Jack Johnson, Rebel Sojourner

by Theresa Runstedtler

10. Lothrop Stoddard, The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy (1920; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1922), vi, 9. On the growing popularity of eugenics in this period, see Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Men's Countries and the International Challenge of Racial Equality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 310-31; Matthew Pratt Guterl, The Color of Race in America, 1900-1940 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 14-67.

  11. Hubert Harrison, “The White War and the Colored Races,” Negro World, 14 February 1920.

  12. Lake and Reynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line, 284-309.

  13. Alain Locke, ed., The New Negro: Voices of the Harlem Renaissance (1925; New York: Macmillan, 1992), 5, 8.

  14. Recent scholarship has emphasized the transnational, anticolonial, and Marxian character of black politics during the interwar years. See, for example, Glenda Gilmore, Defying Dixie: The Radical Roots of Civil Rights, 1919-1950 (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2008); Michelle Stephens, Black Empire: The Masculine Global Imaginary of Caribbean Intellectuals in the United States, 1914-1962 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005); Brent Edwards, The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003); Mamadou Badiane, The Changing Face of Afro-Caribbean Cultural Identity: Negrismo and Negritude (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2010); Robert Philipson, “The Harlem Renaissance as Postcolonial Phenomenon,” African American Review 40, no. 1 (2006): 145-60.

  15. Quotations are taken from “Report of Brooklyn UNIA Meetings [2324 January, 1922],” in The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, Volume 4, ed. Robert A. Hill (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 455-56, 458. For similar analyses see “Lord Chelmsford Admits Darker Races Are Revolting against White Rule,” Negro World, 10 December 1921; “Black Peril Joins Hands with the Yellow Peril,” Chicago Whip, 21 August 1920.

  16. Claude McKay, A Long Way from Home: An Autobiography (London: Pluto Press, 1985), 61.

  17. Ibid., 69-70.

  18. On racial immigration restrictions in the early 1920s, see Lake and Reynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line, 312-22. On assimilation programs, see James R. Barrett, “Americanization from the Bottom, Up: Immigration and the Remaking of the American Working Class, 1880-1930,” Journal of American History 79, no. 4 (1992): 996-1020.

  19. On boxing in the U.S. military during World War I, see Jeffrey Sammons, Beyond the Ring: The Role of Boxing in American Society (Urbana: University Illinois Press, 1988), 50-51; H. M. Spike Webb, “Boxing Helps Put Fighting Spirit in Jolly Tars,” The Ring, July 1922. Boxing also found its way into Europe's wartime culture. See “Boxing a Man into the Army,” Health & Strength, 19 June 1915; F. H. Lucas, “Boxing as the Best Training for a Soldier,” Boxing, 9 June 1915. After the war boxing became an established part of U.S. military and police curriculum. See “Boxing at U.S. Naval Academy,” The Ring, July 1922; “Boxing and the Criminal,” The Ring, August 1922.

  20. Dempsey, also known as the “Manassa Mauler,” drew the color line, refusing to fight African American heavyweight Harry Wills. On Dempsey's life and career, see Randy Roberts, Jack Dempsey, the Manassa Mauler (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979).

  21. “The Ring Has Readers in All Parts of the World,” The Ring, December 1924.

  22. Peter Benson, Battling Siki: A Tale of Ring Fixes, Race, and Murder in the 1920s (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2006), 12-14, 25-26, 37-39.

  23. Bob Scanlon, “The Record of a Negro Boxer,” in Negro: An Anthology, ed. Nancy Cunard (1934; New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing, 1970), 210. Scanlon escorted Siki away from the scene, helping him to avoid arrest.

  24. Harry Reeve, “My Impressions of Battling Siki: A Good Man but a Wild One,” Boxing, 15 November 1922.

  25. Harry Reeve, “My Impressions of Battling Siki: Unjustified and Illogical Penalty,” Boxing, 22 November 1922.

  26. On Siki's childhood and wartime service, see Benson, Battling Siki, 89-112. Benson notes that there are many conflicting accounts of Battling Siki's origins. What follows are some of the key points from Benson's more detailed explanation of Siki's early life.

  27. Dan Schocket, “Battling Siki—The Man They Turned into a Joke,” World Boxing, September 1974, quoted in ibid., 89. Also see Ed Cunningham, “Siki Denies Coming from Jungle,” The Ring, August 1925.

