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Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson

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In the introduction to his biography of Jack Johnson, Geoffrey C. Ward indicates that his primary source was newspaper articles. And indeed, this biography reads much like a very long newspaper account of the life of Jack Johnson. This isn't good or bad, but an apt description of what it is like reading this biography. In fact, Ward has done a commendable job in weaving what he had to work with into a very readable, informative, and enjoyable work.

Jack Johnson was the boxing world heavyweight champion from 1908-1915. And he was the first black heavyweight champion, which dominates the story of his life inside the ring and out. Johnson became heavyweight champion at a time when boxing was just barely out of the bare knuckle era, and while more organized as a sport, was still a rough and tumble and often illegal activity. Boxing, even as it is today, was often surround by unsavory characters. During that era throwing fights for money or to set up matches wasn't uncommon. Johnson learned his craft literally starting from the bottom up in local tough man or boxing contests and his skills eventually lead him to the top of his sport.

What make Johnson's story so interesting are two things - race and his profligate lifestyle. Race played a key role in his life even though he himself ignored race and didn't let it interfere with how he behaved or what he did. He often sported white women on his arm and eventually married a white woman, and did not defer to anyone, black or white. This made him an even more incendiary figure for the race conscious press and America at the time. Many white heavyweights wouldn't fight Johnson - most notably Jim Jefferies who held the title at a time when Johnson was the obvious deserving opponent for a shot at the champion. Eventually Jefferies retired and "conferred" his title on Tommy Burns, a bulked up white middleweight. Johnson chased after Burns and through the pressure of the press he eventually landed his title shot and dominated his lesser opponent, winning the heavyweight championship of the world.

This eventually lead to one of the most pivotal heavyweight boxing matches in history - and certainly the most pivotal fight of Johnson's career - a match with former heavyweight champion Jim Jefferies. Jefferies was obviously reluctant to come out of retirement to fight the new champion but pressure from friends and many in the press and boxing world, who didn't want to see a black man hold the championship, more or less forced his hand. The fight eventually took place on July 4, 1910 in Reno, New Mexico. Thousands were in attendance but millions throughout the country waited for the result. Johnson dominated Jefferies through much of the fight, eventually knocking him out in the 15th round. Johnson's win legitimized his title as heavyweight champion. Unfortunately, it also touched off violence against blacks throughout the country.

Jefferies utter defeat also lead to a search for a "great white hope" to defeat Johnson. Eventually, Johnson was beaten by a huge but less skilled Jess Willard in Havana, Cuba on April 5, 1915. Johnson probably lost as much because of age, he was around 37 at the time, and the rather unfortunate events in is life from the time of the Jefferies victory to his match against Willard in Cuba. During that time he appears to have spent most of his money, married a white woman who eventually committed suicide, and married another white woman against the violent protests of her family. This led, in a rather convoluted way, to his fleeing the country with his new wife in tow after being brought up on charges of violating the Mann Act. During all this time, and the only reason to mention the ethnicity of his wives, was the vilification Johnson received in the press across America and the hatred he engendered among some, including those in law enforcement, who wanted to bring him down. Thus, Johnson had to go through convoluted negotiations and travel arrangements to even defend his title again Willard in Cuba. Eventually, Johnson decided to come back to America but had to face a jail sentence, which he served. After getting out of jail, broke because he spent most of his money, he mostly earned a living through boxing exhibitions and similar activities.

Johnson's lifestyle some would call raucous. He made a lot of money for his era and he spent it freely on clothes, cars, and the women he kept as companions some of which were prostitutes or former prostitutes. One can look up to Johnson for not letting racism stand in the way of living his life the way he wanted to live it and kowtowing to no one. One could also look askance as his philandering, spendthrift way of life, but who are we to really judge? Undoubtedly Johnson brought some of his problems on himself. Also undoubtedly he was treated unfairly because of the era in which he lived in. Had Johnson lived today he might get some negative press, but more likely he would have a legion of fans who willing to overlook some of the things he did in his private life.

Cars were relatively new invention in early 1900's and Johnson loved cars and bought several of them. He often liked to drive fast. This too eventually caught up with him as, while speeding, he swerved to miss a truck and rammed his car into a tree. He died in 1946 after an adventurous 68 years.

Note this book is the companion to Ken Burn's documentary of the life of Jack Johnson using the same title. I have not viewed the documentary yet but plan to.

The title, all by itself, sums up Jack Johnson's life. Born in Texas in 1878, only 13 years after the end of the Civil War, in the heyday of the Klu Klux Klan he emerged as an early day Mohammed Ali. As a fighter he was probably the best of his time. As a flamboyant character outside the ring he seemed deliberately out to tweak the noses of the white (and some of the black) establishment.

And if he excelled in the ring, he truly triumphed at nose tweaking. He told outlandish stories. He attracted women of all races as he traveled from city to city and country to country. And as he took on all comers in the prize ring, he took on all comers among the ladies as well. This was enough, at that time in the South, to get him lynched.

One of his episodes with a young lady resulted in him being convicted of the Mann act. This act made it illegal to transport womes across state lines for amoral purposes. Originally intended as a way to stop prostitution (who were they kidding), it was also applied in mixed race situations against the negro man. Eventually this gave him nearly a year in federal prison.

