Editor's note: This story is part of Southwest Michigan's Second Wave's On the Ground Kalamazoo series.

KALAMAZOO, MI — The pros might fight dirty. But boxing can not only be a ruthless sport, it can also be a discipline that teaches fighters confidence and persistence.

The Institute of Public Scholarship presented their third "Remembering the Block" talk on May 21 about the Kalamazoo Boxing Academy. Kalamazoo boxers Glenn Ford and Curtis Issac talked about their time learning boxing and learning self-respect from the co-founder, Henry Grooms. 

The Institute, at 313 N. Burdick, has been taking a look at the history of its neighborhood, with talks on former bars and record stores, and on the original locations of Sarkozy's bakery and Bells Brewery.

The Kalamazoo Boxing Academy was where the Kalamazoo Valley Museum now stands. Ford and Isaac were members of the Academy in its '70s heyday, when every kid wanted to be Muhammad Ali or Leon Spinks — two of the many pros who visited the gym on the north end of the Kalamazoo Mall.

They shared their memories. Some of the memories are painful. 

"Broken bone, broken bone, broken bone," Ford says as he points to various finger and hand bones in his right hand. He points out that his face isn't quite symmetrical. "If you look at me like this, I got two different profiles."

"These are some of the downfalls of boxing," he says.

Glenn Ford and Curtis Isaac, Kalamazoo amateur boxer who were trained at the Kalamazoo Boxing Academy. They spoke on their early days at the Academy in the 1970s. He tells how he broke his thumb on Vonzell Johnson's forehead. 

Johnson was a professional who had a streak of wins until later falling to Michael Spinks in Atlantic City in '81. Ford, an amateur fighter, was still angry about a previous time when Johnson landed a "dirty punch" on him. 

"So we're sparring. I caught the right situation, there it was. Wow! I hit him so hard," Ford says, swinging his fist in slow motion. "I missed, I caught him right here," he points to his forehead, "broke my thumb."

Michelle Johnson, CEO of the Institute, asks Ford if he learned anything from the pros whom Ford, a young amateur boxer at the time, sparred.

"I learned a lot of them had dirty tricks," Ford says with a laugh in his voice. "Muhammad Ali was dirty. All of them were dirty." 

Grooms, co-founder of the Academy with trainer Eddie Bridges, was also a boxing manager and promoter. Grooms brought in his pros and other visiting boxers to practice with — or maybe on — the Kalamazoo boxers. 

"Glenn, I want you to go in there," Ford says Grooms would tell him, 'And I want you to make them fall into the ropes."

Ford's bad blood with Johnson began in a regular sparring match. "I was getting on his case in the ring," Ford says.

Johnson retaliated by hitting him with a hard "dirty hook," driving his fist thumb-first into Ford's eye. "I couldn't spar for a couple of weeks because of that."

But outside of a fight, Ford said of the pros, "Them kind of guys, you could talk to just like your brother or one of your best friends... They were trying to help you as much as they could."

At the Academy, there were also professional trainers, who trained the pros, and "they trained us amateurs, too."

Henry Grooms

Grooms was not at the talk, but he was a big spirit in the room.

Isaac, now a longtime boxing coach for Kalamazoo youth, says he got into coaching because of Grooms. 

Grooms pushed the young Kalamazoo boxers and also taught them confidence and to never give up, Ford and Isaac say.

Courtesy: Kalamazoo Valley MuseumThe Kalamazoo Boxing Academy, located where the Kalamazoo Valley Museum is today, was considered a state-of-the-art facility. Kalamazoo youth were able to spar with professionals there. Grooms showed it by example. In the early days of the Academy, the boxers had no real home — Isaac remembers boxing as a teen in a barn in Mattawan with Ford — so Grooms made it his mission to raise money for a real gym. 

Issac and Ford describe Grooms as constantly visiting the offices of Upjohn's Ted Parfet, the Gilmores, and other moneyed Kalamazoo benefactors until he got funding for the gym.

"The gym was fabulous," Ford says. It had staff from "professional trainers out of Detroit" to "a guy that ran the equipment room." 

It was a state-of-the-art facility, open for youth of all races, to help them get off the street and work out their aggression in a positive manner. 

But it was the 1970s, and the racial attitudes around boxing "were so weird," Isaac says — meaning it got weird mainly at the public fights. 

In Kalamazoo, "We were the guys," the Black fighters from the Academy who were popular with everyone. But Isaac recalled a match against a white fighter at Read Fieldhouse, where close white friends of Isaac rooted for his opponent.

"If we fought against a white fighter — a lot of Blacks didn't go to fights. They didn't have no money to go," Isaac says. So they had mostly white boxing fans in the audience. "And they supported us — I mean, as long as we wasn't fighting a white guy." 

