Hailed by Muhammad Ali as “the king, the master, my idol,” Sugar Ray Robinson was the greatest boxer America had seen since Joe Louis and is considered by many to be the best boxer the sport has ever known. With his graceful yet powerful style he embodied the very essence of the Sweet Science. After a short-term retirement, he finally hung up his boxing gloves for good in 1965 at the age of forty-four but not without setting the world ablaze, particularly in his early and middle years.

His successes were not his alone, however. They belonged to his family as well, though those relationships would be marked by neglect and abuse. And at a time still characterized by discrimination, his victories, like those of Jackie Robinson, represented victories for all black America. And they were all the more symbolic because of the place he chose to call home—Harlem. Co-written with Robinson’s son, Ray Robison II, and thoroughly researched by Amsterdam News reporter Herb Boyd, Pound for Pound, is not only a definitive portrait of an emotionally complex man and his family, it is a portrait of Harlem in the acme of its creativity.