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Address Woodward Ave, Detroit, MI 48226, USA Similar The Spirit of Detroit, Philip A Hart Plaza, Guardian Building, Renaissance Center, Michigan Central Station | ||
The Monument to Joe Louis, known also as "The Fist", is a memorial to the boxer at Detroit's Hart Plaza.
History
Dedicated on October 16, 1986, the sculpture, commissioned by Sports Illustrated magazine from the Mexican-American sculptor Robert Graham, is a 24-foot-long (7.3 m) arm with a fisted hand suspended by a 24-foot-high (7.3 m) pyramidal framework.
It represents the power of his punch both inside and outside the ring. Because of his efforts to fight Jim Crow laws, the fist was symbolically aimed toward racial injustice. Graham referred to the sculpture as a "battering ram".
The sculpture was vandalized by two white men in 2004, who covered it in white paint and left a sign which read, "Courtesy of Fighting Whities". Graham responded that the piece was "working" if it aroused passion.