  28. Benson, Battling Siki, 27-28.

  29. “Americanism in France,” Messenger, September 1922. In the same issue another journalist argued that economic imperatives had led to another form of “Americanism” in France. A new law was to limit the number of foreigners allowed in French orchestras, thereby protecting French artists from the arrival of black American jazz musicians. “As a result of this economic competition,” the correspondent asserted, “the French who have never yielded to race prejudice, who have no qualms about social equality, who are by no means disturbed about amalgamation or miscegenation with colored races—have passed a law which for sheer economic discrimination takes rank with anything to be found in the South's Black Code and vagrancy laws during the reconstruction following our Civil War.” See “The Nickle [sic] under Frenchman's Foot,” Messenger, September 1922. Comments on the spread of Jim Crow racism in France were not limited to the Messenger. See “Prejudice in France,” Cleveland Gazette, 3 May 1919; “Spreading Anti-Negro Propaganda,” Savannah Tribune, 7 September 1922; “Americans Draw Color Line in Paris,” Negro World, 2 July 1921; “Voice of Americans in Europe,” Chicago Tribune European Edition, 5 January 1923; “Color Line Raises Furore in France,” Negro World, 15 September 1923; “What the French Say,” Negro World, 15 September 1923. For French reports of this phenomenon, see “Informations diverses, les étrangers en France,” Le Temps, 2 August 1923; Gratien Candace, “Préjuge de couleur: il est temps que cela cesse,” L'Homme libre, 11 August 1923; Robert Boucard, “Français de couleur molestes, l'attitude de certains étrangers est intolerable,” La Presse, 7 August 1923; Jacques Barty, “Le Noir et le blanc,” L'Homme libre, 8 August 1923. Black French colonials wrote some of these articles in response to bad treatment at the hands of white Americans.

  30. “The Rising Tide of Color,” Chicago Defender, 22 May 1920.

  31. R. T. Brown, “The Spirit of the Age,” Negro World, 28 October 1922. Also see J. Jackson Tilford, “The New Psychology of the Negro,” Negro World, 28 October 1922.

  32. “Le Gentleman,” La Boxe et les boxeurs, 2 August 1922; “Le Match Carpentier-Siki: un match de propagande,” L'Auto, 24 September 1922.

  33. Paul Olivier, “Le Match Carpentier-Siki,” L'Auto, 24 September 1922.

  34. “A vous…touché!” La Boxe et les boxeurs, 6 September 1922.

  35. “Siki Is a Gorilla Says His Manager,” New York Times, 26 September 1922.

  36. Trevor Wignall, Story of Boxing (New York: Brentano's, 1924), 261.

  37. “Résultat du match Carpentier-Siki,” La Presse, 24 September 1922. Although this report claims there were sixty thousand fans in attendance, other articles set the number closer to thirty thousand.

  38. Max Abbat, “Carpentier's Film Fiasco,” Boxing, 27 September 1922.

  39. “Siki Has Heart of Gold, but Is a Baby,” Chicago Whip, 25 November 1922.

  40. Frank Withers, “Siki Conquers Idol of France,” Chicago Defender, 30 September 1922.

  41. “Negro Knocks Out French Idol,” Savannah Tribune, 28 September 1922.

  42. Scanlon, “The Record of a Negro Boxer,” 210.

  43. “Carpentier Conquered,” Boxing World, Mirror of Life, & Sporting Observer, 30 September 1922; “Carpentier s'effondre devant Battling Siki,” L'Auto, 25 September 1922; “Battling Siki, A Senegalese Negro, Knocks Out Carpentier, the French Idol, in Six Rounds,” Negro World, 30 September 1922.

  44. Scanlon, “The Record of a Negro Boxer,” 210.

  45. “Negro Knocks Out French Idol.”

  46. “Carpen
tier Conquered”; “La Résultat de la semaine,” La Boxe et les Boxeurs, 27 September 1922. The fight film later confirmed that Siki had not fouled Carpentier. J. Bissell, “Doubt That Siki ‘Doubled Crossed,’” Boxing World, Mirror of Life, & Sporting Observer, 14 October 1922.

  47. “The Editor's Ideas: Spoils and Spoof,” Boxing, 4 October 1922; “Battling Siki vient à ‘L’Auto,'” L'Auto, 26 September 1922; Basil D. Woon, “Siki, a Former Dishwasher, Now Is Idol of Boulevards,” Negro World, 7 October 1922.

  48. “Boxe,” La Dépêche coloniale et maritime, 1 October 1922; “Les Noirs veulent fêter la victoire de Siki,” L'Auto, 30 September 1922. Contributions for the commemorative piece were to be addressed to a M. Senghor.

  49. “Siki,” Messenger, October 1922.

  50. “Vive la France,” Chicago Whip, 30 September 1922.

  51. “Paris Beauties Kink Their Hair in Siki Glory,” Chicago Defender, 14 October 1922; “That Siki Silhouette,” Chicago Defender, 28 October 1922; “Dark Skins Again All the Rage in Cafes of Paris,” Chicago Whip, 14 October 1922.

  52. “Battling Siki résume aux lecteurs de ‘l’Auto,'” L'Auto, 29 September 1922.

