Jack Johnson

Born on March 31, 1878, Johnson grew up in Galveston, Texas. He was the third child and eldest son among nine children born to Henry and Tina ("Tiny") Johnson, both formerly enslaved. Henry, who was disabled while serving in the Union's 38th Colored Infantry as a civilian teamster, worked as a janitor while Tiny took in washing. As a youth, Johnson associated with the racially integrated 11th Street and Avenue K gang, though he later wrote in his 1927 autobiography that he did not engage in fights before the age of 12. Remembering his childhood, Johnson said: "As I grew up, the white boys were my friends and my pals. I ate with them, played with them and slept at their homes. Their mothers gave me cookies, and I ate at their tables. No one ever taught me that white men were superior to me." Although a segregated high school for Black students was available to him, Johnson did not enroll. Instead, he entered the workforce to contribute to his family's income. He held a series of jobs, including cleaning a barbershop, working as a porter in a gambling parlor, and assisting a baker. For a time, he traveled to Dallas in search of employment and apprenticed with a carriage painter. It was there that the shop's owner, Walter Lewis, first introduced him to the sport of boxing. Johnson later said that he left home again at age 16. According to his account, he traveled to Manhattan to meet Steve Brodie, the Irish immigrant who claimed to have survived a jump from the newly completed Brooklyn Bridge in 1886. He reportedly then went on to Boston to see another of his heroes, Barbados Joe Walcott, a welterweight fighter from the West Indies. Afterward, Johnson returned to the Texas Gulf Coast and worked as a janitor, a stableboy, a hotel porter and a longshoreman. At one point, he got a job cleaning a gym and saved up enough money to buy a pair of boxing gloves. In the summer of 1895, he took part in his first significant bout, facing fellow dockworker John Lee on the beach. Johnson won both the match and the $1.50 prize. Later that summer, when professional boxer Bob Thompson offered $25 to anyone who could last four rounds with him in Galveston, Johnson accepted the challenge. He completed the four rounds but later described the prize money as "the hardest earned money of my life." ==Boxing career==

Johnson made his debut as a professional boxer on November 1, 1898, in Galveston, when he knocked out Charley Brooks in the second round of a 15-round bout. This victory gave him the Texas state middleweight title. In 1899, Johnson traveled to Chicago and began winning "battle royals", in which a half dozen or more young black men were gloved, blindfolded, and pushed into a ring where they were forced to flail at each other until only one remained standing. Johnson was the last man standing, and won $1.50, which he had to turn over to the white "manager" who had gotten him the fight. His performance attracted the attention of promoter Jack Curley and P.J. "Paddy" Carroll, who arranged for him to face Black heavyweight John "Klondike" Haynes. Johnson lost that bout in May 1899 after retiring in the fifth round. In January 1901, Carroll organized a rematch between Johnson and Klondike in Memphis. Johnson battered Klondike badly enough that he quit in the 14th round. Johnson vs. Choynski On February 25, 1901, Johnson fought Joe Choynski at Harmony Hall in Galveston, Texas. Choynski, a popular and experienced heavyweight, knocked out Johnson in the third round. As Johnson lay dazed on the canvas, authorities, including the Texas Rangers, intervened, and both fighters were arrested for participating in an illegal prizefight. They spent 23 days in jail, during which Sheriff Henry Thomas permitted spectators to gather outside and observe the men sparring. A grand jury declined to issue indictments, and the sheriff released both men on the condition that they leave town. 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". which he defended four times in the next two years. By the end of 1903, the Los Angeles Times declared that "Jack Johnson is now the logical opponent for Champion Jeffries.... The color line gag does not go now." Johnson vs. Jeanette & Langford Johnson and Joe Jeanette fought frequently between 1905 and 1908, with Johnson dominating their official matchups before winning the world heavyweight title. Often referred to as part of the "Black Heavyweight" era, they fought 7–10 times (sources vary on exact number of "no-decision" matches). After winning the heavyweight title in 1908, Johnson refused to fight Jeanette again, despite numerous challenges. Johnson fought Sam Langford once, on April 26, 1906, at the Lincoln Athletic Club in Chelsea, Massachusetts. Johnson, who outweighed Langford by 35 pounds, won easily, breaking Langford's nose and cutting his lip. Johnson said later that he