“I expect to get married”: Sydney Sunday Sun, March 24, 1907.
“This was the first”: McLean, “Next Heavyweight Champion.”
“When he got within ten feet”: Ibid.
“Worry your opponents”: Quoted in McCaffrey, Tommy Burns, pp. 146–47.
“I had $700”: Prison Memoir.
“In my fight with Fitzsimmons”: Ibid.
“poor old Bob Fitzsimmons”: Ibid.
“The scene after the game”: New York Times (hereafter NYT), April 25, 1907.
“A wicked right hand”: Prison Memoir.
“How’d you like that”: Quoted in Farr, Black Champion, p. 48.
“I don’t see where”: Police Gazette, May 1908. “living at what they called a ‘Call House’”: Testimony of Hattie McClay, US v. Johnson, General Records of the Department of Justice, File Number 16421, Record Group 60 (hereafter DOJ File).
“a splendid pal”: Jack Johnson, In the Ring and Out, p. 76.
“The heartaches which Mary Austin”: Ibid.
“The affair could hardly be called”: Prison Memoir.
“There was a dearth”: Curley, Memoirs, July 1931.
“My advice to a young fighter”: Quoted in Kammer, “TKO in Las Vegas.”
“Time was called”: Prison Memoir.
“The best man won”: Unsourced clipping from a San Francisco newspaper, archives of the Antiquities of the Prize Ring.
“I knew I had him”: Ibid.
“Jack Johnson is a colored man”: Quoted in Fleischer, Fighting Furies, pp. 66–67.
“He rather rubbed us”: Corri, Gloves and the Man, p. 217.
“What do I care?”: Milwaukee Free Press, February 23, 1908.
“Jack Johnson, Heavyweight Champion of the World”: Milwaukee Free Press, November 16, 1907.
“If the paragraph has caused Miss Toy”: The Referee, March 18, 1908.
“libelous to say that a white woman”: Ibid.
“Dressed neatly in white”: Ibid.
“MR. REID: Look at this”: Sydney Truth, March 22, 1908.
“stripped to the buff”: Ibid.
“MR. GANNON: The evidence”: Ibid.
“suffused with bliss”: Ibid.
“Pugilism was one thing”: Ibid.
“shame him out of King Edward’s islands”: Milwaukee Free Press, February 27, 1908. “to stand on the mat”: Deghy, Noble and Manly, pp. 165–66.
“Johnson in those days”: Bettinson and Bennison, Home of Boxing, p. 95.
“This Johnson can beat Burns”: Ibid.
“Johnson would sooner fight”: Ibid., p. 96.
“quite the nerviest proposition”: Police Gazette, April 25, 1908.
“The whole truth”: Ibid.
“very good heavyweight”: Dartnell, Seconds Out!, p. 171.
“by no means unintelligent”: Lynch, Knuckles and Gloves, p. 149.
“as I’m called a grabber anyway”: Milwaukee Evening Wisconsin, March 7, 1908.
“Johnson strolled into the … Club”: Police Gazette, June 1908.
“Now, let me ask you”: McCaffery, Tommy Burns, p. 175.
“bluffer”: Police Gazette, May 30, 1908.
“It’s downright weary work”: Quoted in Wells, Boxing Day, p. 113.
“This match was based”: Jack Johnson, In the Ring and Out, pp. 156–57.
“it was my fight”: Prison Memoir.
“an egg beaten up”: Quoted in Farr, Black Champion, p. 56.
“It was just fatiguing”: Prison Memoir.
Oxford Theater bill: Police Gazette, July 1908.
CHAPTER FIVE: THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN SMILE
“blend of charlatan”: Hetherington, Australians: Nine Profiles, p. 48.
“a two-man show”: Ibid., p.49.
“As a friendly hand”: Quoted in Wells, Boxing Day, p.94.
“All niggers are alike”: Ibid., p.85.
DE BIG COON AM A-COMIN’: Ibid., p. 120.
“Shame on the money-mad Champion!”: Quoted in Al-Tony Gilmore, Bad Nigger!, p. 27.
“The history of the Nigger”: Lynch, Knuckles and Gloves, pp. 44–45.
“We have a gym fixed up”: Police Gazette, November 1908.
“I am a larger man”: The Referee, October 28, 1908.
“the coloured man is accompanied”: Sydney Bulletin, November 5, 1908.
“exquisite fighting engine”: Wells, Boxing Day, p. 107.
“a desperate struggle”: Ibid., p.110.
“Citizens who have never prayed”: Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, November 15, 1908.
“The words I am about to speak”: Quoted in Wells, Boxing Day, pp. 128–29.
