Hardly a throwback, Battling Siki was well acquainted with the underside of late imperialism and industrial capitalism from a young age. His roaming life was remarkably similar to that of Johnson and other African American boxers. In 1898 Siki was born Amadou M'barick Fall in Saint-Louis, Senegal, then the administrative center of France's West African empire and a busy coaling station for ships destined for Europe or South America.26 When his father, Assane Fall, a local fisherman, drowned on the job, his mother, Oulimata, was left to raise her young child alone. Amadou lived a hardscrabble existence, and, much like Johnson, he learned to defend himself on the rough-and-tumble docks and streets of Saint-Louis.
In 1908, the same year that Johnson became the world heavyweight champion, the ten-year-old Fall sailed to Europe under the supervision of a white European patron. Fall's benefactor brought him to the rowdy port city of Marseilles, but they parted ways, and the young Senegalese was left to fend for himself. To survive, Fall worked a variety of odd jobs—dishwasher, boxing booth performer, stevedore, doorman, locksmith, and messenger—and he spent the rest of his time in the boxing gyms of southern France. At fifteen he began his professional fight career, assuming the moniker of “Battling Siki.” World War I intervened, however, and Siki was one of the 134,000 Africans who took up arms for France. He served on several European fronts as a private in the Eighth Colonial Regiment, proving his valor on the battlefield. In 1919 he left the military, bedecked with the prestigious Croix de guerre and the Médaille militaire, and he soon found his way back into the boxing ring.
A black veteran of the Great War and a successful black boxer in an era of primitivist modernism and mounting black militancy, Siki embodied the transnational debates over white supremacy and Western imperialism in the 1920s. He became a stand-in for the colonial world, albeit a rather extreme example of black male savagery. Although white journalists painted Siki as a “child of the jungle,” his life story actually pointed to the blurring boundaries between Europe and Africa, white and nonwhite, and citizen and subject. “A lot of newspaper people have written that I have a jungle style of fighting—that I am a chimpanzee who has been taught to wear gloves,” Siki complained. “That kind of thing hurts me. I was never anywhere but in a big city in my life. I have never even seen a jungle.”27 Even though Siki felt slighted by the white press, he was also keenly aware that primitivism paid. Like Josephine Baker and other contemporary black performers in Paris, the Senegalese prizefighter accentuated his exotic physicality and sexuality to the delight of white fans. While Baker played African princesses wearing little more than a banana skirt, Siki traveled around town with his pet lion cubs.28
Yet Siki's pugilistic success tested the limits of French négrophilie (negrophilia). The better his record became, the more difficult it was to find white French opponents. Siki's African American fans took notice when Georges Carpentier, a decorated war hero and France's only world champion, initially declined to meet the black fighter in the ring. A reporter for the socialist Messenger asked, “Has the uncultured American, bigoted, uninformed, and unsportsmanlike—become the ideal of the former gentleman Carpentier, the national motto of whose country is 'Liberty, Equality and Fraternity If so, France is rapidly becoming Americanized.”29 Carpentier seemed to be emulating his rival Jack Dempsey, the white American heavyweight who refused to fight any black boxers. Even more disappointing was the fact that many French sportsmen supported Carpentier's decision to avoid the African. In a familiar refrain, the reporter blamed this apparent transformation on the influx of white American soldiers and tourists in Paris. “Wherever they go, they carry their propaganda of race prejudice,” he complained. “France's imperialism is bad enough without her taking on any more of our bad American customs.” At the very least he hoped that France could remain the lesser of two evils.
