WEBVTT - Part One: Muhammad Ali Risked It All to Stop a War 0:00:00.720 --> 0:00:02.800 Hello, and welcome to Cool People Did Cool Stuff, the 0:00:02.840 --> 0:00:06.360 only history podcast. I'm your host Margaret Kiljoy, and with 0:00:06.440 --> 0:00:09.320 me today is the one and only Ian Johnson. 0:00:10.280 --> 0:00:13.720 Hey, Magpie, I'm great. I'm excited to be here, you know, 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:15.480 on Mike for a change. 0:00:15.520 --> 0:00:16.040 It's nice. 0:00:16.120 --> 0:00:19.759 Yeah. Best known to listeners of this podcast as the 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:21.720 person I mentioned at the start of every episode because 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:28.160 he's also our audio engineer. Sophie is our producer, Hi Sophie, Hello, friends, 0:00:29.160 --> 0:00:32.879 and our audio engineer is Ian Hi. Ian Hi. Oh 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:34.640 you could say hick, I can say. 0:00:35.640 --> 0:00:36.000 I know. 0:00:36.320 --> 0:00:38.239 There's been so many times where I wanted to like 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:40.400 edit in myself saying Hi back when I'm like, that's 0:00:40.400 --> 0:00:41.400 maybe too much, it's not. 0:00:41.560 --> 0:00:43.160 Now you should, you totally should. 0:00:43.200 --> 0:00:44.680 Maybe I'll just start doing it every now and then. 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:48.680 All right, unwoman wrote Earth theme music. This week is 0:00:48.720 --> 0:00:51.240 a special week. We did an episode a couple of 0:00:51.280 --> 0:00:54.240 weeks ago about the pastist burglars who exposed Cointel pro 0:00:55.080 --> 0:00:57.319 which they did by breaking into an FBI office while 0:00:57.400 --> 0:01:00.120 Muhammad Ali was fighting the Fight of the Century that 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:05.119 everyone would be distracted. My friend Ian said, Hey, Magpie, 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:09.640 what about an episode about Mhammad Ali? So that's what 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:13.880 we're doing yay, Yeah, I guess you kind of Usually, 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:18.320 you know, here's the great reveal to the the guest, 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:20.400 but you already knew what it was going to be. 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:23.000 We're going off screens, I know, I. 0:01:22.920 --> 0:01:25.040 Know, all right, So this week we're going to talk 0:01:25.080 --> 0:01:28.440 about the Greatest with a capital G. Muhammad fucking Ali, 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:31.480 the man who declared he was the greatest, is a 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:36.039 self appointed nickname and fucking proved it. He is the 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:37.560 three time heavyweight champion. 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:37.680 Of the world. 0:01:37.680 --> 0:01:40.160 He is a gold medal winner. He is a devout Muslim. 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:42.840 He was a humanitarian. He was an anti war activist 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:44.920 who threw his life and career into the fire rather 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:47.520 than do some racist imperialism on behalf of the US government. 0:01:48.360 --> 0:01:50.600 He was an icon of black pride for his refusal 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:53.320 of the sort of humility that is racistly expected of 0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:56.720 black men. He was an icon of the anti war movement. 0:01:57.040 --> 0:01:59.360 He was a shit talker. He was a poet. He 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:02.840 was sometimes the first rapper. And you're going to be 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:05.520 shocked to learn that. I want to spend as much 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:08.600 time on the context that he's coming out of as 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:12.239 I do in his biography, because you can listen to 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:15.720 his biography a lot of places, but the context that's 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:20.240 what's often missing. Really shaking up the format here, and 0:02:20.600 --> 0:02:25.600 you'll be shocked to know that he's morally complex, as 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:32.240 basically every human is. And I actually, I really like 0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:36.280 what his moral complexity does for this story and shows 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:42.560 like I actually, okay, the this wasn't a like, all 0:02:42.600 --> 0:02:44.440 of a sudden near the end you learn this person's 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:46.880 terrible or something. This was instead like, oh, this person 0:02:47.000 --> 0:02:51.720 was always engaging in complicated things as like well as 0:02:51.760 --> 0:02:56.160 he possibly could. Really fucking interesting. I really I knew 0:02:56.160 --> 0:02:58.040 the like I mean, this is usually the case, right, 0:02:58.120 --> 0:03:00.120 I know, the sort of cliff notes version of there 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:03.560 as people and then learn more about them. That's the 0:03:03.639 --> 0:03:05.919 job I do for a living. But I really liked 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:09.320 this one, So thanks for thanks for putting this one 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:12.120 in front of me. Yeah, what do you where are 0:03:12.120 --> 0:03:15.160 you coming from? When you were like, you know, let's 0:03:15.160 --> 0:03:16.000 do Muhammad Ali. 