“Johnson does not like Burns”: “Leonce,” “Colored Champion of the World.” “Looking back in memory”: Burns, “Tommy Burns.”
“Rock Me to Sleep, Mother”: Lindsay, Comedy of Life, p. 237.
“take your medicine” … “When Burns stared to perform”: Prison Memoir.
“For every point I’m given”: Wells, Boxing Day, pp. 145–46.
“I am going to win”: Unsourced newspaper clipping, December 25, 1908, Alexander Gumby Collection.
“So you want your money first”: Quoted in Wells, Boxing Day, pp. 153–54.
“All the hatred”: Sydney Bulletin, December 27, 1908.
“uncanny accuracy”: Ibid.
“Don’t care”: Quoted in Wells, Boxing Day, p. 155.
“All right, Tommy”: Sydney Bulletin, December 31, 1908.
“The world spun crazily”: Burns, “Tommy Burns.”
“Poor little Tommy”: Broome, “Australian Reaction to Jack Johnson.”
“Come right on!”: Wells, Boxing Day, p.58.
“Come on and fight, nigger!”: Randy Roberts, Papa Jack, p. 64.
“Burns got through his earlier opponents”: Prison Memoir.
“Burns started it”: Ibid.
“I had forgotten more”: Ibid.
“I don’t think I can beat that nigger”: Deghy, Noble and Manly, p. 165.
“ ‘Hit me here, Tommy,’”: London, Stories of Boxing, p. 150.
“You punch like a woman, Tommy”: Quoted in Randy Roberts, Papa Jack, p.63.
“I was positive he would fold up”: Burns, “Tommy Burns.”
“They talked of [Burns’] being a man”: Prison Memoir.
“He is a funny fellow”: Police Gazette, May 8, 1909.
“I see him, oh yes”: Quoted in Broome, “Australian Reaction to Jack Johnson.”
“Flash nigger!”: Ibid.
“devilish gloating”: Ibid.
“He said something about my wife”: Quoted in Wells, Boxing Day, p. 175.
“Did you get that?”: Sydney Sportsman, December 27, 1908.
“in a voice fit to wake the dead”: Sydney Bulletin, December 27, 1908.
“I might even have won”: Quoted in Wells, Boxing Day, p.174.
“The Australian nation”: Unsourced clipping from a British book, Jim Johnston Collection.
“Burns can’t fight”: Quoted in Wells, Boxing Day, p. 173.
“I had attained my life’s ambition”: Jack Johnson, In the Ring and Out, p. 58.
“gloating coon”: Sydney Sportsman, December 27, 1908.
“It was not Burns that was beaten”: Broome, “Australian Reaction to Jack Johnson.”
“Already the insolent black’s victory”: Sydney Herald, December 31, 1908.
“As I am a descendant of Ham”: Quoted in Wells, Boxing Day, pp. 178–79.
“Your central Australian natives”: Ibid.
“Personally, I took no other interest”: Baltimore American, December 27, 1908.
“Texas Darky”: Quoted in Al-Tony Gilmore, Bad Nigger!, p. 28.
“Is the Caucasian played out?” Detroit Free Press, January 1, 1909.
“Well, Bre’r Johnson”: Quoted in Randy Roberts, “Heavyweight Champion Jack Johnson.”
“Now that Mr. Johnson”: Quoted in Al-Tony Gilmore, Bad Nigger!, p.31.
“No event in forty years”: Ibid., p.32.
“the zenith of Negro sport”: Ibid., p.31.
“high-living, failure”: Cleveland Journal, January 2, 1909.
“the first cable ever sent”: Buffalo Express, December 28, 1908.
“Burns never was the champion”: Ibid., December 27, 1908.
“the white man has succumbed”: Chicago Tribune, December 27, 1908.
“newspaper champion”: Buffalo Express, December 28, 1908.
“Personally, I was for Burns”: London, Boxing Stories, pp. 142–50.
“Armenian massacre”: Ibid.
“They kept at me”: Quoted in Nicholson, A Man Among Men, p. 186.
“he should get a vaudeville engagement”: Van Court, Making of Champions, p.99.
“he said that if he made a start”: Ibid. “stepped around as spry”: Los Angeles Examiner, January 9, 1909.
“Say, won’t you fight Johnson”: Milwaukee Free Press, January 17, 1909.
“If I were to whip Johnson”: Ibid., March 4, 1909.
“I want to see the championship”: Hietala, Fight of the Century, p. 34.
“The shades of night”: Police Gazette, February 1909.
