This is Jack Johnson, the very first Black Heavyweight in America paid EXCELLENT money to beat up a racist white man in front of 20,000 people.
(Which must have felt pretty great, I imagine.)
Would you like to learn more?
Well, I tell you what, let’s cut and paste his wiki page around some photographs from a hundred years ago and we’ll have a nice little talk at the bottom, yeah?
(not for nothing, but this guy looks like a fucking Oscar statue.)
John Arthur (“Jack”) Johnson (March 31, 1878 – June 10, 1946), nicknamed the “Galveston Giant,” was an American boxer. At the height of the Jim Crow era, Johnson became the first African American world heavyweight boxing champion (1908–1915). In a documentary about his life, Ken Burns notes, “for more than thirteen years, Jack Johnson was the most famous and the most notorious African-American on Earth.” Johnson attests that his success in boxing came from the coaching he received from Joe Choynski, who became his cellmate after the pair were arrested for fighting in Texas; where boxing was illegal at the time. The aging Choynski saw natural talent and determination in Johnson and taught him the nuances of defense; stating “A man who can move like you should never have to take a punch”.
Early life
Johnson was born in Galveston, Texas, the second child and first son of Henry and Tina “Tiny” Johnson, former slaves who worked at blue-collar jobs to raise six children and taught them how to read and write. Henry Johnson traced his ancestry back to the Coromantees who came from modern-day Ghana. Johnson dropped out of school after just five or six years of education to get a job as a dock worker in Galveston.
Johnson fought the aging Joe Choynski, who knocked him out, but whilst they spent time after the fight in prison together, talked much about boxing. There is a photo existing of them both behind bars. Joe, who also became his friend and sparring partner, taught him a lot. Johnson’s boxing style was very distinctive. He developed a more patient approach than was customary in that day, basically playing with his opponents, often carrying on a conversation with ringsiders at the same time as he was fighting. Johnson would begin a bout cautiously, slowly building up over the rounds into a more aggressive fighter. When annoyed, he often fought to punish his opponents rather than knock them out, endlessly avoiding their blows and striking with swift counters. He always gave the impression of having much more to offer and, if pushed, he could punch powerfully. There are films of some of his fights in which he can be seen holding up his opponent, who otherwise might have fallen, until he recovered. Those were the days when the (mostly white) patrons liked value for money, and it was a habit, especially for black boxers, to make the fight last a respectable time. With the many bouts a fighter engaged in, it was commonplace to have fought the same opponent as many as a dozen or even more times. So it is highly likely that the results of many of these fights were “pre-arranged,” and also pre-determined to last a goodly number of rounds.
Johnson’s style was very effective, but it was criticized in the press as being cowardly and devious. By contrast, world heavyweight champion “Gentleman” Jim Corbett had used many of the same techniques a decade earlier, and was praised by the press as “the cleverest man in boxing.”
By 1902, Johnson had won at least 50 fights against both white and black opponents. Johnson won his first title on February 3, 1903, beating “Denver” Ed Martin over 20 rounds for the World Colored Heavyweight Championship. His efforts to win the full title were thwarted, as world heavyweight champion James J. Jeffries refused to face him then. Black and white boxers could meet in other competitions, but the world heavyweight championship was off limits to them. However, Johnson did fight former champion Bob Fitzsimmons in July 1907, and knocked him out in two rounds. There is a report that Johnson even fought and KO’d Jim Jeffries’ brother Jack, and taunted him about it to force a fight, with no success.
Johnson finally won the world heavyweight title on December 26, 1908, a full six years after lightweight champion Joe Gans became the first African American boxing champion. Johnson’s victory over the reigning world champion, Canadian Tommy Burns, in Sydney, Australia, came after stalking Burns around the world for two years and taunting him in the press for a match. The fight lasted fourteen rounds before being stopped by the police in front of over 20,000 spectators. The title was awarded to Johnson on a referee’s decision as a knockout.
After Johnson’s victory over Burns, racial animosity among whites ran so deep that it was called out for a “Great White Hope” to take the title away from Johnson. As title holder, Johnson thus had to face a series of fighters each billed by boxing promoters as a “great white hope,” often in exhibition matches. In 1909, he beat Frank Moran, Tony Ross, Al Kaufman, and the middleweight champion Stanley Ketchel. The match with Ketchel was originally thought to have been an exhibition, and in fact it was fought by both men that way, until the 12th round, when Ketchel threw a right to Johnson’s head, knocking him down. Quickly regaining his feet, and very annoyed, Johnson immediately dashed straight at Ketchell and threw a single punch, an uppercut, a punch for which he was famous, to Ketchel’s jaw, knocking him out. Several of Ketchell’s teeth were also knocked out with some sticking in Johnson’s glove. The filmed fight shows Johnson wiping the teeth off his glove with a smirk.
(Editor’s Note: This is why people used to love boxing. Annnnnnnd this is why people CURRENTLY love the blood sport that is MMA.)
