" It is perhaps not commonly known that a Negro heavyweight championship title existed from 1902 to 1932 when many white champions (including John L. Sullivan, Jim Jeffries, Jack Dempsey) refused to fight blacks. (In 1925 Dempsey pointedly refused to meet Harry Willis - “The Black Menace” - in a fight urged upon him by many observers.) One wonders: who were the true world’s champions in those years? And of what value are historical records when they record so blatantly the prejudices of a dominant race? "

― Joyce Carol Oates , On Boxing