Johnson’s visit to Jackson’s grave: Noted in Broome, “Australian Reaction to Jack Johnson.”
CHAPTER SIX: THE CHAMPION
“I’ve got no kick coming”: Associated Press, March 10, 1909.
“I am willing to meet”: Ibid.
“eyes sparkled”: NYT, March 10, 1909.
“the former Nellie O’Brien”: Associated Press, March 10, 1909.
“a different man”: NYT, March 10, 1909.
“I found Johnson the most charming opponent”: McLaglen, Express to Hollywood, p. 151.
“The negroes in charge”: Chicago Tribune, March 14, 1909.
“It is reported that Jack Johnson”: Nashville Globe, March 12, 1909.
“in a small Nevada town”: Chicago Tribune, March 16, 1909.
“There was nothing secret”: Ibid.
“I can lick Jim Jeffries”: Milwaukee Free Press, March 16, 1909.
“I beat Sam easy before”: Police Gazette, April 10, 1909.
“Being a champion”: Bettinson and Bennison, Home of Boxing, p. 98.
NO ONE ENTERS THESE PORTALS: Bradford, Born with the Blues, p. 171.
“There were no preliminaries”: Variety, April 3, 1909.
“the absolutely proper and dignified thing”: Emmett Jay Scott to J. Frank Wheaton, March 23, 1909. Booker T. Washington Papers, Library of Congress.
“Minna and Ada Everleigh are to pleasure”: Quoted in Washburn, Come into My Parlor, p.28.
“inexperienced girls or young widows”: Ibid., p. 46.
“Be polite”: Ibid., p.24.
“The Everleigh Club is not for the rough element”: Ibid.
“ten cents was a big meal”: In August of 1910, George Little got into a legal dispute with Jack Johnson and prepared a lengthy document offering his version of events. Several collectors have typed copies of it; mine (hereafter called George Little “Confession”) was supplied to me by Benjamin Hawes.
“the sporting life”: Belle Schreiber testimony, DOJ File.
“a little over”: Ibid.
“out of affection”: Ibid.
“Men and boys”: NYT, April 22, 1909.
“I’m faking and four-flushing”: Milwaukee Evening Wisconsin, August 24, 1909.
“as fat as a Jap wrestler”: San Francisco Examiner, October 16, 1909.
“Assembled were men”: Prison Memoir.
“As a two-handed spender”: Police Gazette, June 1909.
“My mind is constantly”: Jack Johnson testimony, DOJ File.
“very much painted”: Agent W. P. Schmid report of interview with Frederick C. Gale, March 13, 1913, DOJ File.
“It’s getting so they just take me”: NYT, August 7, 1909.
“ ‘If’ and ‘suppose’”: Quoted in Randy Roberts, Papa Jack, p.81.
“In all these appearances”: Barton, My Lifetime in Sports, p. 41.
“Someone asked Jeff”: Chicago American, August 5, 1909.
“How did you ever get the title?” Police Gazette, August 11, 1909.
“There was skill on both sides”: Chicago American, August 12, 1909.
“the men of his race”: Baltimore Afro-American, August 21, 1909.
“Kaufmann had no more chance”: Prison Memoir.
“Bring him along”: LAT, September 20, 1909.
“It wouldn’t be a bad idea”: Police Gazette, October 2, 1909.
“With the waning of the day”: Quoted in Randy Roberts, Papa Jack, p.80.
“Naturally, there was a state of warfare”: Jack Johnson, In the Ring and Out, p. 77.
lithographed postcard: DOJ File.
“a dim sense of property rights”: John Lardner, “Yesterday’s Graziano.”
“I was a tough kid”: Fleischer, Michigan Assassin, p. 7.
“He had the soul of a bouncer”: Quoted in John Lardner, “Yesterday’s Graziano.”
“I hit ‘em so hard”: Ibid.
“The sonofabitch!”: John Burke, Rogue’s Progress, p. 133.
“He was a savage”: McCallum, Encyclopedia of World Boxing Champions, p.128.
“Why he’s just a little fella”: NYT, March 10, 1909.
“rusher,” “reach and range”: San Francisco Examiner, October 10, 1909.
“There is a great difference”: Jack Johnson, “How Ketchel Tried to Double Cross Me.”
“Let’s be practical, Jack”: Ibid.
“make the pictures snappy”: Jack Johnson, In the Ring and Out, p.195.
“deck hands, picked exclusively”: Milwaukee Evening Wisconsin, October 18, 1909.
“At the police station”: Ibid., October 21, 1909.
“Jack Johnson is running wild”: San Francisco Examiner, October 18, 1909.
