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My Life and Battles: By Jack Johnson

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When Ali returned from exile to fight Jerry Quarry; his friend and cornerman Drew Bundini Brown yelled to Ali from ringside, " Ghost in the House". He was referring of course to Jack Johnson. Ali always felt a kinship; he felt that his life mirrored Johnson's. In this book the reader gets to hear Jack Johnson's stories from Jack himself. It gives great insight to a truly unique individual. Although the stories were taken from French transcripts, the author Christopher Rivers does a great job of translating and keeping them true to form ( or as true as Mr. Johnson wanted to tell). So the ghost is back and telling His story, His way.... Read it.

If you liked the stories about black boxers inThe 50th Law, Jack Johnson's memoir is the next step. This is the lost and translated book that came out of a series of pieces Johnson wrote for a French newspaper in 1911. It's not very long but it is full of really interesting strategies and anecdotes. For example, early boxers used to hire "scientists" - essentially anatomy experts who looked at their form and told them where to do damage on the body - and this was always something poor blacks were excluded from. Johnson taught himself instead by purposely prolonging fights - sort of distancing himself from his own head and observing the fight as though he was a bystander. He tried to look at boxing like a business, putting his likes and dislikes of any situation aside, so he could be objective. It's a philosophy that hustlers seem to understand well, the concept of You, Inc, because they never had any other option. Necessity required self-employment. With Johnson though, you want to keep in mind that for all he built and achieved, he lost more. Obviously, he couldn't control the racial problems of the time but he very intentionally played with the fire that ultimately burned him. Not saying it isn't sad, it's just what happened.