The First Black Heavy Weight Champ: Jack Johnson

The first black heavy weight champ (Jack Johnson) won his heavy weight title on December 26, 1908 in a fourteen round match against Canadian world champion Tommy Burns. Johnson was nicknamed the “Galveston Giant”. His real name was Arthur John Johnson, he was the only son out of three children born  in Galveston Texas to parents that were former slaves.

By 1902 Johnson had won at least fifty fights against both white and black opponents, he won his very first title on February 3, 1903

Johnson was inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame in 1954 and he was also on the roster of both the International Boxing Hall of Fame and the World Boxing Hall of Fame.
Jack Johnson lost his Heavy Weight title to Jess Willard in 1915.

Johnson  was wronged by a 1913 convection of violating the (Mann act) by having consensual relations with a white woman.

What is the Mann act you ask!

The Mann act outlawed transporting woman across state lines for immoral purposes:
Johnson had a white girlfriend, in 1913 it was unheard of that a white woman date a black man at that time. He and this woman married, yet he was still convicted and spend almost a year in prison after authorities found another woman that would testify against him.
The conviction was widely seen as racially motivated.

After leaving prison Johnson was unable to get his boxing career up and running again. He was never able to regain his heavy weight title.

He died in a car crash in 1946 at the age of 68, in Franklinton North Carolina, a small town near Raleigh.

Recurring proposals to grant Johnson a Posthumous Presidential Pardon was last ask for during President Bushes term in office but it didn’t pass all stages before it was thrown out.
The latest request is a news conference to be held today April 1, 2009 at Capital Hill to suggest  a resolution for a presidential pardon for Johnson.

John McCain, Representative Peter King, film maker Ken Burns and Johnson’s great niece Linda Haywood are just a few that intend to be at this news conference.

Many feel that asking for and receiving a pardon for Johnson would “remove the cloud that has been over the American Sporting scene ever since Jack Johnson was convicted on these charges”.

Though pardons for the dead are rare.  

If you would like to know more about this issue there was  a documentary “Unforgivable Blackness” the rise and Fall of Jack Johnson that was done in 2005. Many libraries carry this and you can borrow it free of charge, there are also sites that you can search and buy a copy from there.