Lizzie Somers Challenged by Nellie Malloy – 1890

Source/written by:

CATHY VAN INGEN, PhD,
Department  of Kinesiology Brock University
“Seeing What Frames Our Seeing”:
Seeking Histories on Early Black Female Boxers
Full Article on Cathy Van Ingen’s Research:  Link – PDF

EXCERPT :  “Seeing What Frames Our Seeing”: Seeking Histories on Early Black

 In 1890, New York’s Lizzie Somers was challenged  by Nellie Malloy to meet at the Police Gazette office to make the arrangements for the two to engage in a prizefight. Both women were white and claimed to be champion female pugilists at 114 pounds. Lizzie Somers, twenty years old, is described as a “very graceful blond” who is “clever with her hands” and who can take some punishment as well as administer  it.63  Somers is offered a fight to the finish for between $200-$500 a side by Malloy.64 While preparing for the match, Somers’ trainer claims to have her walk twelve miles in the morning and again in the afternoon.

He also states that every night Somers engages “in a four-round fight with a negress, twenty pounds heavier, and beats the negro girl every time.”65 This brief men- tion of an unnamed young black woman who serves as a sparring partner for Somers and who presumably takes more than she gives is an ignored and troubling aspect of boxing history.

The earliest history of the black male prizefighter typically chronicles the heroic story of men like Thomas Molineaux, the American slave who “earns” his freedom in the ring or battle royals where young men, like Jack Johnson, fought often bare knuckled and blind folded, for the pleasure and ridicule of whites. This single journalistic entry of “the negro girl,” who is beat every time by the white Somers, reveals a largely unknown racialized history of women’s boxing that is equally violent and punishing.