Jack Johnson (boxer)

From Free net encyclopedia

Template:Infobox Boxer John Arthur Johnson (March 31, 1878 – June 10, 1946), better known as Jack Johnson and nicknamed the "Galveston Giant", was an American boxer and arguably the best heavyweight of his generation. He was the first black Heavyweight Champion of the World, 1908-1915.

Contents

[edit]

Biography

[edit]

Early life

Jack Johnson was born in Galveston, Texas to Henry and Tiny Johnson, former slaves, who both worked blue-collar jobs to earn enough to raise six children and teach them all how to read and write. Jack Johnson had only five years of formal schooling.

[edit]

Personal life

Johnson was a renowned womaniser and had many relationships, a number of them with prostitutes and brothel-keepers. He was married three times. His first wife, Etta Duryea, committed suicide in September 1911, nine months after their wedding. Johnson quickly remarried, to Lucille Cameron; the speed of the courtship caused a scandal and their premarital relationship led to his indictment under the Mann Act and caused the couple to flee to France soon after their marriage. Lucille sued for divorce in 1924, citing her husband's adultery; he did not contest her suit. Johnson married his third wife, Irene Pineau, in 1925; she outlived him. All three of Johnson's wives were white, a fact that caused considerable controversy at the time. He had no children.

On his return to the United States in 1920, the boxer served a year in prison for his earlier violation of the Mann Act.

Johnson was an early example of the celebrity athlete, appearing regularly in the press and later on radio and in motion pictures. He earned considerable sums endorsing various products, including patent medicines, and indulged several expensive hobbies, including automobile racing and the purchase of jewellery and furs for his wives.

[edit]

Boxing career

Johnson fought his first bout, a 16-round victory, at age 15. He turned professional around 1897, fighting in private clubs, and by age 18 was earning more in one night than his father earned in an entire week.

In 1901, Joe Choynski came to Galveston to train Jack Johnson. Choynski, an experienced boxer, knocked Johnson out, and the two were arrested for "engaging in an illegal contest" and put in jail for 23 days. (Although boxing was one of the three most popular sports in America at the time, along with baseball and horse-racing, the practice was officially illegal in most states, including Texas.) Choynski began training Johnson in jail.

Johnson developed a more patient style than was customary in that day: playing defensively, waiting for a mistake, and then capitalizing on it. It was very effective, but it was criticized in the press as being cowardly and devious. By 1902, Johnson had won at least 27 fights against both white and black opponents. Johnson won his first title on February 3 1903, beating "Denver" Ed Martin over 20 rounds for the Colored Heavyweight Championship. His efforts to win the full title were thwarted as World Heavyweight Champion James J. Jeffries refused to face him. Blacks could box whites in other arenas, but the heavyweight championship was such a respected and coveted position in America that blacks were not deemed worthy to compete for it. Johnson was only able to fight former champion Bob Fitzsimmons in July 1907, and knocked him out in two rounds.

He eventually won the World Heavyweight Title on December 26, 1908, when he fought the World Heavyweight Champion, Canadian Tommy Burns in Sydney, Australia, after following him all over the world, taunting him in the press for a match. The fight lasted 14 rounds before being stopped by the police. The title was awarded to Johnson on a referee's decision as a T.K.O, but he had severely beaten the champion. During the fight, Johnson had mocked both Burns and his ringside crew. Every time Burns was about to go down, Johnson would hold him up again, punishing him more. The camera was stopped just as Johnson was finishing off Burns so that nobody could actually see Johnson becoming the champion.

As title holder, Johnson had to face a series of fighters billed by boxing promoters as "great white hopes", often as exhibition matches. In 1909 he fought Victor McLaglen (who later became a Hollywood star) in a six-round no-contest bout. That same year he beat Frank Moran, Jack O'Brien, Tony Ross and Al Kaufman.

He also fought the middleweight champion Stanley Ketchel. As the story goes, Ketchell agreed to try not to win, and the two agreed to try to make the fight go as long as possible, to get more money from selling films of the fight. However, at one point Ketchell saw an opening, and threw a big right hand, trying to knock Johnson out. Johnson went down, but held himself up on one arm, then arose almost immediately, threw his own big right, and knocked Ketchell out. It was said that Ketchell's teeth became embedded in Johnson's glove.

Image:Johnson jeff.jpg On July 4, 1910 in front of 22,000 people, he defeated James J. Jeffries, a champion who had earlier turned him down, with a K.O. in the 15th round. The fight earned Johnson $115,000, and silenced critics who had belittled Johnson's previous victory over Tommy Burns as empty, claiming Burns was a false champion since Jeffries had retired undefeated. His victory sparked race riots and certain states banned the filming of Johnson's victories over white fighters.

But on April 5, 1915 the 37-year-old lost his title to Jess Willard in Havana, Cuba. With a crowd of 25,000 for the scheduled 45- round fight Johnson was K.O.'d in the 26th round. The temperature was 105 in the ring. Some claimed that Johnson threw the fight, but Willard said, "If he was going to throw the fight, I wished he'd done it sooner." Johnson circulated a photo of himself with his hand above his head, claiming that the floor was too hot to the touch and he was shielding the sun from his eyes, as proof that he was not knocked out. But he didn't show the next photo in the sequence that had him flat on his back and his arms on the canvas.

