Content note: The panel uses the wartime term 'Japanazis' for the Axis enemy and the period term 'Negro' is absent but the text frames a Black athlete as an example of democracy. This object is shown as it was published. Why
Sgt. Joe Louis - Champion of Champions
A pencil biographical panel shows a large portrait of boxer Sgt. Joe Louis with vignettes of a sharecropper's cabin, a ring victory, Uncle Sam shaking his hand, and Louis coaching soldiers in boxing. Captions describe his rise, his donating a purse to Army and Navy relief funds, and his teaching troops. The tell is testimonial: a celebrity's example vouches for enlistment and for 'democracy in action'.
Propaganda techniques used in this cartoon
- Date
- 1943
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- Office of War Information (cartoon artwork; artist Charles Alston)
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Cartoon
- Issuer type
- State
- Regime
- Roosevelt Administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Persuade or win support
- Themes
- War and the military, Race and ethnicity, Home front
- Event
- World War II
- Regime
- Roosevelt administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 208, Artworks and Mockups for Cartoons (NAID 535594), retrieved October 3, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (U.S. government work)
Office of War Information. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 208, 208-COM-224 (NAID 535687).
Text on the object
Sgt. Joe LOUIS CHAMPION OF CHAMPIONS Joe's meteoric rise from the poverty and obscurity of an Alabama sharecropper's cabin to fame and fortune as the sports idol of a nation, is an eloquent example of democracy in action! In one of the most magnificent gestures in the history of sportsmanship, the champ risked his most cherished possession, the world's heavyweight title, and donated his entire purse to the Army and Navy relief funds! Since his enlistment, Joe has been busy teaching his buddies how to slap the superiority out of the Japanazis! Alston
