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Congress working on pardon for Johnson
By Michael Rosenthal/The Ring Magazine
25 minutes ago
Buzz Up PrintIf boxer Jack Johnson receives a presidential pardon for his conviction on trumped up charges of violating the Mann Act in 1913, it would right a legal and moral wrong.
It would also provide the long-frustrated descendants of the first black world heavyweight champion a degree of peace.
The U.S. House of Representatives recommended last week that Johnson receive the posthumous pardon because he was “wronged by a racially motivated conviction prompted by his success in the boxing ring and his relationships with white women,” the House resolution stated.
A companion bill, sponsored by Arizona Sen. John McCain, is in the Senate.
“Isn’t that something? This was all started by a man I didn’t even know,” said Johnson’s great, great niece Linda Haywood, who was referring to documentary filmmaker Ken Burns.
Burns, whose film “Unforgivable Blackness” chronicles the injustice, helped formed a committee three years ago to push for a pardon.
“For years we knew it was kind of trumped up,” said Haywood, who lives in Chicago. “Because most of the family was indigent, not well educated, we didn’t know what to do. We didn’t know if there was any recourse. It was a shameful thing for us because we knew how the media portrayed him, as a bad man. He was just being normal, being true to who he was.
“(The pardon) means a lot to us. It makes us feel good, feel proud. He deserves it.”
Johnson earned a army of enemies for simply being himself, a wonderful boxer and an independent man who happened to live in an intolerant time.
The Galveston, Texas, native won the heavyweight championship in 1908 when he knocked out Tommy Burns in Australia, taking a title many believed was the rightful property of white men.
Johnson further rankled racist whites by the way he carried himself, smiling as he beat up his opponents and living his life as he pleased. Most notably, he consorted publicly and unapologetically with white women. His victory over James J. Jefferies in what was billed as “The Fight of the Century” resulted in riots across the nation.
“It’s a wonder they didn’t lynch him. He defied the devil himself,” said Haywood’s mother, Dorothy Cross, whom Haywood says is Johnson’s oldest living descendent at 78.
Instead, federal authorities used an obscure law that prohibited transporting women across state lines for immoral purposes to nab him. They based their case on the fact he helped a former lover by wiring her money for train fare from Pittsburgh to Chicago and helping her set up a brothel.
Even then, many doubted the legitimacy of Johnson’s 1913 conviction.
“It was a silly piece of legislation aimed at commercialized vice,” said historian Randy Roberts, who wrote a biography of Johnson. “The (U.S.) attorney general even said this wasn’t what the law was meant to do, but it was the only thing they could get him on, so he said go ahead and do it.
“It was an absolute injustice that came down to racism.”
Before he could be taken into custody, Johnson fled the United States and lived the next seven years in Europe and Mexico. It was during that period, in 1915, that he lost his title to Jess Willard in Havana, Cuba.
In 1920, apparently homesick, he surrendered to American authorities and served a year in prison.
“They tried to take the dignity of a man who just wanted to be treated as a man,” Burns said.
Johnson lived another 26 years, continuing to fight occasionally into his 50s and once when he was 60. He also maintained contact with the family he sorely missed during his exile.
Cross, who was 16 when her great uncle died in a car crash in 1946, remembers a big, well-dressed, jovial man who would make periodic visits to her grandmother’s apartment in Chicago.
“He always had a pocket full of money,” she said, laughing. “I remember he’d sometimes pay my grandmother’s (Johnson sister’s) rent, sometimes for a year. He would take us to breakfast or lunch and guy us things. I was scared to drive with him, though; he drove too fast.
“We didn’t know he was famous at the time. He was just our nice uncle.”
Ultimately, Cross asked questions and learned about her uncle’s fame and the injustice of his conviction. And she passed on what she learned to her children, including Haywood, who serves as the family spokesperson.
Haywood said she’s grateful that Burns made “Unforgivable Blackness,” which was the genesis of the proposed pardon. She said she even learned a few things. For example: “I didn’t know he consorted with prostitutes.”
She and the family look forward to the day President George W. Bush or his successor signs the pardon.
“They told us we’d be invited to the ceremony if there is one,” she said. “For me, the most important thing is that my mother is recognized as (Johnson’s) oldest living relative. She could come first.”
Meanwhile, Burns is gratified that the pardon is finally making its way through Congress.
He believes it would have meant a great deal to Johnson, who had to live most of his adult life under the shadow of a gross injustice and the target of relentless racism that was so engrained in the culture at the time.
“When everyone wanted African Americans off to the side, he wouldn’t oblige,” Burns said. “I think the knowledge that he was finally vindicated would be a technical knockout he would’ve appreciated.”
