Unforgivable Blackness

by Geoffrey C. Ward

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  ———.”The Kings of the Roped Arena.” Baseball Magazine 6 (February 1913).

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  SOUVENIR PROGRAMS

  Souvenir of the Tommy Burns–Jack Johnson Boxing Contest. Sydney, 1908.

  The Referee Jeffries–Johnson Official Souvenir Edition. San Francisco, July 4, 1910.

  Café de Champion Souvenir Program. Chicago, 1912.

  Jess Willard–Jack Johnson Souvenir Program. Havana, 1915.

  ____________________________________________

  PHOTOGRAPHS

  At the time this photograph was made, in 1901, Jack Johnson was twenty-three years old, had been a professional boxer for six years, and already had his eye on an apparently unreachable prize—the heavyweight championship, which had always been reserved for whites. “I had demonstrated my strength, speed and skill,” he wrote, “but still faced many obstacles, the principal one of which was the customary prejudice because of my race.” (Gary Phillips Collection)

  In 1901, Johnson and the veteran heavyweight Joe Choynski were locked up together in Galveston for twenty-three days (above right) for taking part in an illegal prizefight—two days longer, Johnson remembered, than a prisoner who had killed his wife. Sheriff Henry Thomas (with moustache and pistol) let them out at night, and when the time came for their release (above left) made sure a photographer was on hand to capture the moment. (Gary Phillips Collection)

  All his life, Johnson refused to conform to anyone else’s expectations for him. In 1904, in defiance of local custom, he was living in a white neighborhood in Bakersfield, California, with Clara Kerr (above), a sporting woman from Philadelphia whom he introduced as “Mrs. Jack Johnson.” He already held the “Colored Heavyweight Championship of the World” and had beaten Sam McVey (above) twice when they faced off in San Francisco’s Mechanics Pavilion that same year. Johnson toyed with his hard-hitting but relatively unskilled challenger for nineteen rounds—enraging a good many of the derbied fans at ringside—before knocking him out in the twentieth. (Pugilistica.com Boxing Memorabilia, Dave Bergin; Gary Phillips Collection)