  53. “Battling Siki Fears Dempsey's Old Color Line,” Chicago Defender, 23 September 1922. Picking up on Siki's public declarations, a reporter for the Chicago Defender claimed the Senegalese boxer was better off than his African American counterparts Jack Johnson and Harry Wills. Though Johnson and Wills were born U.S. citizens, they still went about “with fear and trembling,” while Siki had become a full “CITIZEN of a country in which yesterday he was but a colonial.” Roscoe Simmons, “The Week,” Chicago Defender, 30 September 1922. This article ran next to Simmons's comments about the failure of the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill.

  54. Boulland de L'Escale, “La Propagande coloniale par le tourisme les beauxarts et les sports,” L'Autre France, 14 October 1922; “The Race Question in Pugilism,” Brooklyn Citizen, 26 September 1922; “Siki Victory Precipitates Negro Officer Proposition,” California Eagle, 11 November 1922.

  55. “The Last Scene of the Tragedy,” Boxing, 27 September 1922; “L'impression en Angleterre,” L'Auto, 28 September 1922. German and Italian sportsmen reportedly were also stupefied by Carpentier's quick defeat. See “Après le défaite de Carpentier,” L'Auto, 27 September 1922.

  56. “'Le péril du champion c'est le cinéma,'” L'Auto, 30 September 1922.

  57. The Crusader News Service provided black American publications with descriptions of these disturbances. See “Siki's Victory Stirs Americans in France to Protest Equality,” Chicago Defender, 7 October 1922; “Siki's Victory Causing Racial Disturbances,” Savannah Tribune, 5 October 1922; “Siki Victory Stirs Paris Race Fights,” Chicago Whip, 7 October 1922. Run by Cyril Briggs of the African Blood Brotherhood, an organization that advocated black self-determination and Marxist revolution, the Crusader Service supplied many of the reports on Siki that appeared in the black American press.

  58. “Battling Siki as a Dark Cloud on the Horizon,” Literary Digest, 14 October 1922. Also see “The Rise of Siki,” New York Times, 27 September 1922.

  59. On the principles of British indirect rule, see Mahmood Mamdani, Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996). On the early twentieth-century French civilizing mission, see Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize: The Republican Idea of Empire in France and West Africa, 1895-1930 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997).

  60. Republican quoted in “Battling Siki as a Dark Cloud.”

  61. Quotations in this paragraph are taken from ibid. Also see “Byproducts,” New York Times, 1 October 1922.

  62. “England's White Hope to Take a Swing at Siki,” Chicago Whip, 28 October 1922. The Crusader News Service supplied this report.

  63. Lord Lonsdale to R. McKenna, 1 November 1922, Home Office Records 45/11880, British National Archives, London, England. In subsequent notes, HO denotes Home Office and BNA denotes British National Archives.

  64. Major Arnold Wilson to Lord Lonsdale, 1 November 1922, HO 45/11880, BNA.

  65. “Siki Has Heart of Gold, but Is a Baby.”

  66. L'Echo des sports quoted in Benson, Battling Siki, 255.

  67. “Sports Writers Trying to Prejudice U.S. against Siki,” New York Age, 28 October 1922.

  68. “Siki and the American Press,” New York Age, 4 November 1922.

  69. J. Bissell, “The Bar Up to Siki,” Boxing World, Mirror of Life, & Sporting Observer, 18 November 1922; “Battling Siki Suspended,” Times, 11 November 1922; “Major Arnold Wilson's Attitude,” Times, 11 November 1922; “Siki Is Deprived of French Title,” New York Times, 10 November 1922; “Siki Now Barred from Boxing Here,” New York Times, 11 November 1922; “Italian Boxing Clubs Close Their Doors to Battling Siki,” New York Times, 15 November 1922; “Siki's License Is Canceled by French Boxing Federation,” New York Times, 22 November 1922; “Opens Competition for Siki's Title,” New York Times, 23 November 1922.

  70. “Battling Siki Deprived of Title, Call the ‘Jack Johnson’ of Europe,” New York Age, 18 November 1922.

  71. Letter to Home Office, 10 November 1922, HO 45/11880, BNA. Also see E. B. Osborn, “English Writer Admits Negro's Physical Advantages over Other Men,” Negro World, 20 January 1923; “Let the Gorilla Fight the Winner,” Saturday Blade, 28 October 1922.

  72. African World quoted in “Our Readers' Own Opinions,” Health & Strength, 11 November 1922. Also see “Our Readers' Own Opinions: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the Home Office,” Health & Strength, 25 November 1922.

  73. “Siki Case to Be Aired in French Chamber,” New York Times, 30 November 1922.