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:19.079 Well, when we were talking about the Fight of the 0:03:19.160 --> 0:03:23.600 Century and kind of the relationship between Joe Frasier and 0:03:23.639 --> 0:03:28.000 Muhammad Ali and you know the cultural I guess impacts 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:31.320 surrounding that and you know, their differences, I just thought 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:34.200 that that dynamic was really interesting, and I was curious 0:03:34.240 --> 0:03:36.480 to dive a little deeper into that and kind of 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:38.840 the cultural significance underpinning all of that. 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:46.360 Yeah, yeah, there's God, there's so much there, Yeah, so much. 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:50.200 I got to some of it, but you know, all right, 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:53.000 So the context that I want to talk about, I 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:56.080 want to talk a bit about black athletes in the US, 0:03:56.080 --> 0:03:58.720 and boxers in particular, and how they relate to US 0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:01.760 race relations. And by US race relations, of course, I 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:05.040 mean white supremacy that has been the dominant form of 0:04:05.240 --> 0:04:07.920 race relations in this country since before it was a country. 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:12.120 And I want to talk about the Nation of Islam 0:04:12.480 --> 0:04:14.720 because for a lot of his career, Muhammad Ali was 0:04:14.760 --> 0:04:18.360 a member that particular and not well understood religion, which 0:04:18.400 --> 0:04:21.159 I had. Also, you know, I knew the big picture 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:25.159 notes about the Nation of Islam. So I don't know 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:27.240 enough or have enough time in an episode that isn't 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:30.440 focused on it, to talk anywhere near the whole breadth 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:32.840 of how black people have interacted with sports in the US. 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:37.279 Right is an incredibly complicated thing. The short of it, 0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:39.760 as I understand, there's been historically very few avenues towards 0:04:39.800 --> 0:04:42.320 fame and financial success available to a lot of black 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:44.600 people in this country because of the aforementioned white supremacy, 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:48.560 and music and sports top that list things that put 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:51.280 people on pedestals, but also also then keep people out 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:55.040 of systemic power, and a lot of people have done 0:04:55.080 --> 0:05:00.440 really cool shit with that platform regardless. So one of 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:03.440 the more recent examples that I think happened in people's 0:05:03.520 --> 0:05:07.440 living memories, so probably people know this are the strikes 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:11.760 of twenty twenty when in August of twenty twenty, even I, 0:05:11.839 --> 0:05:14.880 who doesn't follow sports, famously knew about these and was 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:18.280 excited about them. We were talking off Mike beforehand about 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:22.080 the fact that I don't know anything about sports. 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:24.440 I knew enough, you knew enough. 0:05:24.600 --> 0:05:27.800 Yeah, I've actually I've written, I've ghost written two romance 0:05:27.839 --> 0:05:30.760 novels that sports characters are the main characters of them. 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:34.760 You know who Shack was? Yeah, I yah know, fuck 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:38.919 yah macpie. Yeah. I also know the average height of 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:41.400 a quarterback in the NFL because I had to make 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:43.280 a character be the average height of a quarterback in 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:46.000 the NFL, which is five foot time concept I know 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:47.279 was shorter than I expected. 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:48.640 Yeah. 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:54.280 Anyway, So in August of that year, at twenty twenty, 0:05:55.000 --> 0:05:57.040 cops tried to murder this guy named Jacob Blake and 0:05:57.080 --> 0:06:00.040 Kenosha allegedly tried to murder. I don't know if I 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:04.239 have to legally say allegedly, but cops, you know, shot 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:06.240 a guy a bunch of times because they wanted him 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:08.000 to be dead. The word that I have for that 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:12.400 is a murder. Cops have a different word, Fuck the cops. 0:06:12.400 --> 0:06:15.039 They keep murdering black people. So the Milwaukee Bucks, which 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:20.200 is a basketball team, which I've learned, they went on strike. 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:23.359 They refused to leave their locker rooms. Their opponents or 0:06:23.600 --> 0:06:27.120 the Orlando Magic didn't accept the forfeiture. Like as far 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:28.960 as I understand, they could have won by default, but 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:34.080 they didn't because they were cool. Also right, Yes, soon 0:06:34.360 --> 0:06:38.680 teams across the NBA, the WNBA, baseball, hockey, soccer, tennis, 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:41.800 and football all went on strike, with black players and 0:06:41.839 --> 0:06:45.440 white players and coaches taking the knee, despite Republican lawmakers 0:06:45.480 --> 0:06:48.200 throwing a fit and threatening to fund cut everyone's funding. 