had prolonged the match to 15 rounds at the request of the ring's management. Once Johnson won the heavyweight championship, he refused to give Langford a chance at the title. World heavyweight champion At the time, the heavyweight boxing champion was widely regarded as an embodiment of ideal masculinity. The prospect of an African American holding the title challenged prevailing beliefs in white superiority. Because boxing was one of the most popular sports of the era—alongside baseball and horse racing—the champion attracted significant public attention. Many white Americans opposed the idea of a Black champion receiving such prominence after defeating white opponents. As a result, Johnson encountered substantial obstacles in securing a bout with the reigning heavyweight champion. In 1904, Johnson issued a challenge to James J. Jeffries, who held the world heavyweight title at the time. However, Jeffries refused to fight an African American and retired instead. Johnson later fought former champion Bob Fitzsimmons in July 1907 and knocked him out in two rounds. 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, at the Sydney Stadium in Australia, came after following Burns around the world for two years and taunting him in the press for a match. Burns agreed to fight Johnson only after promoters guaranteed him $30,000. Burns, who was 24 pounds lighter than the 192-pound Johnson, was practically out on his feet in the 14th round when the police jumped into the ring and stopped the fight in front of over 20,000 spectators. Referee Hugh McIntosh awarded the championship to Johnson. on March 9, 1909, as the World Heavyweight Champion After Johnson's victory over Burns, racial animosity among whites ran so deep that some, including renowned American author Jack London, called for a "Great White Hope" to take the title away from Johnson. While Johnson was heavyweight champion, he was covered more in the press than all other notable black men combined. The lead-up to the bout was peppered with racist press against Johnson. An editorial in the New York Times ("Pugilists as Race Champions") expressed a concern that the fight would "have the deplorable effect of intensifying racial antagonisms and of making race problems more difficult of solution": If the black man wins, thousands and thousands of his ignorant brothers will misinterpret his victory as justifying claims to much more than mere physical equality with their white neighbors. If the negro loses, the members of his race will be taunted and irritated [provoked] because of their champion's downfall. Johnson refused to keep a low profile in the face of criticism of his color and character, and instead took on an excessively flamboyant lifestyle. He drove flashy yellow sports cars, reputedly walked his pet leopard while sipping champagne, flaunted gold teeth that went with his gold-handled walking stick, and engaged in numerous, overlapping romances with women–all of them white. As title holder, Johnson thus had to face a series of fighters each billed by boxing promoters as a "great white hope". He fought two exhibitions and three no-decisions before meeting middleweight champ Stanley Ketchel on October 16, 1909. The -pound Johnson knocked out the -pound Ketchel in the 12th round with a devastating right to the jaw, one of the hardest blows ever delivered. Five of the challenger's teeth were ripped off at the roots; Johnson can be seen on film removing them from his glove, where they had been embedded. "Fight of the Century" In 1910, former undefeated heavyweight champion James J. Jeffries came out of retirement to challenge Johnson, saying "I am going into this fight for the sole purpose of proving that a white man is better than a Negro". He had not fought in six years and he also had to lose well over 100 pounds to get back to his championship fighting weight. Efforts to persuade Jeffries to "retrieve the honor of the white race" began immediately after the Burns–Johnson fight. Initially Jeffries had no interest in the fight, being quite happy as an alfalfa farmer. On October 29, 1909, Johnson and Jeffries signed an agreement to "box for the heavyweight championship of the world" and called promoters to bid for the right to orchestrate the event. Racial tension was brewing in the lead up to the fight and to prevent any harm from coming to either boxer, guns were prohibited within the arena along with the sale of alcohol and anyone who was under the effects of alcohol. Apples and all other potential weapons were barred. Behind the racial attitudes which were being instigated by the media was a major investment in gambling for the fight, with 10–7 odds in favor of Jeffries. 