This sporting discussion echoed earlier conversations in the African American press about the implications of Stoddard's Rising Tide of Color. A reviewer for the Chicago Defender agreed with at least part of Stoddard's analysis: “That there is an awakening [of colored peoples] cannot be denied. One sees it on every hand, in a more assertive press, in the pulpit and in the field of industry.”30 Ironically, the United States seemed most responsible for this increasingly militant countermovement. Not content to control its own affairs, white America endeavored to spread its racial gospel everywhere. “THE AMERICAN is nothing if not a missionary,” the reviewed declared. “He has carried his color madness to all points of the world…. He has made his dislike of the Negro's color a theme for discussion in the bar rooms and hotels of England, and as a soldier upon the battlefields of France.” Yet this global crusade appeared to be backfiring. White Americans' strident racism had not only “stirred” African Americans “with the deepest resentment” but touched “a responsive chord in all the colored peoples of the civilized and semi-civilized world.” As the reviewer cautioned, “Among the republics of South America, in Mexico, China, and Japan, in every land where dark blood prevails, the tide is rising in might to protest against the overwhelming arrogance of assumed superiority.” He predicted the emergence of organized, even violent, opposition to white supremacy in the decades to come.
Figure 16. Although cast as a savage throwback from the jungles of Africa, Battling Siki was actually a cosmopolitan man and decorated veteran of World War I. Battling Siki, promotional photograph. From the author's collection.
As much as these editorials pointed the finger of blame at white America, they also exposed the connection between the United States' “negro problem” and other forms of racial inequality and imperial exploitation. True, by the 1920s the United States had begun a push for the moral leadership and financial mastery of the world. It had also become a preeminent player in the areas of racial theory and policy and in the production of racialized entertainments. However, this renewed focus on preserving white supremacy was more than just a simple case of “Americanization.” It was indicative of the shifting geopolitics of race, as the white world grappled with nonwhite peoples' rising race consciousness and ethos of self-determination—what a columnist for the UNIA's Negro World called “the spirit of the age.”31
As Siki climbed the pugilistic ladder, he exemplified the aggressive push for colored liberation. His struggle for fair treatment also showed the lengths to which white nations and empires would go to protect their prerogatives. On 24 September 1922 Siki finally got his chance to challenge Carpentier for the world light-heavyweight championship. With the twenty-round match set to take place at the Buffalo Velodrome in Paris, Siki was the first black boxer to fight for a world title in any weight division since Johnson's loss to Jess Willard in 1915. Promoters marketed this interracial contest, much like those of Johnson and other African American boxers, as a battle between white civilization and black savagery.
French reporters reproduced these established racial tropes. While Carpentier, “le Gentleman,” boxed with “science” and “understated vigor,” Siki, the “jungle beast,” brawled with more instinct than skill.32 Although Siki would most certainly win in a fight to the death, modern boxing was a civilized sport and therefore weighted in favor of Carpentier's studied finesse.33 Apparently Siki did most of his “training” at Parisian nightclubs, where he danced to the sounds of “banjoes” reminiscent of the “tom-toms” of his native Senegal.34
Siki's manager, Charley Hellers, encouraged international fight fans to see his charge as primitive and subhuman. “A long time ago I used to think that if one could find an intelligent gorilla and teach him to box one would have the world's champion. Well, that's what I found in Siki,” Hellers announced at a press dinner a few days before the fight.35 British boxing commentator Trevor Wignall had attended Hellers's party, and he later described Siki as “a blend of animal and human being…more closely allied to a primitive cave-man.” Wignall believed that Siki was not only mentally and physically but also temporally out of place in civilized society. “Born long after his time,” th
e African boxer “should have lived when the world was very young.”36 Regardless of whether Siki won or lost in the ring, he was considered unfit for modern life.
At 6 AM on 24 September, throngs of fight fans were already waiting outside the doors of the Buffalo Velodrome. A veritable sea of humanity inundated Parisian buses, subways, and trolley cars, and by the start of the fight approximately thirty thousand people had squeezed their way into the venue.37 When Carpentier entered the ring the crowd greeted him with a standing ovation. He was not only France's most famous boxer but an accomplished aviator who had won the Croix de guerre and the Médaille militaire for his bravery during the war. “He was our proudest possession,” one sportswriter recounted, “smiling and debonair, a picture of manly beauty.” French fans hoped that Carpentier's victory would help to rebuild “the spirit and vigour” of their ailing postwar nation.38 They called him “the Ambassador of Muscle.”39 Carpentier also appealed to white American and British boxing enthusiasts, for he represented the revitalizing white world in the face of the rising tide of color.
