Boxer, soldier, autobiographer; born 06 May 1937 in Delawanna, New Jersey, United States; member of the Eleventh Airborne, sent to Germany, learned to box and won the European Light Welterweight Championship; discharged from the army (1956); professional fighter, fought Joey Giardello for the middleweight championship (1964); convicted of triple homicide and sentenced to life imprisonment (1967); protested the verdict while at Trenton State Prison and wrote his autobiography, The Sixteenth Round (1974); charges against him were officially dismissed (1988); moved to Toronto (1989); was appointed executive director of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted; died 20 April 2014 in Toronto, Canada)-found: African American National Biography, accessed January 14, 2015