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP BATTLE: JACK JOHNSON FIGHTS THE “GREAT WHITE HOPE”
(Would you like to hear about the fight that happened in Reno and had black people partying so hard in 25 states and over 50 cities, that the parades were officially/embarrassingly declared race riots by the local government?)
The “Fight of the Century”
In 1910, former undefeated heavyweight champion James J. Jeffries came out of retirement and said, “I feel obligated to the sporting public at least to make an effort to reclaim the heavyweight championship for the white race. . . . I should step into the ring again and demonstrate that a white man is king of them all.”[9] Jeffries had not fought in six years and had to lose well over 100 pounds to get back to his championship fighting weight. Indeed, initially Jeffries had no interest in the fight being quite happy as he was. But those who wanted to see Johnson ground into the dirt badgered him unmercifully for months, and also offered him an unheard sum of money, reputed to be about $120,000.
The fight took place on July 4, 1910 in front of 20,000 people, at a ring built just for the occasion in downtown Reno, Nevada. Johnson proved stronger and more nimble than Jeffries. In the 15th round, after Jeffries had been knocked down twice for the first time in his career, the referee stopped the fight before Jeffries could be knocked out.
The “Fight of the Century” earned Johnson $65,000 and silenced the critics, who had belittled Johnson’s previous victory over Tommy Burns as “empty,” claiming that Burns was a false champion since Jeffries had retired undefeated.
(lookin scared, bro…)
(In front of this sea of hats, we would have recommended betting like Denzel Washington at a roulette table)
Riots and aftermath
The outcome of the fight triggered race riots that evening—the Fourth of July—all across the United States, from Texas and Colorado to New York and Washington, D.C. Johnson’s victory over Jeffries had dashed white dreams of finding a “great white hope” to defeat him. Many whites felt humiliated by the defeat of Jeffries.[1]
Blacks, on the other hand, were jubilant, and celebrated Johnson’s great victory as a victory for racial advancement. Black poet William Waring Cuney later highlighted the black reaction to the fight in his poem “My Lord, What a Morning.” Around the country, blacks held spontaneous parades and gathered in prayer meetings.
Some “riots” were simply blacks celebrating in the streets. In certain cities, like Chicago, the police did not disturb the celebrations. But in other cities, the police and angry white citizens tried to subdue the revelers. Police interrupted several attempted lynchings. In all, “riots” occurred in more than 25 states and 50 cities. About 23 blacks and two whites died in the riots, and hundreds more were injured.
Personal life
Johnson was an early example of the celebrity athlete in the modern era, appearing regularly in the press and later on radio and in motion pictures. He earned considerable sums endorsing various products, including patent medicines, and indulged several expensive hobbies such as automobile racing and tailored clothing, as well as purchasing jewelry and furs for his wives. He even challenged champion racerBarney Oldfield to a match auto race at the Sheepshead Bay, New York one mile (1.6 km) dirt track. Oldfield, far more experienced, easily out-distanced Johnson, ending any thoughts the boxer might have had about becoming a professional driver.
Once, when he was pulled over for a $50 speeding ticket (a large sum at the time), he gave the officer a $100 bill; when the officer protested that he couldn’t make change for that much, Johnson told him to keep the change, as he was going to make his return trip at the same speed. Johnson was also interested in opera (his favorite being Il Trovatore) and in history — he was an admirer of Napoleon Bonaparte, believing him to have risen from a similar origin to his own. In 1920, Johnson opened a night club in Harlem; he sold it three years later to a gangster, Owney Madden, who renamed it the Cotton Club.
Johnson constantly flouted conventions regarding the social and economic “place” of blacks in American society. As a black man, he broke a powerful taboo in consorting with white women, and would constantly and arrogantly verbally taunt men (both white and black) inside and outside the ring. Johnson was pompous about his affection for white women, and imperious about his physical prowess, both in and out of the ring. Asked the secret of his staying power by a reporter who had watched a succession of women parade into, and out of, the champion’s hotel room, Johnson supposedly said “Eat jellied eels and think distant thoughts”.
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Since this is our first subject for Black History Month, we went a bit O.D. on the wiki, and I hope you can forgive that. (I just didnt feel like copy and pasting the subtitles from the Ken Burns doc, I have my limits.)
Initially, we were going to find the first black boxer, period, on record. We didnt care so much about winning and being the champ, more just that it must have felt pretty great to be paid to beat up a white guy in an auditorium, back when you’d get thrown in the electric chair for doing it on the sidewalk. (did they even have sidewalks back then? goddamn bunch of racist primitives walking around at the end of the 18th century…)
Then we got pretty excited about Johnson’s life story, and we just couldn’t get over the fact that Americans had a nationwide, front page of the newspaper, call for a “Great White Hope” to get the championship belt back for the white race. It just seemed too perfect of a time capsule for the kind of insanity that makes it so we have official “months” now for the people that we didnt use to think were people.
Fyi: EVERY single one of your ancestors were racist scumbags. Just sayin. (I dont care if you’re white or whateverrrrrrrrrr, you heard what I said. Whatever race your great-great-great-grandfather was, he was hating on some different. Thats a FACT.)
Happy February!
