Boxing Pioneer Dies

I.H. “Sporty” Harvey, the first black boxer to legally oppose a white fighter in a Texas bout, has died after a long illness in Los Angeles. He was 71.

The Texas-born boxer was the subject of a 1954 lawsuit over interracial boxing. He sued the state commissioner of labor statistics for permission to fight a white boxer, Buddy Truman, and to block enforcement of a Texas law that prohibited interracial bouts. He lost at the trial-court level, but won on appeal.

Former World Boxing Association champion Joey Gamache has been charged with assault in a complaint lodged by a woman living at the same address, police in Lewiston, Maine, said.

Gamache was arrested and charged with the misdemeanor early Friday morning, according to Lewiston police Sgt. Mark Watson. The 31-year-old boxer, a former lightweight and junior lightweight champion, is tentatively scheduled to appear in court July 30.