0:06:49.279 --> 0:06:53.800 But I want to talk more about boxing. And I 0:06:53.880 --> 0:06:57.719 think I think we've mentioned Jack Johnson, the Galveston Giant 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:00.080 on the show before, but I don't remember when. I 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:01.920 don't remember what episode, and I don't think we talked 0:07:01.920 --> 0:07:05.159 about him in great detail. I'm gonna talk about him, 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:07.040 you remember, I don't remember. 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:11.520 I don't know we talked about him much episode either. Yeah. 0:07:11.680 --> 0:07:15.480 Jack was born in eighteen seventy eight. He was born 0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:18.800 to two formally enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, or at 0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:22.200 least he grew up in Galveston, Texas. He actually grew 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:26.720 up personally. He grew up without experiencing much segregation. In 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:29.920 his neighborhood. Everyone was poor as fucking stuck together, and 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:32.600 his friend group was at least white as black. He 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:35.720 had a fairly progressive viewpoint on that white and black 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:38.200 people could just get along. He moved to New York 0:07:38.200 --> 0:07:40.440 City when he was sixteen. He started boxing at the 0:07:40.480 --> 0:07:42.720 gym that he got hired as a janitor before right. 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:43.960 He was like, I need a job and they'll like 0:07:44.000 --> 0:07:45.280 be a janitor, and he was like cool, can I 0:07:45.320 --> 0:07:48.720 box two? And they're like sure, nice, yeah, And he 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:50.920 was really fucking good at it. He wounded back in 0:07:50.960 --> 0:07:53.120 Texas in eighteen ninety eight, he had his debut fight 0:07:53.160 --> 0:07:56.360 where he knocked a guy out. Prize fighting, however, was 0:07:56.400 --> 0:07:59.400 illegal in Texas, so he went to jail for fighting, 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:03.120 and he went to jail with another boxer, an older 0:08:03.160 --> 0:08:06.920 Jewish guy, who trained him literally in the cell. Spectators 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:08.520 would come and watch them. Yeah, they were in jail 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:11.240 for like twenty eight days or something, and they would 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:14.680 box in the cell and then like spectators would show up. 0:08:14.720 --> 0:08:17.920 And I can't like, maybe it's like some like such 0:08:17.960 --> 0:08:20.280 an old timey jail that the spectators are people off 0:08:20.280 --> 0:08:21.560 the street. 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:22.360 I don't know. 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:24.640 Yeah, that's like you're they're watching them train in the 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:25.920 jail cells. 0:08:25.960 --> 0:08:26.680 Yeah. 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:29.880 Wow, Okay, he's like count of Monte Cristo type shit. 0:08:30.080 --> 0:08:30.600 That's cool. 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:36.400 But yeah, so he becomes a very good boxer. By 0:08:36.480 --> 0:08:41.160 nineteen oh three, Johnson won the Black Heavyweight Championship, which 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:45.520 was different than the World Heavyweight Championship because of racism. 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:49.560 He wanted more. He wanted the World heavyweight championship regardless 0:08:49.600 --> 0:08:52.320 of race. No black man had never held it because 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:54.640 no black man was ever allowed to fight for it 0:08:55.880 --> 0:08:59.040 because there was a problem. The problem was racism. I 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:03.880 think I already spoiled that one. It's usually the problem 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:07.040 when we're Yeah, actually you could just leave. 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:07.200 It at that. 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:12.040 Yeah, it's usually just the problem. Yeah every time. 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:17.920 Yeah, the raigning champion. His name was James J. Jeffries, 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:23.680 which for astute observer observers will notice that is too 0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:24.880 many J initials. 0:09:25.440 --> 0:09:27.040 Yeah, just triple J. That's a lot. 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:31.080 Yeah. Yeah, his a litter of parents had raised him 0:09:31.120 --> 0:09:34.800 a racist, and Jeffries straight up retired rather than fight 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:38.320 Jack Johnson, who also has two J initials, which is 0:09:38.360 --> 0:09:39.880 like an acceptable number of jays. 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:43.160 I think, yeah, two is good. Three are pushing it. 