Robinson wouldn't go by his birth name for the rest of his career. For the first bout of his career in 1936, he borrowed the Amateur Athletic Union card of another boxer, whose name was Ray Robinson, to enter the ring.

It didn't take much for Robinson, who'd been a neighbor of heavyweight champ Joe Louis back in Detroit, to strap on fighting gloves.

With little money - Robinson helped his mother save for an apartment by earning change dancing for strangers in Times Square - the Smiths built their new life in a section of Harlem dominated by flophouses and gangsters.įearful that her son would get pulled into this shady world, Robinson's mother turned to the Salem Methodist Episcopal Church, where a man by the name of George Gainford had just started a boxing club.

What is known is that Robinson grew up in Detroit, and he was 11 years old when his mother, tired of her husband's absence from the family's life, up and left the city, moving herself, her son and two daughters to Harlem.īut New York proved rough in other ways. Robinson's birth certificate lists his place of birth as Ailey, Georgia, while the boxer stated in his autobiography that he was born in Detroit, Michigan. on May 3, 1921, although the location is a source of debate. He finished his career in 1965 with 175 victories. Over his 25-year career, Robinson won the world welterweight and middleweight crowns and was dubbed 'pound for pound, the best.' By 1958, he had become the first boxer to win a divisional world championship five times. Sugar Ray Robinson turned pro in 1940 and won his first 40 fights.

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