Jose Sulaiman Supports The Pardon For Jack Johnson

By James Blears

The World Boxing Council has announced it is fully supporting a US Presidential Pardon being sought for America’s first black heavyweight boxing Champion Jack Johnson.

On Wednesday, US Senator John McCain will launch a resolution in Washington to right a wrong which has festered for almost 100 years. It will need the thumbs up of President Obama.

Jack Johnson defeated Tommy Burns on Boxing Day 1908 to win the what was considered then the richest prize in sports, but was harassed and hounded because of his color. He also caused uproar in the United States in the early twentieth century by having relationships with white women, and marrying a white woman. In 1913, he was convicted of a trumped up charge of transporting women across State borders for immoral purposes. He fled the United States, but after losing his title in 1915 in Cuba, he eventually returned home and served a ten month jail sentence.

Senator McCain says it’s way past the time to rectify this injustice. World Boxing Council President Jose Sulaiman agrees. In an exclusive interview for SKY he stressed: “No time, no matter how long can cover over an injustice, or discrimination, even if it’s three hundred years! Whatever Senator McCain is trying to do with this, we are going to offer our full support.

“Jack Johnson was a real hero, a great fighter and a marvellous champion. He was the inspiration for black people in the United States, and the rest of the world. It’s time to put this right and set the record straight.”

Sulaiman also said that Jack Johnson’s moral courage and defiance which was way ahead of his time, was a beacon of crucial inspiration to Muhammad Ali, who won the heavyweight title almost half a century later.