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:45.440 Yeah, I feel like one is ideal. I think that 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:50.400 you're doing really well yourself. Good number of jys. So 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:54.480 triple J retires and his white Canadian dude named Tommy 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:56.720 Burns he winds up with the belt despite having no 0:09:56.800 --> 0:09:59.959 js anywhere in either of his names, and he had 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:02.160 a really cool thing going for him, Tommy Burns, which 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:03.800 is that he wasn't a piece of shit racist. 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:07.040 Okay, Yeah, he was a. 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:10.400 German Canadian from a poor as fuck family. Literally five 0:10:10.440 --> 0:10:12.400 of his siblings died before they became adults. 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:13.920 Oh my god. 0:10:14.760 --> 0:10:18.120 Yeah, he was the heavyweight champion. He was five foot 0:10:18.200 --> 0:10:22.160 seven and one hundred and seventy five pounds. For modern context, 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:27.680 modern boxing heavyweight starts at two hundred pounds overall, The 0:10:27.720 --> 0:10:31.240 size of boxers has increased over the past century, or 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:36.920 at least of heavyweights, and he once said quote, I 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:40.120 will defend my title against all comers, none barred by this. 0:10:40.160 --> 0:10:43.400 I mean white, Black, Mexican, Indian, or any other nationality. 0:10:43.960 --> 0:10:46.080 I propose to be the champion of the world, not 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:49.199 the white or the Canadian or the American. If I 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:51.800 am not the best man in the heavyweight division, I 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:52.760 don't want the title. 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:55.840 I like that. 0:10:56.120 --> 0:11:00.240 Yeah, Yeah, So they fought in nineteen oh eight. After 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:04.680 fourteen rounds, Burns conceded. He conceded for two reasons, one 0:11:04.800 --> 0:11:08.319 because he was physically too fucked up to continue, and 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:11.160 two because people were afraid of the race riots that 0:11:11.160 --> 0:11:14.240 would come if the crowd saw a black man beat 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:20.280 a white man even further. Yeah, so Jack Johnson, the 0:11:20.280 --> 0:11:22.400 black boxer with the proper number of J initials, became 0:11:22.440 --> 0:11:24.480 the first black man to hold the title of heavyweight 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:27.160 Champion of the World, and he gave a shout out 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:29.000 to Tommy Burns for being the first white man to 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:30.920 actually give a black man a chance to win the title, 0:11:31.520 --> 0:11:33.280 and white people flipped out. This is going to be 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:35.320 really surprising. No one's going to have seen this coming. 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:39.360 White people as a category seem to have a problem 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:41.240 with not being the best at everything. I think that 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:43.120 they're afraid that other people treat them the way that 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:44.400 they've been treating people. 0:11:45.080 --> 0:11:49.480 Yeah. Interesting, Yeah, like, oh. 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:51.480 Is it a problem to be the minority in the US? 0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:55.080 Why would it be a problem? How do you treat minorities? What? 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:01.440 So something had to be done right because this atrocious 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:05.040 thing has happened. The white man has been proven to 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:07.040 not be inherently the best at everything. 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:09.199 Oh no, what are we going to do? 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:14.319 Fortunately, there was this guy who I used to think 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:16.080 was cool but turns out to be a piece of shit. 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:18.319 You ever heard of the writer Jack London. 0:12:19.600 --> 0:12:22.040 Yes, I've heard the name. I'm not super. 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:24.600 Fucking Call of the Wild. 0:12:24.160 --> 0:12:26.560 Yeah, oh yes, Yes. 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:29.320 He was a huge celebrity at his time, in a 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:31.360 way that novelists don't really pull off today because there's 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:33.559 like movies, so people don't have to read books as much, right, 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:37.760 They've like choices, And I always thought Jacklinin was probably cool. 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:39.280 I never really read his books, but I was like 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:41.439 passively aware of the fact that he was a socialist, 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:44.480 he was into animal rights. He was a big old 0:12:44.559 --> 0:12:47.240 racist piece of shit. More than a product of his 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:50.959 time racist And there's like, I mean, are we look 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:52.559 at look look at this man's face. 