By Michael Rosenthal/The Ring Magazine
25 minutes ago
Buzz Up PrintIf boxer Jack Johnson receives a presidential pardon for his conviction on trumped up charges of violating the Mann Act in 1913, it would right a legal and moral wrong.
It would also provide the long-frustrated descendants of the first black world heavyweight champion a degree of peace.
The U.S. House of Representatives recommended last week that Johnson receive the posthumous pardon because he was “wronged by a racially motivated conviction prompted by his success in the boxing ring and his relationships with white women,” the House resolution stated.
A companion bill, sponsored by Arizona Sen. John McCain, is in the Senate.
“Isn’t that something? This was all started by a man I didn’t even know,” said Johnson’s great, great niece Linda Haywood, who was referring to documentary filmmaker Ken Burns.
Burns, whose film “Unforgivable Blackness” chronicles the injustice, helped formed a committee three years ago to push for a pardon.
“For years we knew it was kind of trumped up,” said Haywood, who lives in Chicago. “Because most of the family was indigent, not well educated, we didn’t know what to do. We didn’t know if there was any recourse. It was a shameful thing for us because we knew how the media portrayed him, as a bad man. He was just being normal, being true to who he was.
“(The pardon) means a lot to us. It makes us feel good, feel proud. He deserves it.”
Johnson earned a army of enemies for simply being himself, a wonderful boxer and an independent man who happened to live in an intolerant time.
The Galveston, Texas, native won the heavyweight championship in 1908 when he knocked out Tommy Burns in Australia, taking a title many believed was the rightful property of white men.
Johnson further rankled racist whites by the way he carried himself, smiling as he beat up his opponents and living his life as he pleased. Most notably, he consorted publicly and unapologetically with white women. His victory over James J. Jefferies in what was billed as “The Fight of the Century” resulted in riots across the nation.
“It’s a wonder they didn’t lynch him. He defied the devil himself,” said Haywood’s mother, Dorothy Cross, whom Haywood says is Johnson’s oldest living descendent at 78.
Instead, federal authorities used an obscure law that prohibited transporting women across state lines for immoral purposes to nab him. They based their case on the fact he helped a former lover by wiring her money for train fare from Pittsburgh to Chicago and helping her set up a brothel.
Even then, many doubted the legitimacy of Johnson’s 1913 conviction.
“It was a silly piece of legislation aimed at commercialized vice,” said historian Randy Roberts, who wrote a biography of Johnson. “The (U.S.) attorney general even said this wasn’t what the law was meant to do, but it was the only thing they could get him on, so he said go ahead and do it.
“It was an absolute injustice that came down to racism.”
Before he could be taken into custody, Johnson fled the United States and lived the next seven years in Europe and Mexico. It was during that period, in 1915, that he lost his title to Jess Willard in Havana, Cuba.
In 1920, apparently homesick, he surrendered to American authorities and served a year in prison.
“They tried to take the dignity of a man who just wanted to be treated as a man,” Burns said.
Johnson lived another 26 years, continuing to fight occasionally into his 50s and once when he was 60. He also maintained contact with the family he sorely missed during his exile.
Cross, who was 16 when her great uncle died in a car crash in 1946, remembers a big, well-dressed, jovial man who would make periodic visits to her grandmother’s apartment in Chicago.
“He always had a pocket full of money,” she said, laughing. “I remember he’d sometimes pay my grandmother’s (Johnson sister’s) rent, sometimes for a year. He would take us to breakfast or lunch and guy us things. I was scared to drive with him, though; he drove too fast.
“We didn’t know he was famous at the time. He was just our nice uncle.”
Ultimately, Cross asked questions and learned about her uncle’s fame and the injustice of his conviction. And she passed on what she learned to her children, including Haywood, who serves as the family spokesperson.
Haywood said she’s grateful that Burns made “Unforgivable Blackness,” which was the genesis of the proposed pardon. She said she even learned a few things. For example: “I didn’t know he consorted with prostitutes.”
She and the family look forward to the day President George W. Bush or his successor signs the pardon.
“They told us we’d be invited to the ceremony if there is one,” she said. “For me, the most important thing is that my mother is recognized as (Johnson’s) oldest living relative. She could come first.”
Meanwhile, Burns is gratified that the pardon is finally making its way through Congress.
He believes it would have meant a great deal to Johnson, who had to live most of his adult life under the shadow of a gross injustice and the target of relentless racism that was so engrained in the culture at the time.
“When everyone wanted African Americans off to the side, he wouldn’t oblige,” Burns said. “I think the knowledge that he was finally vindicated would be a technical knockout he would’ve appreciated.”