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Past Boxer Bobby Dykes Died at 77

Bobby Dykes, one of the best boxers of the 1940s and 1950s, a boxer who had the chance to fight both Kid Gavilan and Suger Ray Robinson, died on Wednesday in his Coral Gables home at 77. Dykes was suffering from Lou Gehrig`s disease for the past eight years and was finally overtaken by his illness.

Dykes arrived in Miami at the late 1940s after leaving his born place, San Antonio. In those days, Boxing was the hottest thing in Miami, and Dykes was the most popular fighter in the Area. "He remains the biggest drawing card in Miami boxing history," boxing historian Hank Kaplan said. Dykes worked his way up through the boxing world and earned his title fight against welterweight champion Kid Gavilan on Feb 1952. The fight will be remembered as the first fight between white and black boxers in then-segregated Miami.

"I got a few death threats," Dykes told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in 2000. "That was when blacks went to the back of the bus. Two whites could fight and two blacks could fight, but not a black and a white. They told me, `Bobby, you`re giving up your heritage by fighting a black.` It was a big thing in those days."