The Pussycat of Prizefighting

More than an account of Theodore "Tiger" Flowers' remarkable achievements, this title is an analysis of the cultural and historical currents that defined the terms of Flowers' success, and of the pressures and dilemmas facing African Americans in the public eye.

---

In 1926 Theodore "Tiger" Flowers became the first African American boxer to win the world middleweight title. The next year he was dead, the victim of surgery gone wrong. His funeral in Atlanta drew tens of thousands of mourners, black and white. Atlantans would not grieve again in comparable numbers until Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination in 1968. Flowers, whose career was sandwiched between those of the better-known black boxers Jack Johnson and Joe Louis, was not America's first successful black athlete. He was, however, the first to generate widespread goodwill among whites, especially in the South, where he became known as "the whitest black man in the ring." he Pussycat of Prizefighting is more than an account of Flowers's remarkable achievements - it is a penetrating analysis of the cultural and historical currents that defined the terms of Flowers's success as both a man and an athlete. As we discover the sources of Flowers's immense popularity, Andrew Kaye also helps us to understand more deeply the pressures and dilemmas facing African Americans in the public eye.