World Colored Middleweight Championship

The World Colored Middleweight Championship was a title awarded to black boxers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This was the only recognized middleweight championship available to blacks prior to Tiger Flowers (5 August 1895 - 16 November 1927) winning the world middleweight boxing championship by defeating Harry Greb on 26 November 1926.

Two world colored middleweight champions, George Byer and Sam Langford, went on to win the World Colored Heavyweight Championship.

Johnny Banks, "The Darkey Wizard", claimed the Negro Middleweight Championship of the World during the 1880s. He lost in a title fight on 26 Jan 1887 in New York City to James Desverney when he was disqualified in the ninth round on a foul. (Desverney apparently never defended the title.) Banks's next fight was with future colored middleweight champ Ed Binney in Boston, in which they drew in the scheduled 13 rounds. Another three rounds were tacked onto the bout and Binney won the fight.

Harris Martin, "The Black Pearl", declared himself the world colored middleweight champion after beating "Black Frank" Taylor in Minneapolis, Minnesota on 2 May 1887, when he knocked out Taylor in the 38th or 40th round of their bout. Harris lost his title to Ed Binney on 30 November 1891 in San Francisco, California.

On 29 February 1892, The Black Pearl fought Charley Turner, "The Stockton Cyclone", in his first fight since losing the title to Binney and was defeated. Turner claimed the title but never defended it. Binney was considered the lineal champ; he had also defeated the holder of the Negro Middleweight title.

From 1912 to 1924, there was a continuous line of colored middleweight champs. The last title holder of this era was Larry Estridge, who defeated previous title holder Panama Joe Gans in a fight at Yankee Stadium on July 26, 1924. He defended the title against Gans at Queensboro Stadium in Long Island City, Queens, New York on August 11th of that year. It was his sole title defense.

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