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Salem Press

Great Lives from History: African Americans

Henry Armstrong

by Christine Ayorinde

Boxer

Regarded as one of the greatest fighters of all time, Armstrong was the only boxer to hold simultaneous world championship titles in three different weight divisions: featherweight, lightweight, and welterweight. Armstrong also made boxing history with his record of twenty-seven consecutive knockout wins.

Area of achievement: Sports: boxing

Early Life

Henry Armstrong was born in Columbus, Mississippi, to Henry and America Jackson. His father was a sharecropper of African American, Irish, and Native American descent, and his mother was a Native American Iroquois. The eleventh of fifteen children, Armstrong spent his early years on the plantation owned by his Irish grandfather. The family later moved to St. Louis, Missouri, in search of work opportunities. His mother died when he was six, and Armstrong was raised by his father and grandmother. His short stature and ginger hair led to teasing and insults, and he learned how to defend himself on the street, in the process discovering his talent for boxing. Armstrong was a good student and contributed to the school newspaper. He was elected class president in high school. Hoping to go to college and become a doctor, he graduated with honors in 1929. However, his father’s health problems prevented Armstrong from continuing his education. Instead, at the age of eighteen, he began working as a section hand on the Missouri Pacific Railroad to support the family. When Armstrong chanced upon an article about Cuban boxer Kid Chocolate, which mentioned that he had earned seventy-five thousand dollars for one bout, he decided to leave his ill-paid job and take up boxing. At the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), he met a man named Harry Armstrong who became his trainer. Henry Armstrong began his amateur career under the name of Melody Jackson, winning his first fight by a knockout in the second round.

After several more amateur fights, Armstrong, perhaps ill advisedly, decided to turn professional. He lost his first bout in Pittsburgh in July, 1931, to Al Sorvino by a knockout in three rounds. After dropping two of his next three bouts, it seemed an unpropitious start to his professional career. Armstrong and his trainer decided to move to Los Angeles to relaunch his amateur career. Borrowing the name of his trainer and friend, he called himself Henry Armstrong to disguise his former professional status. He went on to win all his amateur bouts but failed to qualify for the 1932 Olympics, after losing to Johnny Hines at the trials.

Life’s Work

Armstrong returned to professional boxing in 1932 and fought as a featherweight, mainly on the West Coast and in Mexico. After losing his first two bouts, Armstrong began a run of eleven wins, only losing to Baby Manuel in July, 1933. Armstrong then had twenty-two undefeated fights, including a rematch with Manuel. Armstrong’s first important fight was in November, 1934, when he lost the world featherweight championship to former world bantamweight champion Baby Arizmendi. Armstrong lost again to Arizmendi in January, 1935, but beat him in August the following year to take the featherweight title. Entertainer Al Jolson was at the fight and, impressed by Armstrong’s talent, he persuaded his friend Eddie Meade to become Armstrong’s manager. Jolson underwrote the purchase of Armstrong’s contract, and film actor George Raft also was a financial backer. The investment provided an opportunity for Armstrong to fight better-caliber opponents at better-paying fights.

In 1937, Armstrong won twenty-two bouts in a row, twenty-one by knockout, and he beat former world champions Frankie Klick and Benny Blass. This earned him his first world title try against featherweight world champion Petey Sarron at Madison Square Garden. Armstrong won the title and also went on to win the welterweight and lightweight titles within the space of ten months. His winning streak continued into 1938, and he had fourteen consecutive wins with ten knockouts. When Armstrong decided he could not meet the weight limit for featherweight anymore, he relinquished the title, but he defended his other titles twelve times throughout 1939, until August, when he lost the lightweight crown in a rematch with Lou Ambers. Armstrong defended his welterweight title eighteen times, a record in welterweight history.

Armstrong also produced and starred in an autobiographical film, Keep Punching (1939), playing a boxer named Henry Jackson. In 1942, Armstrong had a series of wins against world champions, such as Fritzie Zivic (in a nontitle bout), Lew Jenkins, and Juan Zurita. The following year Armstrong won bouts against world champions Tippy Larkin and Sammy Angott but lost to Beau Jack and Sugar Ray Robinson. In 1945, Armstrong decided to retire from boxing. He had earned well during his boxing career, but he discovered that most of it had disappeared because of financial mismanagement and high living. During the late 1940’s he traveled in Asia with Raft to entertain U.S. troops. Armstrong then became a boxing manager, but his drinking problem led to his arrest in Los Angeles.

In 1949, Armstrong underwent a religious conversion and finally fulfilled the dreams of his mother and his grandmother by being ordained as a Baptist minister in 1951. The following year he founded the Henry Armstrong Youth Center to help underprivileged youths. He used the proceeds from his 1956 autobiography, Gloves, Glory, and God, and a book of poetry, Twenty Years of Poems, Moods, and Meditations (1954), to fund his charitable ventures. In 1972, he returned to St. Louis and became the director of a boys club and a pastor at the First Baptist Church.

Armstrong married Willie May Shony in 1934, and the couple had a daughter. After divorcing Shony, Armstrong married Velma Tartt, his high school sweetheart from St. Louis, in 1960. She later died and, following another brief marriage, Armstrong married his fourth wife, Gussie Henry, in 1978. In later life, Armstrong suffered from cataracts and dementia, which probably resulted from the punishment he took while boxing. He died of heart failure at the age of seventy-five and was buried in Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles.

Significance

Armstrong had a unique boxing style. A strong, rhythmic puncher with a whirlwind technique, he won all but four of his twenty-six title fights and defeated sixteen world champions. His professional record was 149 wins, 21 losses, and 10 draws, with 101 knockout wins. Armstrong was an exciting fighter to watch and, as a result, was popular with the crowd. However, he also experienced barriers because of his race, and he held firm to his principles by withdrawing from bouts held in segregated arenas. Armstrong was inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame in 1954 and became a member of the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990.

Further Reading

1 

Armstrong, Henry. Gloves, Glory, and God: An Autobiography. Westwood, N.J.: Revell, 1956. In this autobiography, Armstrong discusses his life, his rise to fame, and his religious faith.

2 

Rogers, Thomas. “Henry Armstrong, Boxing Champion, Dead at Seventy-Five.” The New York Times, October 25, 1988. Obituary of Armstrong gives a thorough overview of the highlights of his career.

3 

Sugar, Bert Randolph. Boxing’s Greatest Fighters. Guilford, Conn.: Lyons Press, 2006. Written by a boxing writer, this book presents an authoritative look at Armstrong’s career and ranks him as the second greatest fighter of all time.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Ayorinde, Christine. "Henry Armstrong." Great Lives from History: African Americans, edited by Carl L. Bankston, Salem Press, 2011. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=GLAA_102558002990.
APA 7th
Ayorinde, C. (2011). Henry Armstrong. In C. L. Bankston (Ed.), Great Lives from History: African Americans. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Ayorinde, Christine. "Henry Armstrong." Edited by Carl L. Bankston. Great Lives from History: African Americans. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2011. Accessed October 22, 2025. online.salempress.com.