Jack Johnson courted controversy. A century on, America’s first black superstar still splits opinion

Spurred on by campaigning film-maker Ken Burns, whose 2005 documentary Unforgivable Blackness charts the boxer’s life, and the sponsorship of boxing aficionado Senator John McCain, that end now looks to be within reach, with Senate and Congress having given their seal of approval.

But fevered debate in cyberspace over President Obama’s silence on the matter, coupled with reactions to Jenkins’ blunder, have served as a reminder of just how deeply Johnson’s career divided America, and how issues of race continue to 
trouble boxing to this day.

By the time London – a man of the political left – was citing the white man’s “30 centuries of traditions ... all the supreme efforts, the inventions and the conquests” as evidence of his racial supremacy,
Johnson, the son of freed Texan slaves, had won dozens of fights against black and white opponents.

Already World Coloured Heavyweight Champion, in 1908 he took the belt that mattered from Canada’s Tommy Burns. Revelling in his status as America’s first black superstar, he then laid waste to several challengers before James J Jeffries, who had refused to fight Johnson and retired undefeated in 1904, agreed to a comeback “for the sole purpose of proving that a white man is better than a Negro”.

When they eventually fought, in Reno, Nevada, in 1910, (pictured), the ringside band played a song called “All c**** look alike to me” and an all-white crowd chanted “Kill the n*****”. But Johnson, faster, stronger and smarter than his opponent, knocked him down twice before Jeffries’ minders called time after 15 rounds in order to avoid a knock-out. His title now undisputed, Johnson walked off with $225,000 and black America erupted in spontaneous rejoicing.

In more than 50 cities, however, there were riots, as the celebrations drew a violent response from white mobs. At least 20 people were killed in what was the most widespread racial turbulence the US would see until after the 1968 assassination of Dr Martin Luther King.

The day after the fight the Los Angeles Times intoned: “A word to the Black Man... No man will think a bit higher of you because your complexion is the same as that of your victor at Reno.”

Johnson, meanwhile, refused to condemn his fellow blacks for having “provoked” whites and was not forgiven; two years later he became the first person to be prosecuted under the Mann Act, which forbade the transportation of women across state lines “for immoral purposes” and was designed to stop the “white slave” trade in prostitutes. The charge involved a young white prostitute, Lucille Cameron, whom Johnson subsequently married. She refused to co-operate and the case fell apart, but another prostitute with whom he had been involved four years previously testified against him and the authorities got their man. He was sentenced to a year and a day in jail but chose to flee, first to Europe and then to Mexico, before surrendering seven years later and serving 10 months.

While in exile Johnson lost his title to Jess Willard in Havana after being knocked out in the 26th round. He tried to resurrect his fighting career on his release from jail, but Jack Dempsey, heavy-weight champion from 1919 until 1926, refused to fight him, and in 1928 he retired, aged 50, having lost seven of his last nine bouts but with an overall record of 91-14-12. In 1946, he died in a car crash after racing away from a diner in which he had been refused service.

The recent resolution on Capitol Hill stated that “the racially motivated conviction in 1913... unduly tarnished his [Johnson’s] reputation”. Others, though, deny this version of events. In April the Chicago Daily Observer noted that Johnson certainly violated the spirit, if not the letter of the law, “as he openly consorted with prostitutes” and even bankrolled a brothel madam.

Like Muhammad Ali half a century later, Johnson made boxing an act of defiance and he was loved and hated for it in equal measure. He refused to know his place in white man’s America, lived his life as he saw fit and courted controversy by marrying three white women. The first, a Brooklyn socialite named Etta Duryea, he beat up several times. The second, Cameron, he wed less than three months after Duryea’s suicide. Johnson’s career unfolded against the backdrop of religious revival in America, but there are few yardsticks by which he could be judged a saint.

Some have argued that a pardon is an empty gesture and that it is too late to do “the right thing”. Others go further, resenting the impugnation of the whole of white society at the time, pointing to Bernard Hopkins’ outburst before he fought Joe Calzaghe in 2007: “I would never let a white boy beat me... ” as evidence that boxing is a sport in which race seems still to count and in which racism cuts in various directions.

Johnson wrote in his autobiography that he had been determined to “act as if prejudice does not exist”. Obama has been clear that it did, and does. Whether that’s enough for him to see a pardon as meaningful remains to be seen.

KANSAS Congresswoman Lynn Jenkins’ timing really couldn’t have been any worse when, in August, she called on a “great white hope” to emerge from Republican ranks and challenge Barack Obama.

