BoxRec

It seems to me that during the 30's when Joe Louis reigned, there were no legitimate black heavyweight contenders. John Henry Lewis the great lightheavy was given a shot, but only becasue Louis was his friend and wanted him to have a good pay day.
Was it because he was discouraged too, lest a black heavyweight champ not as docile as Louis won the title and evoked memories of Jack Johnson?
Or was it simply but absurdly, just the fact that there were no good black contenders ast that time?
In the era before and after there was a plethora of talented black heavyweights. Its hard for me to believe that the talent well just dried up.
What do you all think?

there were a lot of great black heavyweights like jimmy bivins, lyoyd marshall, tiger jack foxx etc

They werent really heavyweights. the fought their best at lightheavy.

Most of them were not allowed to fight or get fights that mattered. It was a race thing.

There were plenty of good black heavyweights during the 1930s that just didn't get a shot...George Godfrey, Jack Trammell, "Tiger" Jack Fox (Though he was more of a light hvy), Larry Gains, Lem Franklin (But he wasn't really ready until around 1941), Bearcat Wright, Al Gainer (Another lt. hvy that competed well against heavyweights), Leroy Haynes, Billy Jones (Another successful Lt. Hvy) and Unknown Winston...to name a few, but no one, black or white was in the same class as Joe Louis.