Voice of experience … Veteran trainer Jimmy Williams with Antonio Tarver.
BOXING trainer Jimmy Williams danced around the streets of Harlem in the 1950s, when jazz music filled the air, the great civil rights movement had gained momentum and on every street corner, it seemed, there was a kid hungry to become a somebody.
As a professional dancer and not so successful part-time boxer, Williams contributed his own energy to the sense of theatre of the district, which was then home to 700,000, predominantly black, Americans.
He danced at a number of New York City's famed venues, including The Cotton Club and the Savoy Ballroom, where he rubbed shoulders with entertainers who'd become icons of American popular culture, including Sammy Davis Jr, Miles Davis, Charlie ''Yardbird'' Parker and Duke Ellington.
However, it was at Grupp's gym on 116th Street 60 years ago that Williams found his life's calling - to coach boxing, after being mesmerised by the great Sugar Ray Robinson.
''I came from a great generation,'' said Williams, his native southern drawl rich with charm. ''My generation had Jackie Robinson [the first black Major League baseballer] and Jesse Owens [hero of the 1936 Olympics]. We were a great generation … we were people trying to prove ourselves. Mine was a generation of pride and Harlem, back then, was the capital of the world.''
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