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:57.440 Oh yeahs yeah, oh yeah, yeah yeah. 0:12:57.679 --> 0:13:00.200 That man says slurs. That's true. 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:06.520 And there's like, as a matter of fact, yes, yeah. 0:13:06.000 --> 0:13:08.840 I read so many fucking papers of people trying to 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:13.280 defend him and his racism. Oh no, because he like 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:17.760 also occasionally said vaguely okay things about race. I was 0:13:17.800 --> 0:13:20.200 looking for like a redemption arc, like oh he must 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:23.359 have changed, Like no, he just he just was inconsistent. 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:27.480 But you know what if something is like by meaning 0:13:27.600 --> 0:13:30.560 cereal and it's like fifty percent deer shit, you know 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:34.040 I'm not like, oh I like the fifty percent. That's 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:36.080 not deer shit. Like no, I just throw away the 0:13:36.120 --> 0:13:43.520 fucking bull. So he wrote essays Jack London, our guy. 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:46.560 He wrote essays about the yellow peril of Asian people 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:49.960 moving into the US. He didn't coin the phrase yellow 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:54.240 peril that predates him. He coined a different phrase, the 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:56.400 Great White Hope. 0:13:56.640 --> 0:13:57.600 Ah okay. 0:13:58.559 --> 0:14:01.000 He started writing in papers the Twitter of the era 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:04.560 that what we needed was the great White hope to 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:09.800 beat Jack Johnson. He said, quote Jim Jeffries must now 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:13.240 emerge from his alfalfa farm and remove that golden smile 0:14:13.280 --> 0:14:17.360 from Jack Johnson's face. Jeff, it's up to you. The 0:14:17.400 --> 0:14:19.280 white man must be rescued. 0:14:20.320 --> 0:14:25.080 Oh god god, yeah, I mean, I don't want to 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:28.800 disrespect our listeners by actually vomiting into the microphone. But 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:33.280 just just imagine, yeah. 0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:35.080 Just the fragility of it all. It's like a first 0:14:35.120 --> 0:14:38.520 of all white people that you had enough help. You 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:40.760 don't need to say it, you don't need you don't 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:48.440 need help. It's that's just ridiculous. Oh my god. Yeah, 0:14:48.480 --> 0:14:49.760 so just keep going. 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:54.640 So the piece of shit racist Jim Jeffries was like, yeah, 0:14:54.720 --> 0:14:58.080 I'll do it. I'll wipe that smirk off of his face, 0:14:58.160 --> 0:15:00.960 you know. And this was the first Fight of the Century. 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:03.080 It actually happens in the same century as the Second 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:06.560 Fight of the Century. Jack was not subtle about his motives. 0:15:06.560 --> 0:15:08.560 In case anyone thinks I'm like reading a little bit 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:11.920 too much into it, he said, quote, I am going 0:15:11.960 --> 0:15:14.120 into this fight for the sole purpose of proving that 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:16.880 a white man is better than a negro. As compared 0:15:16.880 --> 0:15:20.000 to Jack, who was like not like like, he wasn't 0:15:20.040 --> 0:15:22.120 like I'm doing this for the black man, which would 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:25.000 have been entirely chill if he had been. He just 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:27.120 was like, let the best man win. Like that's his 0:15:27.240 --> 0:15:28.040 literal quote is. 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:31.600 Let thet Yeah. Yeah. 0:15:31.760 --> 0:15:34.160 Bookies gave the odds of ten to seven in favor 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:36.160 of Jeffries, the racist white guy. I can't keep their 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:38.200 names apart because their name's not the same to me, 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:40.080 because that's the way my brain works, and their names 0:15:40.080 --> 0:15:45.160 start with the same letter. So they gave ten to 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:47.920 seven odds in favor of Jeffreys, which makes no fucking sense. 0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:52.360 The guy hadn't fought in years. He like, yeah, they 0:15:52.440 --> 0:15:55.280 favored the outer shape white guy over the black man 0:15:55.320 --> 0:15:55.840 in his prime. 0:15:57.440 --> 0:16:02.720 So Jack, he's the world champion at this time, Jack Johnson, Yeah, yeah, yeah. 0:16:02.760 --> 0:16:04.760 So they're like, yeah, the other guy who hasn't fought 0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:07.280 in like three years is definitely gonna beat the world champion. 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:09.760 Okay, sure, look at the color of his skin. 0:16:09.880 --> 0:16:10.840 How could he not win? 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:12.960 Yeah, he's like, how could he lose? 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:17.400 Yeah, he can't go wrong. Just been on the white guy. God. 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:21.240 So Jack beat the shit out of Gym and eventually 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:23.480 Jim sided threw in the towel in the fourteenth round. 