She hadn’t been aware, she later claimed, of the origins of a phrase that was first used by Call of the Wild writer Jack London in 1908, willing the restoration of white ascendancy after Jack Johnson had the audacity to become the first black heavyweight champion of the world.

Her gaffe was made all the worse, though, by the fact she had recently voted in favour of a resolution calling for Johnson – sent to prison on dubious charges in 1913 after putting several “great white hopes” in the shade – to be given a presidential pardon.

Spurred on by campaigning film-maker Ken Burns, whose 2005 documentary Unforgivable Blackness charts the boxer’s life, and the sponsorship of boxing aficionado Senator John McCain, that end now looks to be within reach, with Senate and Congress having given their seal of approval.

But fevered debate in cyberspace over President Obama’s silence on the matter, coupled with reactions to Jenkins’ blunder, have served as a reminder of just how deeply Johnson’s career divided America, and how issues of race continue to trouble boxing to this day.

By the time London – a man of the political left – was citing the white man’s “30 centuries of traditions ... all the supreme efforts, the inventions and the conquests” as evidence of his racial supremacy, Johnson, the son of freed Texan slaves, had won dozens of fights against black and white opponents.

Already World Coloured Heavyweight Champion, in 1908 he took the belt that mattered from Canada’s Tommy Burns. Revelling in his status as America’s first black superstar, he then laid waste to several challengers before James J Jeffries, who had refused to fight Johnson and retired undefeated in 1904, agreed to a comeback “for the sole purpose of proving that a white man is better than a Negro”.

When they eventually fought, in Reno, Nevada, in 1910, the ringside band played a song called “All c**** look alike to me” and an all-white crowd chanted “Kill the n*****”. But Johnson, faster, stronger and smarter than his opponent, knocked him down twice before Jeffries’ minders called time after 15 rounds in order to avoid a knock-out. His title now undisputed, Johnson walked off with $225,000 and black America erupted in spontaneous rejoicing.

In more than 50 cities, however, there were riots, as the celebrations drew a violent response from white mobs. At least 20 people were killed in what was the most widespread racial turbulence the US would see until after the 1968 assassination of Dr Martin Luther King.

The day after the fight the Los Angeles Times intoned: “A word to the Black Man... No man will think a bit higher of you because your complexion is the same as that of your victor at Reno.”

Johnson, meanwhile, refused to condemn his fellow blacks for having “provoked” whites and was not forgiven; two years later he became the first person to be prosecuted under the Mann Act, which forbade the transportation of women across state lines “for immoral purposes” and was designed to stop the “white slave” trade in prostitutes. The charge involved a young white prostitute, Lucille Cameron, whom Johnson subsequently married. She refused to co-operate and the case fell apart, but another prostitute with whom he had been involved four years previously testified against him and the authorities got their man. He was sentenced to a year and a day in jail but chose to flee, first to Europe and then to Mexico, before surrendering seven years later and serving 10 months.

While in exile Johnson lost his title to Jess Willard in Havana after being knocked out in the 26th round. He tried to resurrect his fighting career on his release from jail, but Jack Dempsey, heavy-weight champion from 1919 until 1926, refused to fight him, and in 1928 he retired, aged 50, having lost seven of his last nine bouts but with an overall record of 91-14-12. In 1946, he died in a car crash after racing away from a diner in which he had been refused service.

The recent resolution on Capitol Hill stated that “the racially motivated conviction in 1913... unduly tarnished his [Johnson’s] reputation”. Others, though, deny this version of events. In April the Chicago Daily Observer noted that Johnson certainly violated the spirit, if not the letter of the law, “as he openly consorted with prostitutes” and even bankrolled a brothel madam.

Like Muhammad Ali half a century later, Johnson made boxing an act of defiance and he was loved and hated for it in equal measure. He refused to know his place in white man’s America, lived his life as he saw fit and courted controversy by marrying three white women. The first, a Brooklyn socialite named Etta Duryea, he beat up several times. The second, Cameron, he wed less than three months after Duryea’s suicide. Johnson’s career unfolded against the backdrop of religious revival in America, but there are few yardsticks by which he could be judged a saint.

Some have argued that a pardon is an empty gesture and that it is too late to do “the right thing”. Others go further, resenting the impugnation of the whole of white society at the time, pointing to Bernard Hopkins’ outburst before he fought Joe Calzaghe in 2007: “I would never let a white boy beat me... ” as evidence that boxing is a sport in which race seems still to count and in which racism cuts in various directions.

Johnson wrote in his autobiography that he had been determined to “act as if prejudice does not exist”. Obama has been clear that it did, and does. Whether that’s enough for him to see a pardon as meaningful remains to be seen.