ROGERSVILLE, Tenn. — In a time when white world champions refused to fight black boxers, a title was established to battle segregation and bring prestige to fighters that may have otherwise faded into obscurity.
The title was the World Colored Heavyweight Championship and one of the men honored with holding that championship was Bob Armstrong.
Armstrong was born on Sept. 4, 1873, in Rogersville—about 70 miles east of Knoxville. The son of an ex-slave, at the age of 3, his family moved to Iowa where he stayed through adolescence.
“He got a job as a stable boy helping out at a racetrack. That's where he developed a lot of his physique," said Mark Allen Baker, author of "The World Colored Heavyweight Championship (1876-1937)."
One of the events held during these fairs was the battle royal: a free-for-all fight pitting multiple black men against each other, sometimes blindfolded, in a ring for the amusement of white fairgoers. This barbaric attraction is where Bob Armstrong discovered his penchant for pugilism.
“They call him eventually the king of the Battle Royal,” Baker said.
Armstrong decided to hone his skills and ventured into a Chicago gymnasium run by Billy O’Connell.
O’Connell’s gym hosted many of the prominent fighters in the area and it was there that Armstrong was discovered by the secretary of boxing promoter Parson Davies.
“Boom, that was the break. It's a strange break, but yet alone, talk about being in the right place at the right time. The secretary goes back, ‘Parson, you got to see this guy, Bob Armstrong, because he was sensational,” Baker said.
One of those fighters under the Davies' umbrella was Joe Choynski.
“It was Parson who convinced Choynski to go into the ring and evaluate this kid Armstrong and see if we've got something here,” Baker said.
Armstrong showed promise and Choynski signed off on the former battle royale fighter. Now, Parson Davies had a new heavyweight in his stable.
“Davies was always looking for his pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. So reasonable thinking that, you know, it was Armstrong, maybe the next pot of gold, I don't know,” Baker said.
Parson’s pot of gold at the time was Peter Jackson.
Jackson was a former Australian Heavyweight champion. On Aug. 24, 1888, he defeated George Godfrey to become the World Colored Heavyweight Champion.
The World Colored Heavyweight Championship was a tool to combat racial oppression, as white world champions of the time refused to fight black boxers.
“It never really had a formal structure. It wasn't like, you know, we know the organizations now like the WBO, and IBF and all that, but wasn't that way at all. It was basically a word-of-mouth type of title. I mean, if you could claim it and back it up, then it was yours basically,” Baker said.
Peter Jackson's lengthy reign legitimized the World Colored Heavyweight Championship.
“He just was the perfect spokesman for it, and I think that's what really made it take off and made it desirable," Baker said.
Records show that Peter Jackson held the World Colored Heavyweight Championship until 1896 when he vacated the title to pursue an acting career.
With the Davies machine behind him, Bob Armstrong was heralded as the second Peter Jackson, and with the Colored World Heavyweight Championship vacant, Armstrong staked his claim at the title.
“So, Armstrong fought a guy by the name of Charley Strong, just two years after his professional debut. He got in against Strong, and it was under Davey's recommendation that he kind of used the title to it to his advantage,” Baker said.
On Dec. 21, 1896, the bout between Bob Armstrong and Charley Strong would be contested for the vacant Colored World Heavyweight Championship.
Armstrong came into the bout with a 7-inch height advantage and a 25-pound weight advantage over Strong. Despite Armstrong’s physical superiority, Charley managed to last 19 rounds against Armstrong before a right hand to the jaw knocked the Newark native out.
Those observing thought Armstrong’s performance was a “vast disappointment,” but nevertheless, Bob Armstrong was the new Colored World Heavyweight Champion.
Over the next year, Armstrong fought a total of five times. Two of those contests were title defenses against Joe Butler and Sam Pruitt, with knockouts in the sixth and first rounds respectively.
Frank Childs was another Chicago boxer who had spent time as Armstrong’s sparring partner and even defeated Armstrong in a non-title bout in 1897, marking Armstrong’s first professional loss.
“He doesn't feel he's getting the attention Armstrong's getting, so he would come down a little bit stronger during the sparring sessions. Davies noticed this and tried to get him to calm down and looked at Armstrong as my pot of gold at the end of the rainbow," Baker said.
On Jan. 29, 1898, Bob Armstrong met Frank Childs once again. This time, with the championship at stake. 90 seconds into the second round, the smaller Childs landed a right square on Armstrong’s jaw. Armstrong rose at the count of nine, but Childs came back and knocked Armstrong flat on his face. The referee awarded the contest to Childs as a discombobulated Armstrong wobbled to Childs' corner. The new champ took Armstrong into his arms and let him gently down on the canvas.
After his second loss to Childs, Armstrong continued fighting and met future world champion James J. Jeffries in 1898, losing a 10-round decision. He went on to fight for the World Colored Heavyweight Championship on three more occasions, losing once again to Frank Childs and Denver Ed Martin twice.
“He fought competitively. Fought for 10 years. He handled himself very well,” Baker said.
Bob Armstrong’s final bout was on Dec. 26, 1904, in a losing effort to Walter Johnson. He finished his career with a record of 18 wins, 11 losses, seven draws and one no-contest.
“He does become a trainer who works as a corner man too. He worked as a corner man for a long time, he worked in gyms instructing,” Baker said.
Throughout his career as a trainer, Armstrong worked with notable names such as former rival James J. Jeffries and a young Sam Langford.
The heavyweight color line was finally crossed in 1908 when Jack Johnson defeated Canadian Tommy Burns in Australia to win the World Heavyweight Championship. Johnson’s reign would last over six years.
“Few people realize that once Jack Johnson won the title that there was also a white counter in terms of a white heavyweight champion. So, we had a colored heavyweight champion, the regular champion and a white heavyweight champion at one point. So we had three in that division,” Baker said.
Armstrong worked as a trainer for Johnson in his third championship defense against Stanley Ketchel. Johnson won by twelfth-round knockout and the White World Heavyweight Championship became defunct after Jess Willard’s victory over Jack Johnson in 1915.
The World Colored Heavyweight Championship continued until 1937 when Joe Louis claimed the World Heavyweight crown from James J. Braddock.
Unfortunately, Bob Armstrong didn’t live long enough to see the color line completely erased from boxing. On July 6, 1933, Bob Armstrong died after a year-long bout with tuberculosis in the charity ward of the Oak Forest Infirmary in Chicago.
Armstrong was buried in the Cook County Cemetery Potter’s Field in Chicago in an unmarked grave.
"Segregation hurt boxing because we didn't get the benefit of these gentlemen elevating the fight game to where it should have been," said Baker. “The good thing is that people within the last 10, 15, 20 years are starting to recognize that there was a Bob Armstrong, and he did play a pivotal role in this social element conflict where the World Colored Heavyweight Champion was used to try to fight the color line. If you're going to put the puzzle together about boxing history, Bob Armstrong has a piece."