Extensively researched, this is a brilliant biography of a most colorful character, who if he'd been white would have been a hero.

Admittedly I'm a bit of a boxing fan so the life of Jack Johnson holds some interest for me. And while Johnson's career and his fights are well-presented, the real genius of Ward's book comes in the way he eloquently fills in the blanks of an amazing man who lived the life he wanted with all of society trying to prevent him from doing just that. I'd hate to see this book get relegated to sports sections in book stores when it so clearly is a well-written, remarkable biography about a groundbreaking man that everyohne should read.

Geoffrey Ward has specialized in writing the companion volumes to the various documentaries (The Civil War, Baseball, Jazz, Mark Twain, and The West) created by Ken Burns. This coffee-table size book is no different from the other books in this American history series.

Well-written and lavished with rare and numerous photos, it tells more the story of an era through the career of boxer Jack Johnson. The one constant theme of the many joint projects between Mr. Ward and Mr. Burns is race -- and they explore the life of this attention-seeking boxer (similiar to Mohammed Ali a half century later) to examine the everyday racism present in the early 1900's.

This is not the definative biography of Jack Johnson -- for that the reader must go elsewhere for dates and boxing lore. Nor is it the interpretive account of the man (though they come close)--for that the reader should either read the play or view the 1970 James Earl Jones bio film, "The Great White Hope" (now out on DVD). But if the reader is interested in the history and attitudes of Americans in the first half of the 20th century as seen through the life of Jack Johnson, then this is your book.

This book proves to be an interesting biography about a man who choose to lived his life as he see fit and not the way society saw fit. He became a heavyweight champion of the boxing world, showed off his wealth and proves to be most unapologic about his lifestyle. He was a non-conformist in a world that demanded conformity. This man was Jack Johnson, considered as one of the finest heavyweight boxing champions and he was also black man ignoring the rules of white America. This biography make it clear that by ignoring the rules of white America, Johnson had to fight, not only in the ring but outside of it as well. In some ways, Jack Johnson was a combination of Muhammad Ali and Barry Bond of his era. Unlike those two gentlemen, Johnson lived in a period of extreme low tolerance for any black man not conforming to the social standard. Johnson's taste for white women, his affuent lifestyle and his brash words made him one of the most hated black man among white America and caused of discord among black America. His disrespect for Joe Louis toward the end of his life also caused him many black supporters. He seem to be a man without color, doing what he want regardless of what white or black people thought about it.

Geoffrey C. Ward managed to write a highly interesting biography on this individual. He separate Johnson from his myths, legends and lies to create a honest picture. This was probably somewhat difficult since Johnson, his friends and his infinite enemies were behind the myths, legends and lies. What comes out is a highly readable, very informative and pretty interesting biography of a man who simply refused boxed himself in.

Book come highly recommended and an excellent study of racial relationship between black and white America.

Once upon a time, before Ron Artest, Latrell Sprewell, and Allen Iverson started undoing the legacy of NBA saints like Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson, before the Kobe trial and the O.J. trial and the Tyson trial, before Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised Black Power fists at the 1968 Olympics, and before Muhammad Ali refused to be drafted, there was one original Controversial Black Athlete. Like so many others, his personal life spawned as many newspaper headlines as his professional accomplishments; like too many others, his race added to the enmity caused by his actions. But he was like none of them because he was the first, the original, the man who set the standard against which all others would be measured. And his name was Jack Johnson.

Johnson, like so many athletes and so many people both black and white, was no saint. He cheated on wives and mistresses, consorted with prostitutes, drank too much, drove too fast, and generally lived a life of relentless excess. What earned him so much hostility, though, was not so much his actions but (according to W.E.B. Du Bois, whose words inspired the book's title) this "unforgivable blackness." In the early 21st century, Johnson's actions might have earned him probation, a few snarky newspaper stories, and perhaps a few lines in the gossip columns; in the early 20th century, however, they earned him several years of exile and, when he got tired of running, a stint in Leavenworth.

Unlike many later controversial athletes, though, Johnson had to fight as many battles on the way up as he did on the way down. From his early life in Galveston until he won the world heavyweight championship in 1908, he battled not only for victory over his opponents, but for the very right to face them in the ring. White champions would not face black challengers. White audiences would rather laugh at blindfolded black boxers pummelling each other aimlessly in "battles royal" than watch them compete against white boxers on a level playing field. And so black boxers toiled in obscurity, forgoing their shot at the title. That is, until Jack Johnson (by virtue of his persistence, skill, patience and sheer excellence) forced the boxing world to take notice and grant him what any similarly talented white boxer would have long before had: a chance to prove he was the best in the world.

Ward chronicles Johnson's struggles to reach this point almost too thoroughly; the unending series of setbacks and rejections and prejudices that Johnson had to overcome end up feeling as repetitive and painful as a series of jabs to the head. (The era's racism was so overt that major newspapers would edit Johnson's quotes to make him sound more like what they thought a black person must sound like.) But it is only after Johnson's championship that the book really starts to hit home. For while Johnson's rise to fame might have been compelling, his fall is all the more fascinating. Like a figure from Greek tragedy, Johnson is undone not only by his enemies, but by his own hubris and grand dreams.

