a day staying power and it was its own art form it had its own language that lee in the horn, langston hughes could speak to, miles davis lived that sugar ray loved. let's get to to the brutal act we cash to spend considerable time in the book about the fights between sugar ray robinson and j. . why have they entered the imagination and? >> i want to make one correction it is wil haygood just so readers don't think i am changing my name. >> host: as soon as i said it. i even wrote that down. [laughter] i am so embarrassed. i am sorry that i misspoke. >> guest: those fights between robinson and jake it sees a the american populace because they fight and they go into the administration of eisenhower so that is amazing one was i tell yen, jake lamotta and one was black. there were street gains that had ethnic rivalries there were two titanic figures but had different responsibilities. robinson thought jake lamotta was a roughhouse ex-convict. jake lamotta thought robinson was more playboy than 537 and there is the issue again because he had style. >> guest: ride to. slicked back her and a pink cadillac, the color of a flower. not black or blue. those fights became to be, importuned and i was confused how to write about them because i did not want them to keep taking "the reader" back and forth back and forth. so i decided to put all of the fights into one chapter and i think that it works. >> host: it is a very intense experience because