Jack Johnson

Jack Johnson was so good at boxing that he scared an entire generation of racists. White authorities chose to make an example of him with one of America’s most infamous laws.

Featured image: Jack Johnson posing with his wife Lucille. Despite the speech against miscegenation given by the prosecutor of his most famous legal case, Johnson was not convicted for dating or marrying a white woman, but for lending a small sum of money to his ex-girlfriend. (Image source)

Jack Johnson photographed early in his career. Even for a heavyweight boxer, Johnson’s physique was famously impressive in comparison to his competition. (Image source)

A photograph of the championship fight between Jack Johnson and Tommy Burns. (Image source)

Video of the fight between Johnson and Burns. The video cuts out before the end because police made the camera operators turn their machines off. (Image source)

Jack Johnson at the wheel of his 90 horsepower Thomas Flyer–an extremely fancy car at the time. Johnson had famously upscale tastes in cars and clothes. (Image source)

A small section of the crowd waiting for the Johnson-Jeffries fight. (Image source)

A photograph from the Johnson-Jeffries fight. (Image source)

A cartoon making fun of the extremely violent race riots that broke out in the aftermath of the Johnson–Jeffries fight. Although this appears to be depicting Black men attacking white victims, most of the actual casualties were Black people attacked by while mobs. (Image source)

Jack with his wife Etta in 1910. (Image source)

Jack Johnson in Buenos Aires in 1914. The most famous pictures of Johnson show him in boxing attire, but he was known for being well-dressed out of the ring. (Image source)

An infamous photograph of Johnson’s defeat in the Willard-Johnson fight. This image was spread as proof that Willard was the “great white hope” the boxing world had been waiting for to restore what racists believed was the natural order. (Image source)

Sources

Sources about the life of Jack Johnson

• Jack Johnson (1878-1946)
• Jack Johnson was untouchable – This is why
• Dec. 26, 1908: Burns vs Johnson
• Jack Johnson vs Tommy Burns
• A True Champion Vs. The ‘Great White Hope’
• When a black fighter won ‘the fight of the century,’ race riots erupted across America
• The Women in Johnson’s Life
• The short, sad story of Cafe de Champion — Jack Johnson’s mixed-race nightclub on Chicago’s South Side
• Arrest Jack Johnson For Abducting Girl
• 108 years after racially motivated trial, court docket for Black heavyweight champ Jack Johnson goes public
• Heavyweight champion Jack Johnson didn’t back down during his 1913 trial in Chicago when prosecutors accused him of violating the Mann Act
• Jack Johnson appeals his conviction under Mann Act
• The Thanksgiving an imprisoned Jack Johnson fought two men at Leavenworth
• Jack Johnson and the Wrench – February 2005
• April 5, 1915: Johnson vs Willard
• Who was Jack Johnson?
• If Trump pardons Jack Johnson it won’t be for his contribution to black America
• Jack Johnson pardoned for violation of Mann Act in 1913

Sources about American history

• Reconstruction in Texas
• Bullock Museum – African Americans in Texas
• Pain Sensitivity: An Unnatural History from 1800 to 1965
• Jack London’s Racial Lives
• Jennie Prentiss
• Immigrants in the Progressive Era
• Blacks and the Southern Prohibition Movement
• Immigrants and Prohibition
• Thirty Enumerated Powers
• Page Law (1875)
• The War on the White Slave Trade
• The ‘White Slavery’ Panic
• Full text of “The Mann Act (1910)”
• Mann Act (1910)
• Mann Act
• Congress passes Mann Act, aimed at curbing sex trafficking
• Mortensen v. United States, 322 U.S. 369 (1944)

Sources about boxing

• Weight divisions
• What are the major boxing titles?
• A timeline through Black boxing history
• Tommy Burns (Canadian Boxer)
• Tommy Burns

Other sources

• Inflation calculator