He fought a number of bouts in Mexico before returning to the U.S. on July 20, 1920 and surrendering to Federal agents for allegedly violating the Mann Act against "transporting women across state lines for immoral purposes" by sending his white girlfriend, Belle Schreiber, a railroad ticket to travel from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Chicago, Illinois. This is generally considered an intentional misuse of the Act, which was intended to stop interstate traffic in prostitutes. He was sent to the United States Penitentiary, Leavenworth to serve his sentence of one year and was released on July 9, 1921. There have been recurring proposals to grant Johnson a posthumous Presidential pardon.

According to legend, Johnson attempted to buy passage on the Titanic's maiden voyage in 1912 but was denied because of his race, thus gaining the "last laugh" on the racists when it sank. This story is commemorated in the song "Titanic" by Leadbelly and a "toast", "Shine and the Titanic," by Arthur "Arturo" Pfister, of New Orleans, Louisiana. (The legend is again given play in the song "Legend of the U.S.S. Titanic" by Jaime Brockett.)

[edit]

Later days

He continued fighting, but age was catching up with him. After two losses in 1928 he participated only in exhibition bouts. He opened a night club in Harlem, which later became the Cotton Club. According to a reporter, the story is that his wife, Lucille Cameron, divorced him in 1924 on the grounds of infidelity. Jack Johnson then married an old friend named Ms. Irene Pineau.

Jack Johnson died in a car crash near Raleigh, North Carolina in 1946 and was buried next to Etta Duryea in Graceland Cemetery, in Chicago, Illinois. He was inducted to the Boxing Hall of Fame in 1954.

[edit]

Legacy

His fighting style was very distinctive. He always began a bout cautiously before slowly building up over the rounds into a more aggressive fighter. He often fought to punish his opponent rather than knock them out, endlessly avoiding their blows and striking with swift counters. He always gave the impression of having much more to offer and, if pushed, he could really damage an opponent.

Johnson is also a member of the modern International Boxing Hall of Fame, which was established in 1990 at Canastota, New York.

Johnson flouted conventions regarding the social and economic "place" of African Americans. As a black man, he broke a powerful taboo in consorting with white women, usually prostitutes, and would verbally taunt and otherwise bully men (white and black) both inside and outside the ring. Once, when he was pulled over for a $50 speeding ticket, he gave the officer a $100 bill, telling the officer he should keep the change as he was going to make his return trip at the same speed. Johnson's skill as a fighter and the money that it brought him made him unable to be ignored by the white establishment. In the short term, the boxing world reacted against this legacy. Joe Louis was not able to box for the heavyweight title until he proved he could "act white," and was warned against gloating over fallen opponents or having his picture taken with a white woman. But Johnson foreshadowed, in many ways, perhaps the most famous boxer of all time, Muhammad Ali. In fact, Muhammad Ali often spoke of how he was influenced by Jack Johnson. He identified with him because he felt white America ostracized him in the same manner because of his opposition to the war in Vietnam. Muhammad Ali in his autobiography relates how he and Joe Frazier agreed that Johnson and Joe Louis were the greatest boxers of old.

In a documentary about his life by Ken Burns, called "Unforgivable Blackness", Burns said: "For more than thirteen years, Jack Johnson was the most famous, and the most notorious, African-American on Earth.".

[edit]

Other interests

Johnson was also interested in opera (his favorite being Il Trovatore), history (he was an admirer of Napoleon Bonaparte, owing to their common heritage of rising from humble origins to the top of their respective fields), and automobile racing. He was also an inventor, holding at least three patents; two were associated with automobiles (presumably the result of his interest in them), an improved adjustable wrench and an anti-theft device. The third was a steam-powered heavy winch. The first patent was filed while Johnson was in jail at Leavenworth.

[edit]

Quotes

Asked the secret of his staying power by a reporter who had watched a succession of women parade into, and out of, the champion's room, Johnson supposedly said, "Eat jellied eels and think distant thoughts." <ref>Stump, Al. 'The rowdy reign of the Black avenger'. True: The Men's Magazine January 1963.</ref>

[edit]

Popular culture

Southern punk rock band This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb has a song about Jack Johnson. It appears on both their Three Way Tie for a Fifth CD and split seven inch with Carrie Nations. Several hip-hop artists have also reflected on Johnson's legacy, most notably "New Danger", by Mos Def, in which songs like "Zimzallabim" and "Blue Black Jack" are devoted to the artist's pugilistic hero. Miles Davis and Wynton Marsalis both have done soundtracks for documentaries about Jack Johnson. There are also several references to Jack Johnson, made by the main character Ron Burgundy, in the movie Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.

Jack Johnson's story is the basis of the play and subsequent 1970 movie, "The Great White Hope", starring James Earl Jones as Johnson (known as Jack Jefferson in the movie), and Jane Alexander as his love interest.

[edit]

See also

Miles Davis's 1970 (see 1970 in music) album "A Tribute to Jack Johnson" was inspired by Johnson. The end of the record features the actor Brock Peters (presumably as Johnson) saying:

"I'm Jack Johnson. Heavy weight champion of the world. I'm black all right, en never let them forget".

[edit]

References

<references />

[edit]

External links

Template:Start box Template:Succession box Template:End boxda:Jack Johnson de:Jack Johnson (Boxer) fr:Jack Johnson (boxeur) no:Jack Johnson (1878–1946) pl:Jack Johnson (bokser) sv:Jack Johnson

Retrieved from "http://www.netipedia.com/index.php/Jack_Johnson_%28boxer%29"