Print based on a photograph of Harris Martin, 1887. Original caption: “Harris Martin, the Black Pearl, a Famous Boxer of St. Paul, Minnesota.” Police Gazette (New York), June 4, 1887, page 13.
Harris Martin, also known as George Harris, was a middleweight boxer who went by the moniker “the Black Pearl.” In 1887 he became the first Colored Middleweight Champion of the World in a fight staged on the banks of the Mississippi, making him one of the most famous boxers of the period.