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. Race riots erupted in New York, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Atlanta, St. Louis, Little Rock and Houston. In all, riots occurred in more than 25 states and 50 cities. Film of the bout The Johnson–Jeffries Fight film received more public attention in the United States than any other film to date and for the next five years, until the release of The Birth of a Nation. In the United States, many states and cities banned the exhibition of the Johnson–Jeffries film. The movement to censor Johnson's victory took over the country within three days after the fight. Two weeks after the match former President Theodore Roosevelt, an avid boxer and fan, wrote an article for The Outlook in which he supported banning not just moving pictures of boxing matches, but a complete ban on all prize fights in the US. He cited the "crookedness" and gambling that surrounded such contests and that moving pictures have "introduced a new method of money getting and of demoralization". The six fights for which the major films were made, starring Johnson, were • Johnson–Burns, released in 1908 Johnson v. Johnson When Johnson finally agreed to take on a Black opponent in late 1913, it was not Sam Langford the current colored heavyweight champion that he gave the title shot to. Instead, Johnson chose to take on Battling Jim Johnson, a lesser-known boxer who in 1910 had lost to Langford and had a draw and loss via KO to Sam McVey, the former colored champ. Battling Jim fought former colored champ Joe Jeanette four times between July 19, 1912, and January 21, 1913, and lost all four fights. The only fighter of note who he did beat during that period was the future Colored champ Big Bill Tate, whom he KO-ed in the second round of a scheduled 10-round bout. It was Tate's third pro fight. In November 1913, the International Boxing Union had declared the world heavyweight title held by Jack Johnson to be vacant. The fight, scheduled for 10 rounds, was held on December 19, 1913, in Paris. It was the first time in history that two black people had fought for the world heavyweight championship Jack Johnson, the heavyweight champion, and Battling Jim Johnson, another colored pugilist, of Galveston, Texas, met in a 10-round contest here tonight, which ended in a draw. The spectators loudly protested throughout that the men were not fighting, and demanded their money back. Many of them left the hall. The organizers of the fight explained the fiasco by asserting that Jack Johnson's left arm was broken in the third round. There is no confirmation of a report that Jack Johnson had been stabbed and no evidence at the ringside of such an accident. During the first three rounds he was obviously playing with his opponent. After that it was observed that he was only using his right hand. When the fight was over, he complained that his arm had been injured. Doctors who made an examination, certified to a slight fracture of the radius of the left arm. The general opinion is that his arm was injured in a wrestling match early in the week, and that a blow tonight caused the fracture of the bone. Because of the draw, Jack Johnson kept his championship. After the fight, he explained that his left arm was injured in the third round and he could not use it. Title loss , Cuba In late 1914, two ambitious promoters—Jack Curley and Harry Frazee—began working to arrange a title fight between Johnson and 6-foot, 6-inch, 230-pound Jess Willard. The fight was set at the Oriental Park Racetrack in Havana, Cuba, on April 5, 1915, before a crowd of 25,000. At age 37, Johnson had a noticeable paunch and looked anything but ready for the scheduled 45-round bout. Nevertheless, he dominated the fight until the 20th round. In the 26th round, Willard penetrated Johnson's withering defense with a hard right to the head. Johnson was knocked out, and Willard became the new heavyweight champion. Johnson is said by many a year after the fight to have spread rumors that he took a dive, but Willard is widely regarded as having won the fight outright. Many people thought Johnson purposely threw the fight because Willard was white, in an effort to have his Mann Act charges dropped. Willard ironically responded, "If he was going to throw the fight, I wish he'd done it sooner. It was hotter than hell out there." Post-championship After losing his world heavyweight championship, Johnson never again fought for the world or colored heavyweight crowns. His popularity remained strong enough that he recorded for Ajax Records in the 1920s. Johnson continued fighting, but age was catching up with him. He fought professionally until 1938 at age 60 when he lost 7 of his last 9 bouts, losing his final fight to Walter Price by a 7th-round TKO. It is often suggested that any bouts after the age of 40—which was a very venerable age for boxing in those days—not be counted on his actual record, since he was performing in order to make a living. He also indulged in what was known as "cellar" fighting, where the bouts, unadvertised, were fought for private audiences, usually in cellars or other unrecognized places. There are surviving photographs of one of these fights. Johnson made his final ring appearance at age 67 on November 27, 1945, fighting three one-minute exhibition rounds against two opponents, Joe Jeanette and John Ballcort, in a benefit fight card for U.S. War Bonds. ==Boxing style==

