Johnson, Jack (1878–1946), prizefighter, world heavyweight
boxing champion from 1908 to 1915.John Arthur Johnson was born to former slaves in Galveston, Texas, just as
Reconstruction ended and he came of age in the Jim Crow Era of rigid racial
segregation. In boxing, the color line was firmly drawn. Although Johnson had established himself as an accomplished boxer by 1902, white heavyweight champions Jim Jeffries, Robert Fitzsimmons, and Tommy Burns refused to fight him. But Johnson persisted, allegedly following Burns all over the world until Burns in 1908 agreed to fight in Sydney, Australia. In the fourteenth round, with Burns defenseless, police stopped the fight.
Johnson's championship sparked a wave of antiblack hostility. For the next several years, he flaunted his wealth and fame. Not only was Johnson the heavyweight champion—and defiantly so—but he violated the ultimate racial taboo by conducting relationships with white women, eventually marrying two. The search for the “great white hope” was on. After Johnson disposed of a handful of opponents, former champion Jim Jeffries came out of retirement in 1910, proposing to uphold the honor of “that portion of the white race that has been looking to me to defend its athletic superiority.” Johnson easily defeated him, touching off race riots.
Meanwhile, federal authorities began to compile a dossier on Johnson. Under the Mann Act of 1910, he was convicted of transporting a woman across state lines for sexual purposes. In 1913, Johnson fled the country to escape imprisonment. He lost his title to Jess Willard in Cuba in 1915, remained abroad until 1920, then returned to serve eight months in federal prison in Leavenworth, Kansas. He continued to fight until age fifty, worked as an entertainer, and died in a car crash in 1946. Considered by many the greatest boxer of all time, Johnson also came to symbolize racial relations in a singularly racist era.
See also
African Americans;
Prostitution and Antiprostitution;
Racism;
Sports: Professional Sports.
Bibliography
Randy Roberts , Papa Jack: Jack Johnson and the Era of White Hopes, 1983.
Elliott J. Gorn