  74. “Dark-Hued Deputy Loses Plea for Siki,” New York Times, 1 December 1922. Also see “L'Affaire Siki à la chambre,” La Dépêche coloniale et maritime, 3 December 1922. Diagne claimed that Carpentier's handlers had tried unsuccessfully to get Siki to throw the match against their charge. A civil tribunal made a full investigation of the fight. Despite much damning evidence, the tribunal found nothing illegal in the fight's promotion, exonerating Carpentier and his management from any wrongdoing. “French Courts to Unravel Siki Fight,” New York Times, 4 December 1922; “Siki Relates How Bout Was Framed,” New York Times, 5 December 1922; “Clears Carpentier of Siki's Charges,” New York Times, 16 January 1923.

  75. Ho Chi Minh, “About Siki,” Le Paria, 1 December 1922.

  76. Reportedly, film producers had considered hiring Siki to star in a moving picture version of Batuoula. See “Siki's Victory Stirs Americans in France to Protest Equality.”

  77. “De Siki à la révolution mondiale,” Le Paria, November 1922.

  78. “Siki's Knockout,” Chicago Whip, 18 November 1922. Also see “Prime Sport News,” Cleveland Gazette, 18 November 1922; “The ‘Color’ Folly,” Chicago Defender, 30 December 1922.

  79. Claude McKay, “Negroes in Sports,” in The Negroes in America (1923; Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1979), 50-52.

  80. Ibid., 53.

  81. Home Office to the Earl of Lonsdale, 26 January 1923, HO 45/11880, BNA. On 31 January the Home Office instructed immigration officers to keep Battling Siki from entering Britain. “Battling Siki est déchu de tous ses titres de Champion de France, d'Europe et du Monde,” L'Auto, 13 January 1923.

  82. “Boxing: Death of Battling Siki,” Times, 16 December 1925. Also see “Battling Siki Shot Dead in the Street,” New York Times, 16 December 1925.

  83. “Thug Murders Battling Siki,” Chicago Defender, 19 December 1925.

  84. New York Amsterdam News, 23 December 1925, quoted in Gerald Early, “Battling Siki: The Boxer as Natural Man,” in The Culture of Bruising: Essays on Prizefighting, Literature, and Modern American Culture (Hopewell, NJ: Ecco Press, 1994), 78.

  85. Gary Edward Holcomb, Claude McKay, Code Name Sasha: Queer Black Marxism and the Harlem Renaissance (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2007), 25. Also see Theodore Kornweibel Jr., Investigate
Everything: Federal Efforts to Compel Black Loyalty during World War I (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001).

  86. John Henrik Clarke, “Marcus Garvey: The Harlem Years,” Transition, no. 46 (1974): 18.

  EPILOGUE

  1. James Thurber quoted in Geoffrey Ward, Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson (New York: Knopf, 2004), 431.

  2. Thurber quoted in ibid., 432-33.

  3. Ada “Bricktop” Smith quoted in ibid., 436.

  4. Randy Roberts, Papa Jack: Jack Johnson and the Era of White Hopes (New York: Free Press, 1983), 220-21.

  5. Quoted in Ward, Unforgivable Blackness, 438.

  6. Ibid., 439; Theresa Runstedtler, “In Sports the Best Man Wins: How Joe Louis Whupped Jim Crow,” in In the Game: Race, Identity, and Sports in the Twentieth Century, ed. Amy Bass (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 65.

  7. Roberts, Papa Jack, 225; Ward, Unforgivable Blackness, 442-43.

  8. Joe Markman, “Pardon for Boxer Jack Johnson May Be Elusive” (26 October 2009), http://articles.latimes.com/2009/oct/26/nation/na-boxer-pardon 26 (accessed 5 November 2010); “Congress Approves Jack Johnson Pardon” (30 July 2009), www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/30/sportsline/main5197355.shtml (accessed 12 August 2010).

  9. Michael Saul, “Kansas Pol Lynn Jenkins Tells Crowd: GOP Needs ‘Great White Hope’ to Battle Obama, Dems,” New York Daily News (27 August 2009), www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/08/27/2009-08-27_kansas_pol_lynn_jenkins_tells_crowd_gop_needs_great_white_hope_to_battle_obama_d.html (accessed 6 January 2011); “Jenkins Says She Supported Resolution, Didn't Read It,” Ottawa Herald (Kansas), 1 September 2009, Newspaper Source Plus, EBSCOhost (accessed 6 January 2011).

  10. Alan Silverleib, “Family of Boxer Fights for Pardon of 1913 Racist Conviction” (22 April 2009), http://articles.cnn.com/2009-04-22/us/jack.johnson.pardon_1_first-african-american-world-heavyweight-jack-johnson-all-white-jury?_s=PM:US (accessed 12 August 2010).

  11. “Posthumous Pardon Sought for Johnson” (21 October 2009), http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/boxing/news/story?id=4565549 (accessed 12 August 2010); Markman, “Pardon for Boxer Jack Johnson May Be Elusive.”