Battling Siki had his own group of enthusiastic supporters from across the African and Asian diasporas. “Many Americans of color from all parts of France and from England, as well as a few from Germany, were in attendance,” a correspondent for the Chicago Defender noted. “Among those countries having representatives of the darker races were British provinces of Africa, Turkey, India, French and Dutch possessions and Morocco.”40 They had high hopes for Siki, for he “was a picture of power, his muscles rippling under the ebony skin.” 41 Scanlon witnessed the match from ringside. Although he was friends with both boxers and had worked in both of their training camps before the fight, he hoped the Senegalese would not disappoint his colored fans. As Scanlon recalled, “The first round Carpentier clipped Siki with a right. Siki went down…so I signaled to Siki to get up; being a colored man myself I didnt [sic] want to see him beaten in a way like that.”42
Most postfight reports gave the first few rounds to Carpentier.43 Then, after dropping Siki again in the second round, Carpentier got careless. “He began to play with Siki, pulling faces at him,” Scanlon recounted, “so all of a sudden Siki caught Carpentier with a terrible left hook and poor Georges went to the boards…and at that moment Siki saw his chance.”44 He was relentless in his attack, and in the sixth round the shell-shocked white Frenchman fell, knocked senseless by the Senegalese slugger. As a black reporter for the Savannah Tribune described, “Georgeous [sic] Georges was lying on the canvas his bloody face caressing the floor while the Senegalese, smiling and unblemished, stood above him.”45 With his unexpected comeback to beat Carpentier, Battling Siki's performance in the ring personified the white world's worst fears and colonial peoples' greatest hopes.
Figure 17. Battling Siki's triumph personified the white world's worst fears and colonial peoples' greatest hopes. Georges Carpentier on the canvas in his fight with Siki, 4 August 1922. © Bettmann/Corbis. Courtesy of Corbis.
The crowd quickly turned on its fallen French idol, jeering at him while cheering for Siki. When the referee gave the match to Carpentier, claiming that Siki had tripped the white fighter, they shouted with rage, storming the ring. So great was the protest in the Buffalo Velodrome that after an hour's consultation the fight judges reversed the referee's decision. Victor Breyer, the president of the French Boxing Federation, climbed into the ring to declare the new winner, awarding Siki with both the world light-heavyweight and European heavyweight titles.46
White French fans feted the Senegalese champion on the streets of Paris, while in the suburbs they carried him on their shoulders. Siki visited all the major newspaper offices, gave public speeches, waved from balconies, received countless flowers and garlands, and entertained a number of commercial opportunities.47 A local contingent of black men from the French colonies organized a party for Siki and started a collection to purchase him a commemorative art object in honor of his historic victory.48
Some African Americans back in the United States expressed renewed hope in the persistence of French racial tolerance. “The most significant phase of the Siki-Carpentier bout was the pronounced spirit of sportsmanship and fairplay displayed by the French spectators,” a writer for the Messenger claimed. While “an effort was made to cater to the American color line” by declaring Carpentier the winner, French fans had refused to succumb to racial prejudice. They also seemed less fearful of race mixing, a hopeful sign for the socialist writer. The fancy Parisian restaurants Siki frequented were “crowded with white women eager to touch his hand and pat his ebony cheek.”49 French fans did not seem to care that the dark-skinned Senegalese was married to a blue-eyed blonde from Holland.
Comparing the positive French reaction to white Americans' violent backlash after Johnson's defeat of Jim Jeffries in 1910, a writer for the Chicago Whip even went so far as to declare, “France cannot see the color of Siki's skin, nor the texture of his hair, the line and angles of his face nor the arch of his foot. Siki is a Frenchman and France loves her Frenchmen…. Vive La France.”50 Yet French fans fetishized Siki's blackness. Parisian women reportedly imitated his hairstyle, wore ochre-colored powder to darken their skin, and even sported tattoos of Siki's silhouette.51 In the streets fans often mistook African American jazz musicians for Siki, surrounding them until they felt forced to flee for their safety.