Throughout his career, Johnson built a unique fighting style of his own, which was not customary in boxing during this time. Though he would typically strike first, he would fight defensively, waiting for his opponents to tire out, becoming more aggressive as the rounds went on. He often fought to punish his opponents over the course of the bout rather than going for the knockout, and would continuously dodge their punches. He would then quickly strike back with a blow of his own. Johnson often made his fights look effortless, and as if he had much more to offer, but when pushed he could also display some powerful moves and punches. There are films of his fights in which he can be seen holding up his opponent, who otherwise might have fallen, until he recovered. Johnson was also known for his use of the mummy guard which was later adopted by boxers such as Sandy Saddler and George Foreman. ==Personal life==

Johnson earned considerable sums endorsing various products, including patent medicines, and had several expensive hobbies such as automobile racing and tailored clothing, as well as purchasing jewelry and furs for his wives. He challenged champion racer Barney Oldfield to an auto race at the Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn dirt track. Oldfield easily defeated Johnson. Once, when he was pulled over for a $50 speeding ticket, he gave the officer a $100 bill; when the officer protested that he could not 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. In 1911, Johnson, through an acquaintance, attempted to become a Freemason in Dundee, Scotland. He was initiated as an Entered Apprentice at Forfar and Kincardine Lodge No 225 in the city. However, there was some opposition to his membership from within the lodge, but mainly from the Grand Lodge who tried to stop the initiation from going ahead due to most Grand Lodges in the USA threatening to withdraw their Scottish Grand Lodge representation if it did. The Forfarshire Lodge was suspended by the Grand Lodge of Scotland, and Johnson's fees were returned to him and his admission was ruled illegal. In July 1912, Johnson opened an interracial nightclub in Chicago called Café de Champion. Johnson wrote two memoirs of his life: Mes combats in 1914 and Jack Johnson in the Ring and Out in 1927. In 1943, Johnson attended at least one service at the Pentecostal Angelus Temple in Los Angeles, California. In a public conversion, while Detroit, Michigan, burned in race riots, he professed his faith to Christ in a service conducted by evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson. She embraced him as "he raised his hand in worship". Marriages Johnson engaged in various relationships, including three documented marriages. All of his documented wives were white. At the height of his career, Johnson was excoriated by the press for his flashy lifestyle and for having married white women. According to Johnson's 1927 autobiography, he married Mary Austin, a black woman from Galveston, Texas. No record exists of this marriage. After returning from Australia, Johnson said that "the heartaches which Mary Austin and Clara Kerr caused me led me to forswear colored women and to determine that my lot henceforth would be cast only with white women." They reconciled and were married on January 18, 1911. Prone to depression, her condition worsened due to Johnson's abuse and infidelity in addition to the hostile reaction to their interracial relationship. In the summer of 1912, Johnson met Lucille Cameron, an 18-year-old prostitute from Minneapolis who relocated to Chicago, at his nightclub Café de Champion. Cameron filed for divorce in 1924 due to his infidelity. Cameron, soon to become his second wife, refused to cooperate and the case fell apart. Less than a month later, Johnson was arrested again on similar charges. This time, the woman, another alleged prostitute named Belle Schreiber, although the incidents used to convict him took place before passage of the Mann Act. He was released on July 9, 1921. Trump pardoned Johnson on May 24, 2018, 105 years after his conviction, during a ceremony which included special guests Sylvester Stallone (actor), Deontay Wilder (then current WBC Champion), Lennox Lewis (WBC Former Champion), Mauricio Sulaiman (WBC President), Linda Bell Haywood (Johnson's great-great niece), and Hector Sulaiman (President of the Board of Advisors of Scholas Occurrentes). A bill which requested that President George