Henry Armstrong (1912-1988) became the first boxer in history to hold world titles in three separate weight classes at the same time. After retiring from boxing, Armstrong became an ordained Baptist minister, working with disadvantaged youth. He also wrote the autobiographical God, Gloves, and Glory (1956).

Born Henry Jackson, Jr., on December 12, 1912, in Columbus, Mississippi, Armstrong was the eleventh of the family's 15 children. His early childhood was spent on a plantation owned by Armstrong's grandfather, an Irishman who had married one of his slaves. His father, Henry Jackson, Sr., was a sharecropper and a butcher. His mother, America (Armstrong) Jackson was an Iroquois Indian. When Armstrong was four years old, his father moved the family to St. Louis, where he and Armstrong's older brothers found work at the Independent Packing Company. Armstrong's mother died of consumption in 1918, leaving the six-year-old under the care of his paternal grandmother. Like his...