The Bout

Interracial boxing matches were banned in Texas. One man slugged his way into the ring anyway. The never-before-told full story of the fight that changed history.

The mingled smell of stale popcorn, beer and tobacco clung to the octagon–shaped interior. The 4,500-seat barn-like Sportatorium, south of downtown Dallas, was a beloved venue for wrestling shows and country music programs and, tonight, a one-of-a-kind boxing match.

For the last few years this was the site of the weekly Big D Jamboree, a Saturday night country music radio show broadcast across the country by KRLD over the CBS network. Established and rising stars from the Grand Ole Opry like Hank Williams, Sonny James and Johnny Cash would take the stage that sat at the center of the arena.

The Sportatorium had seen audiences even bigger than the nearly 2,400 gathered here on February 24, 1955, but maybe never one so rapt.

And the Sportatorium had never seated an audience so evenly distributed between black and white…