But at the Academy, "Everybody loved each other. There was no Black or white there," Isaac says.

Courtesy: Kalamazoo Valley MuseumAcademy co-founder Henry Grooms. Isaac says, "Henry was a Black man that a young Black man would look at, and they wanted to be him. Because he had so much confidence and he showed no signs of weakness."Inside seemed a different world because of Grooms, Isaac says. "Henry was a Black man that a young Black man would look at, and they wanted to be him. Because he had so much confidence, and he showed no signs of weakness."

Grooms had been in law enforcement, had been a sheriff's deputy and a prison guard, so he carried an air of authority — which Issac illustrated with a story of a cheap pair of shoes.

Grooms helped Issac get a job delivering furniture. "My first check, I went out and bought some shoes," he says.

"I was a big ol' country boy, I didn't know the value of clothes." Young Isaac bought the first thing that looked fashionable at the time, high-heeled shoes in the window of the Payless on the Kalamazoo Mall.

"I had this big afro, and I had these shoes, and I thought I was a pretty cool guy," he says.

Issac showed off the shoes to a friend who knew clothes. The friend took a close look at one, broke the heel off easily, and told him, "You got took. Take these shoes and get your money back."

Isaac did so, and the clerk said, "You're not getting the money back," and blew cigarette smoke in Isaac's face.

He walked back to the gym. Grooms saw he was upset, asked to see the shoes, then took Isaac for a walk back down the Mall.

Grooms told the clerk, "You took my man's money." 

The clerk refused to give a refund.

"And I'll never forget this as long as I live," Isaac says. "He took his fist, and he hit the counter."

"You're going to give him the money back, or you’re going to pay," Grooms said.

"Oh, boy. He's going to kill this man, and we're going to jail!" Isaac says he thought. 

The clerk called the police. Officers quickly arrived, "Henry just stood there. Police looked at Henry. They said, 'How you doing, Henry?"

The clerk wanted to press charges. Grooms said, "This guy took my fighter's money for those raggedy shoes."

There was an exchange of looks between Grooms, the police, and the clerk. An officer said, "What I suggest you do is give his fighter the money."

Isaac got a refund. "The next day, that guy was fired," he says.

The Academy was where they learned to fight, but more importantly, it was where they learned to stand up for themselves.

"Boxing teaches you confidence," Ford says. 

Trainers and coaches told the youth, "We're not teaching you this to be out on the streets fighting," he says. 

But knowing how to give and take a punch in the ring, and learning the self-discipline to train and stay fit, makes "a kid (who) walks around like this" — Ford stood and walked slouched with his head down -- "walk like this," he says, head up, shoulders back. 

(Video of the full talk can be found here.)

Local and Michigan history

The Institute looks at local history and, sometimes, Michigan history. Second Wave wasn't able to attend "Paradise," their talk on Black resorts in Michigan, held the day after the Academy talk, but were lucky to have a one-on-one chat with Carlean Gill, who had just arrived at the Institute from her home in Dallas, Texas.

The Idlewild resort, near Baldwin, was born out of the segregationist Jim Crow era in 1912 to cater to vacationing African-Americans who’d be unwelcome and unsafe in most other parts of the country. 

Gill had come from Detroit, where she was "rubbing shoulders" with Marvin Gaye and Diana Ross. The rural Northern Michigan setting might've felt different, but the culture made her feel at home.

Mark WedelCarlean Gill talks with Second Wave about her time as a performer with Arthur Bragg's Idlewild Revue.Gill became a showgirl at Idlewild's Paradise Club in the '60s, with Arthur Bragg's Idlewild Revue. (To see a photo of Gill back then, click here.) For a cover of $2.75, one could rock to a 16-piece band, surrounded by parading showgirls in sexy New York-designed outfits, a large troupe of dancers — "they called them the 'hoofers'" -- and visiting stars of the day, she says. "Jackie Wilson, Etta James, Aretha Franklin, Bill Doggett, Arthur Prysock, Dinah Washington  -- all of them!"

When Idlewild closed down after the summer season, they'd go on the road on "the Black circuit," play venues such as the Apollo Theatre in New York, she says. She spoke as if it was just another day at work, running into Harry Belafonte backstage at a theatre in Toronto— stories that Gill would likely expound upon the next night at the Institute.

(Video of the “Paradise” talk can be found here and here.)


The next "Remembering the Block" will be "Pride on the Block,” a talk on the 16-year history of the Kalamazoo Pride celebration. The Institute will partner with OutFront and talk with organizers about Kalamazoo’s LGBTQ+ community.