The Senegalese was a fashionable object of curiosity rather than a social and political equal. French sportsmen could still point to Siki's ring victory as further proof of his, and by extension all Africans', essentially primitive nature. Siki tried to break out of this restrictive mold. In a letter to the readers of L'Auto he insisted, “I am not a cannibal.” He also noted that he spoke and wrote in French just like them, and he considered himself to be a good son of France.52 “I am not a Negro,” Siki declared. “I am a Frenchman of color…a full-fledged Frenchman like Carpentier. I vote and pay taxes.”53 He had hoped that his victory would bring him full recognition as a Frenchman; instead, it had stirred up submerged fears about black power. Some French journalists questioned the advisability of interracial matches given their nation's imperial holdings in Africa. Another columnist warned against showing the Siki-Carpentier fight film in the colonies. Siki's defeat of Carpentier had also sparked opposition to a proposal to allow black men to serve as officers in white French regiments.54
Battling Siki's triumph inspired more vehement disapproval in white British and American sporting circles. In London, Boxing called Carpentier's loss a “tragedy,” while writers for the Daily Graphic and Daily Express hoped that the Siki-Carpentier fiasco would be the last interracial fight permitted in Europe55 White American journalists castigated Carpentier for allowing his moving picture career and pampered lifestyle to distract him from serious training.56 Siki's victory had also shocked white American expatriates in France, leading to violent clashes with the “Parisian Negro colony,” particularly in Montmartre, where celebrations of the Senegalese champion were ongoing. The white American troublemakers aimed most of their ire at black men who dared to cavort with French women.57
White Americans also reserved some of their ire for French sporting and political officials. In permitting such a match to take place in their metropolitan capital, they had committed a grave error in imperial management at the most inopportune time. A columnist for Literary Digest dubbed Siki “A Dark Cloud on the Horizon.”58 “The prestige of the white race, in danger now as never before in recent history…is threatened by the victory of ‘Battling Siki,'” he warned. Turkish nationalists had recently scored a military victory against the British-backed Greeks to defend their independence, and there now appeared to be growing unrest among the Mohammedan populations of Asia and Africa. Siki's victory would have far-reaching effects, for it resonated with the political aspirations of the darker races. It would “be used by agitators in Egypt, in India, in Africa, and in numerous islands of the sea.”
The match became a metaphor for the unraveling
of white imperial control. The shortage of white manpower and money both during and after the Great War had forced European powers to rationalize and streamline their empires. The British experimented with indirect rule, appointing local peoples to police their own territories on behalf of English interests. Faced with difficulties mobilizing colonial forces and resources on behalf of the metropole, France also imbued local African institutions with greater authority.59 “Politically, it was an indiscretion for France to incur the risk of such a victory,” argued one writer for the Springfield Republican.60 “Prestige rather than force,” he maintained, “is the power by which the colonies are ruled.” If the darker races lost their respect for white men, the already strapped European powers would have to govern by force, a strategy that would prove “costly, wasteful, and difficult, if not impossible.”
This strategy of force was especially perilous given the role of black soldiers in the recent war. Hundreds of thousands of the African colonies' best men had risked their lives on Europe's battlefields, and now those who had survived “brought back the infection [of militarism] to their native land.”61 A French journalist questioned, “Flattered and courted by white women, written up and flattered by the press, jollied and flattered by our politicians, is it strange that they believed they had arrived?” In addition to their newfound confidence, they had carried their combat skills back to the colonies. Many black soldiers also remained in Europe. Some were recently demobilized, while others were redeployed to protect French interests. Referring to the use of African troops in his nation's occupation of the German Rhineland, the same Frenchman lamented, “We fancied that we could thus humiliate the [German] barbarians, forgetting that we were at the same time humiliating the entire white race.” In relying on the force noire to fight its battles, France had made a deal with the devil to preserve its status as a world power. He worried that all of these choices, alongside Siki's victory, had “prepared the way for lynch law” in France's colonies.
Jack Johnson, Rebel Sojourner Page 33
