I present to you Illa Vincent, described in the Library of Congress’s online files as an “African-American wrestler,” although at the time this was published, 1910, he was most likely called Negro. I found this photograph while rooting around on the Library of Congress American Memory Web site. The photo may have been published in the Chicago Daily News, and the images (there are three or four others) reside with the Chicago Historical Society. I did a quick bit of research, on the Internet, and then over to the shelves for Arthur Ashe’s three-volume encyclopedia of black athletes called Hard Road to Glory; neither yielded any information on this man. One day I’ll call the Historical Society; maybe an archivist will have something in her files. In the meantime Illa Vincent remains without a known story, and his image one of the many jewels of the Library of Congress.
I present to you Illa Vincent, described in the Library of Congress’s online files as an “African-American wrestler,” although at the time this was published, 1910, he was most likely called Negro. I found this photograph while rooting around on the Library of Congress American Memory Web site. The photo may have been published in the Chicago Daily News, and the images (there are three or four others) reside with the Chicago Historical Society. I did a quick bit of research, on the Internet, and then over to the shelves for Arthur Ashe’s three-volume encyclopedia of black athletes called Hard Road to Glory; neither yielded any information on this man. One day I’ll call the Historical Society; maybe an archivist will have something in her files. In the meantime Illa Vincent remains without a known story, and his image one of the many jewels of the Library of Congress.
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Vincent was born and Cuba and raised in Germany and France and was known as the champion negro wrestler of the world. He work at the Chicago Pekin theater among other places.