W. Bush pardon Johnson passed the House in 2008, but failed to pass in the Senate. In April 2009, Senator John McCain, along with Representative Peter King, film maker Ken Burns, and Johnson's great-niece, Linda Haywood, requested a presidential pardon for Johnson from President Barack Obama. In July of that year, Congress passed a resolution calling on President Obama to issue a pardon. In 2016, another petition for Johnson's pardon was issued by McCain, King, Senator Harry Reid, and Congressman Gregory Meeks to President Obama, marking the 70th anniversary since the boxer's death. This time, the petitioners cited a provision of the Every Student Succeeds Act, signed by the president in December 2015, in which Congress expressed that this boxing great should receive a posthumous pardon, and a vote by the United States Commission on Civil Rights passed unanimously a week earlier in June 2016 to "right this century-old wrong." Mike Tyson, Harry Reid, and John McCain lent their support to the campaign, starting a Change.org petition asking President Obama to posthumously pardon the world's first African American heavyweight boxing champion for his racially motivated 1913 felony conviction. Monkey wrench A persistent hoax on social media claims that Johnson invented the monkey wrench and it was named a monkey wrench as a racial slur. Johnson did receive a patent for improvements which he made to the monkey wrench, but the name "monkey wrench" and the first patent for it predate his birth by over 35 years. ==Death==

, Chicago On June 10, 1946, Johnson and a friend were en route to New York from Texas and visited a segregated diner; when the diner refused to serve him, Johnson drove away angrily with his friend in the passenger seat. The car collided with a telegraph pole on U.S. Highway 1 near Franklinton, North Carolina. While his friend survived the crash, Johnson suffered fatal injuries and died later that day at St. Agnes Hospital in Raleigh, North Carolina, which was the nearest black hospital, at 6:10 pm. He was 68 years old. ==Legacy==

Johnson was an inaugural 1954 inductee to The Ring magazine's Boxing Hall of Fame (disbanded in 1987), and was inducted to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990. In 2005, the United States National Film Preservation Board deemed the film of the 1910 Johnson-Jeffries fight "historically significant" and put it in the National Film Registry. During his boxing career, Jack Johnson fought 114 fights, winning 80 matches, 45 by knockouts. In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Jack Johnson on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans. In 2012, the City of Galveston dedicated a park in Johnson's memory as Galveston Island's most famous native son. The park, called Jack Johnson Park, includes a life-size, bronze statue of Johnson. Actor and professional wrestler Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's surname is an homage to Jack Johnson; his father, professional wrestler Rocky Johnson, was born with the surname "Bowles" and chose his ring name in honor of the boxer before making it his legal name. Jack Johnson’s personal life and relationships also shaped his public legacy. His open romantic involvement and marriages with white women provoked outrage in early twentieth-century America, where segregation and anti-miscegenation laws reinforced strict racial boundaries. Many newspapers portrayed him as dangerous or immoral, framing his confidence and success as a cultural threat to white supremacy. Still, his decision to live on his own terms inspired many African Americans, who saw in him a rare example of pride and independence during an era of racial violence. His success as a Black champion during the height of Jim Crow challenged the racial hierarchy that linked whiteness to physical and moral superiority. His victories, especially over white opponents like Jim Jeffries, provoked racial violence across the country, showing how sport could reflect and even intensify racial conflict. Later African American athletes, from Joe Louis to Muhammad Ali, would look to Johnson’s defiance as both an inspiration and a warning about the costs of challenging racial boundaries in sport. Popular culture The first filmed fight of Johnson's career was his bout with Tommy Burns, which was turned into a contemporary documentary, The Burns-Johnson Fight, in 1908. Folksinger and blues singer Lead Belly referenced Johnson in a song about the Titanic: "Jack Johnson wanna get on board, Captain said I ain't hauling no coal. Fare thee, Titanic, fare thee well. When Jack Johnson heard that mighty shock, mighta seen the man do the Eagle rock. Fare thee, Titanic, fare thee well" (The Eagle Rock was a popular dance at the time). In 1969, American folk singer Jaime Brockett reworked the Lead Belly song into a satirical talking blues called "The Legend of the S.S. Titanic." In the trenches of World War One, Johnson's name was used by British troops to describe the impact of German 150 mm heavy artillery shells which had a black color. In his letters home to his wife, Rupert Edward Inglis (1863–1916), a former rugby international who was a Forces Chaplain, describes passing through the town of Albert: We went through the place today (2 October 1915) where the Virgin Statue at the top of the Church was hit by a shell in January. The statue was knocked over, but has never fallen, I sent you a picture of it. It really is a wonderful sight. It is incomprehensible how it can have stayed there, but I think it is now lower than when the photograph was taken, and no doubt will come down with the next gale. The Church and village are wrecked, there's a huge hole made by a Jack Johnson just outside the west door of the Church. Johnson's story is the basis of the play The Great White Hope and its 1970 film adaptation, starring James Earl Jones as "Jack Jefferson" and Jane Alexander as his love interest. Both Jones and Alexander won Tonys and were nominated for Oscars. Also in 1970, Jimmy Jacobs and Bill Cayton brought together much of the rare archive footage of Johnson which they had saved and restored, and made the film Jack Johnson, with Johnson's words voiced by Brock Peters, and music by Miles Davis. Davis' score later became the 1971 album named after the boxer. It features the actor Peters (as Johnson) saying: In 2005, filmmaker Ken Burns produced a two-part documentary about Johnson's life, Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson, based on the 2004 nonfiction book of the same name by Geoffrey C. Ward, and with music by Wynton Marsalis. The book won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year (2006). Several Hip Hop activists have also reflected on Johnson's legacy, most notably in the album The New Danger, by Mos Def, in which songs like "Zimzallabim" and "Blue Black Jack" are devoted to the artist's pugilistic hero. In the closing track of the album Run the Jewels 3, "A Report to the Shareholders / Kill Your Masters," Killer Mike of the Hip Hop duo Run the Jewels reinvokes Johnson's image with the line: "''I'm Jack Johnson, I beat a slave catcher snaggletooth''." Additionally, both Southern punk rock band This Bike is a Pipe Bomb and alternative country performer Tom Russell have songs dedicated to Johnson. Russell's piece is both a tribute and a biting indictment of the racism Johnson faced: ''"here comes Jack Johnson, like he owns the town, there's a lot of white Americans like to see a man go down ... like to see a black man drown."'' In Joe R. Lansdale's 1997 short story The Big Blow, Johnson is featured fighting a white boxer brought in by Galveston, Texas's boxing fans to defeat the African American fighter during the 1900 Galveston Hurricane. The story won a Bram Stoker Award and was expanded into a 2000 novel. The book of poetry, The Big Smoke by Adrian Matejka, is inspired by Johnson's voice and life and written in forms ranging from sonnets to prose poetry. It was a finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry in 2013. The Royale, a play by Marco Ramirez, uses the life of Jack Johnson as inspiration for its main character, Jay Jackson. It premiered in March 2016 at Lincoln Center Theater directed by Rachel Chavkin, and was nominated for a Drama Desk Awards for Outstanding Play, Outstanding Director of a Play, and a Special Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble. The book ''Crossing the Color Line: Stanley Ketchel's Challenge for Jack Johnson's Heavyweight Crown'', written by Vernon Gravely and released in 2021, details Johnson's fight with middleweight champion Stanley Ketchel. The graphic novel "The Original Johnson" was written and drawn by Trevor Von Eeden, the first black artist ever hired by DC Comics, in 1976, and co-creator of their first original black super-hero, Black Lightning. "The Original Johnson" details Jack Johnson's life from childhood up to his death, and was generally well received. A favorable quote from the NY Times graces the cover of both volumes. The graphic novel Last On His Feet: Jack Johnson and the Battle of the Century by Adrian Matejka and Youssef Daoudi, released in 2023, chronicles Johnson vs. Jeffries, interspersing the fight with flashbacks to Johnson's youth. ==Professional boxing record==

All information in this section is derived from BoxRec, unless otherwise stated. Official record All newspaper decisions are officially regarded as "no decision" bouts and are not counted in the win/loss/draw column. Unofficial record Record with the inclusion of newspaper decisions in the win/loss/draw column. ==Titles in boxing==

Major world titles • World heavyweight champion (200+ lbs) • World colored heavyweight champion (200+ lbs) ==See also==