“With Johnson’s decisive decision”: Boxing, October 23, 1909.
“Even those who have an absurdly exaggerated horror”: NYT, November 1, 1909.
CHAPTER SEVEN: THE GREATEST COLORED MAN THAT EVER LIVED
“He swings through the door”: Harper’s Weekly, December 20, 1909.
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do”: Cleveland Advocate, March 8, 1910.
“Say, if the ‘Smoke’ goes out the window”: Ibid.
“we didn’t want to eat snowballs”: George Little “Confession.”
“theatrical connections”: Jack Johnson, In the Ring and Out, p.78.
“Famed on Long Island”: New York World, September 13, 1912.
“Somehow, crude, uneducated guy”: Samuels, Magnificent Rube, p. 113.
“That’s all right”: NYT, December 2, 1909.
“I was born and raised in the South”: Milwaukee Evening Wisconsin, March 21, 1909. “I was much inclined”: Quoted in Farr, Black Champion, p. 78.
“the most eminent black man”: Frederick G. Bonfils to Booker T. Washington, April 25, 1910, Booker T. Washington Papers, Library of Congress.
“I’ve got … money enough to live on”: Chicago Tribune, March 25, 1909.
“It is no exaggeration”: Streible, Fight Pictures, p. 149.
“Jack, I’m grateful to you”: Curley, Memoirs, February 1932.
“Jim, please, for our sakes”: Milwaukee Evening Wisconsin, April 5, 1910.
“how to whip the nigger”: Ibid.
“the black bluff”: Ibid., March 23, 1910.
“smash the coconut”: Ibid., April 5, 1910.
“was there the slightest reference”: Curley, Memoirs, February 1932.
“There’s an article in there”: Ibid.
“not to make mention”: Barney Gerard to Raymond E. Horn, March 11, 1913, DOJ File.
“It was notorious”: New York World, September 13, 1912.
“Mrs. Duryea began to be seen”: Ibid.
“a highly educated woman”: Heller, In This Corner, p. 42.
“Jack Johnso
n was one of the two”: Milwaukee Evening Wisconsin, December 27, 1909.
“He wanted me to have it”: Belle Schreiber trial testimony, April 1913, DOJ File.
“girl friend from Brooklyn”: Barney Gerard to Raymond E. Horn, March 11, 1913, DOJ File.
“hit the first man”: Milwaukee Free Press, January 3, 1910.
“We were not on good terms”: Belle Schreiber testimony, April 1913, DOJ File.
“They didn’t want me”: Quoted in Farr, Black Champion, p. 170.
“Don’t pull that stuff on me”: Philadelphia Evening Telegraph, January 20, 1910.
“Honest to heaven, Mister”: NYT, January 20, 1910.
“came and got me out of there”: Belle Schreiber testimony, April 1913, DOJ File.
“seeing my life in danger”: Barney Gerard to Raymond E. Horn, March 11, 1913, DOJ File.
“deckhands, wharf wallopers”: Police Gazette, April 16, 1910.
“Johnson has become reckless”: Baltimore American, February 27, 1910.
“No one ever heard of Peter Jackson”: Indianapolis Freeman, March 15, 1910.
“Stand back, Mr. White Officer”: Quoted in Farr, Black Champion, p.81.
“He growls and snarls and grumbles”: Randy Roberts, Papa Jack, p.92.
“I dislike Johnson”: Chicago Tribune, June 19, 1910.
LOOKS AS FORMIDABLE: Baltimore American, May 15, 1920.
“in condition; that he is fast”: Police Gazette, June 1910.
“regain his judgment”: Chicago Tribune, May 2, 1910.
“When I sent my card up”: John H. Washington, Jr., to Emmett Jay Scott, May 24, 1910, Booker T. Washington Papers, Library of Congress.
“I told Little that if anyone went”: LAT, May 30, 1910.
“These talks, into which Little”: Ibid.
“Don’t you see, Jack?” Los Angeles Examiner, July 8, 1910.
“See here, George”: Ibid.
“No stolen chicken ever passes”: Quoted in Farr, Black Champion, p. 104.
“I can’t box anymore today”: Baltimore American, June 26, 1910.
“The clergy are preaching THE FIGHT”: Boxing, June 18, 1910.
“This Jeffries-Johnson fight”: Quoted in Randy Roberts, “Heavyweight Champion Jack Johnson.”
“Stop the Fight”: NYT, June 6, 1910.
“this fight can be regarded”: Chicago Tribune, May 4, 1910.
“Though he was frequently interrupted”: San Francisco Examiner, June 4, 1910.
Unforgivable Blackness Page 62
