Editing Joe Louis (section)

==Early life==
Born on May 13, 1914, in rural [[Chambers County, Alabama]]—in a ramshackle dwelling on Bell Chapel Road, located about {{convert|1|mi|km|0|abbr=off}} off [[Alabama State Route 50|State Route 50]] and roughly {{convert|6|mi|km|0|abbr=off}} from [[LaFayette, Alabama|LaFayette]]—Louis was the seventh of eight children of Munroe Barrow and Lillie (Reese) Barrow.<ref name="Bakp6">[[#Bak|Bak]], p. 6.</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Bell Chapel Rd |date=January 1, 1970 |title=bell chapel road lafayette alaBAMA – Google Maps |url=http://maps.google.ie/maps?hl=en&q=bell+chapel+road+lafayette+alaBAMA&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Bell+Chapel+Rd,+La+Fayette,+Alabama+36862,+United+States&gl=ie&sqi=2&ll=32.860736,-85.33154&spn=0.028082,0.062699&t=h&z=15 |access-date=December 31, 2013 |publisher=Google Maps}}</ref> He weighed {{convert|11|lb|0}} at birth.<ref name=Bakp6/>  Both of his parents were children of former slaves, alternating between [[sharecropping]] and rental farming.<ref name="Bakp5">[[#Bak|Bak]], p. 5.</ref>

Louis suffered from a [[Speech disorder|speech impediment]] and spoke very little until about the age of six.<ref>[[#Bak|Bak]], pp. 6–7.</ref> Munroe Barrow was committed to a mental institution in 1916 and, as a result, Joe knew very little of his biological father.<ref>[[#Bak|Bak]], p. 7.</ref> Around 1920, Louis's mother married Pat Brooks, a local construction contractor, having received word that Munroe Barrow had died while institutionalized (in reality, Munroe Barrow lived until 1938, unaware of his son's fame).<ref>[[#Bak|Bak]], pp. 7–8.</ref>

In 1926, shaken by a gang of white men in the [[Ku Klux Klan]], Louis's family moved to [[Detroit]], [[Michigan]], forming part of the post-[[World War I|World&nbsp;War&nbsp;I]] [[Great Migration (African American)|Great Migration]].<ref>[[#Bak|Bak]], p. 11.</ref><ref>[[#Erenberg|Erenberg]], p. 23.</ref> Joe's brother worked for [[Ford Motor Company]] (where Joe would himself work for a time at the [[River Rouge Plant]])<ref name=arlington/> and the family settled into a home at 2700 Catherine (now Madison) Street in Detroit's [[Black Bottom, Detroit|Black Bottom]] neighborhood.<ref>[[#Bak|Bak]], pp. 13–14.</ref><ref name="Great Black Heroes">{{Cite web |date=August 24, 2020 |title=Joe Louis |url=https://www.greatblackheroes.com/sports/joe-louis/ |website=Great Black Heroes |publisher=Adscape International, LLC}}</ref>

Louis attended Bronson Vocational School for a time to learn cabinet-making.<ref name=arlington/><ref name="Great Black Heroes" />