These same problems may well have rubbed off on the author, however. Ward's book seems at times to be less a biography than an effort to prove that the author knows more about early 20th century boxing than anyone, anywhere, ever. Beneath all too many pages, he's put footnotes. Not just any footnotes, mind you, but grand, expansive, overlong footnotes that, if they are fully read, inevitably distract the reader from what is otherwise a very fine story. There's a school of thought among historians that says that footnotes should only be used to document sources; if facts are important to the story, they should be worked in to the story, and if they aren't important, they shouldn't make it into the book. While reading this book, one ends up wishing Ward bought into that school of thought.

But this criticism should not detract from Ward's accomplishment: he waded into a project that required him to sort through a mess of lies, fabrications and tall tales, and he emerged with a fascinating and generally compelling portrait of a man who defied every stereotype and convention, who challenged the world on his own terms and, in many ways, lost to it--but only after a knock-down, drag-out fight.

Jack Johnson was no saint, and certainly Geoffrey C. Ward does not defend his vices nor forgive Johnson in his book, "Unforgivable Blackness - The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson". What Ward does do (with great research and writing) is gather details pertaining to periods in leading up to and between what generally is known as Johnson's triumphs and headlines. Furthermore, he does set the scene of a land not yet ready for Johnson's maverick ways.

You get the early stories of Johnson as a youth and his influential mother who set upon him the idea that he was capable of anything. His days of leaving school for work, to his beginnings in early prizefighting are covered in detail as well as his participation in battle royals which many black fighters of his era too had experience in. These beginnings were the catalyst of the rise and conquering of the most distinguished pugilistic title "World Heavyweight Champion". His style was before any time; a defensive master who toyed with opponents and at times would carry conversations with ringside onlookers.

Johnson and his women were always intriguing and really got him in a pickle with the government. Beyond Jim Crow, blacks acting "uppity" were easy targets to make examples of in judicial or extreme (lynching) measures. Johnson being the most notorious black American of that era certainly was as easy a target for the Anglo-Saxon sentiment. "Lil' Arthur" though was a rebel and lived his life as he chose, his extradition came after a long battle which he did put a good fight. I think to compare him to Ali is incorrect. Ali was unpopular to many, but popular on the flip side as well. Johnson was always looked upon as a threat by a white majority and eventually even looked down upon in disgust by many of his fellow blacks.

His downfall was sad, but all in all Johnson lived his life as good as a black American could in that time. He traveled the world unlike any normal citizen would of and rubbed many known shoulders of his day. It is only tragic that if he were not black, he would have been regarded as the Babe Ruth of boxing.

Jack Johnson was one of the most dynamic fighters who ever lived. It's sad that he is also one of the most forgotten.

Geoffrey C. Ward has brought Johnson back to life in this compelling biography. I happen to be a boxing fan from way back but Ward has told me some things about Johnson that I didn't know. His prose is detailed and precise, with added information on the bottom of most pages. He show's Johnson as a flawed human being outside the ring but, a brillant fighter inside it.
Ward also writes about the times that Johnson lived in where racism was the 'norm'. Johnson struggles not only with his opponents inside the ring, but the pure hatred outside of it. It is painful at times to read.

This is a excellent biography on a truely complex human being.

Enjoy

To simply call Jack Johnson a boxer would be selling short the story of his life. Though it is often times hard to follow because of all of the characters that come in and out of the book and his life, the anecdotal biography gives us a unique and in-depth perspective of Jack Johnson, the man, not just the boxer.

Considering the time in which he lived and where he grew up, it is almost humorous to the reader to imagine how he ruffled so many feathers. The best part is that he was genuine and didn't seem to care what people thought. He not only had a knack for avoiding being knocked out in the ring but also outside of it.

In the first part of the book, his boxing legend is established and well-documented. It is a little difficult to follow which is fitting because I think that Jack Johnson was hard to follow. I would have hated to be the person who eulogized him. He seemed to live, see, and do enough for 10 lifetimes. The second part of the book plays out like so many famous people after their prime. The glory fades often too fast for them to realize and you pity the once glorious hero as he is humbled.

The best part of this book is that you see Jack Johnson as a human being. He was no saint. In fact, some of the things he did would be scandalous by today's standards. It is embarassing and all too familiar to recount how badly he was treated just because of the color of his skin. This only seemed to embolden him more. It was amazing how easily he disarmed those who didn't know him and expected a certain pattern of behavior because of their preconceived notion of how a black man or a boxer (pugilist) would or should act. He was truly a renaissance man.

This is a great book about an unbelievable human being. Love him or hate him, Jack Johnson was truly one of a kind.

Mr. Ward brings to life not only the iconoclastic Jack Johnson, but the America of a hundred years ago. This story is as much a sociological history of America as it is the story of one incredible man's life. I can't wait to see the PBS production of this. The soundtrack for the production, scored and performed by Wynton Marsalis, perfectly captures the time and mood of turn-of-the-century America. All in, a real triumph.