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:26.760 So not only was Jack and Jack was not only 0:16:26.800 --> 0:16:28.920 the first person to ever knocked down Jim in a fight, 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:31.080 but Jack did it twice that night. 0:16:31.600 --> 0:16:33.760 Oh no, he's and. 0:16:33.760 --> 0:16:36.880 The boxing promoter John Sullivan, who I think he's the promoter. 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:38.720 I didn't like follow this side quest, but I think 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:42.080 he's the guy who basically made boxing all like a 0:16:42.200 --> 0:16:45.800 thing of national attention. Right. John Sullivan put it plainly, 0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:48.000 the fight of the century is over and a black 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:54.520 man is the undisputed champion of the world. So white 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:56.080 people rioted all over the country. 0:16:56.960 --> 0:17:00.200 Oh of course, okay, yeah, of. 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:05.840 Course they did. They can't not. Apparently, Jack Johnson now 0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:08.280 the heavyweight champion of the world. He just wants people 0:17:08.320 --> 0:17:11.160 to fucking get along and he wants to be treated right. 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:14.080 He used his prize money to open a desegregated nightclub 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:17.040 run by his white wife. He got arrested for having 0:17:17.040 --> 0:17:21.000 a white wife. Basically, he was arrested for quote transporting 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:23.760 her because she was probably also a sex worker, but 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:27.240 she was like legitimately his wife, and so in this way, 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:31.600 anti sex work laws were used to further racism and misogyny. 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:34.800 But did you know that we carefully we don't carefully 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:37.840 screen our ads against misogyny and those things do we 0:17:38.400 --> 0:17:42.960 because they're randomly generated. Did you know that the other 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:45.919 thing he did with his money is buy stuff? Just 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:49.959 like you, the listener can also use your prize money 0:17:50.240 --> 0:17:56.480 from the prize of work to buy stuff from ads. 0:17:57.040 --> 0:17:57.479 How do I do? 0:17:58.480 --> 0:17:58.640 Yes? 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:09.160 I thanks, here's ce Meds and we're back. We're talking 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:11.680 about Jack Johnson, the heavyweight champion of the world in 0:18:11.720 --> 0:18:14.879 the you know, nineteen oughts and nineteen tens for a 0:18:14.880 --> 0:18:18.200 little while. Jack Johnson himself was criticized at the time 0:18:18.240 --> 0:18:20.240 because he also didn't want to fight black people and 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:22.960 give them a chance at the title, because history is 0:18:23.440 --> 0:18:26.920 complicated and doesn't give us easy heroes all the time. 0:18:27.640 --> 0:18:30.600 But the next black boxer he fought was Jim Johnson, 0:18:30.880 --> 0:18:34.840 who had recently fought Joe Jeannette a bunch of times. 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:38.040 Because all these j names, it's kind of crazy. 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:40.600 Yeah, I don't know whether it was like a rule 0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:43.960 that you couldn't compete if you didn't have a JJ name. 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:49.600 I'm not entirely sure, but yeah, so boxing has a 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:52.080 racist past, and these racialized conflicts are going to play 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:54.760 heavily into Muhammad Ali's life, and there's going to be 0:18:54.760 --> 0:19:00.879 another Fight of the Century with oddly similar presentation of 0:19:00.960 --> 0:19:05.680 racial dynamics that we'll talk about. There's another class. There's 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:08.000 a couple of other classic moments in black sports as 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:10.280 relate to larger race politics that I don't have time 0:19:10.320 --> 0:19:12.440 to go into, but some of them are when black 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:14.960 athletes beat the Nazi master race in Berlin in nineteen 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:19.200 thirty six, only to have to come back in segregated 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:22.359 units to Germany to fight and beat the Nazis, one 0:19:22.680 --> 0:19:26.919 racist country helping fight another even more racist country. Then 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:29.320 you have nineteen sixty eight, when two black runners, Tommy 0:19:29.320 --> 0:19:32.080 Smith and John Carlos, won the Golden bronze and the 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:34.760 two hundred meter in the Olympics. They raised their fist 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:37.159 in the Black Power salute during the national anthem, standing 0:19:37.200 --> 0:19:40.640 on the podium without shoes to represent black poverty. The 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:43.399 silver medallist was a white Australian named Peter Norman. He 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:47.639 wore a badge in solidarity with the other two and yeah, 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:50.119 I don't know. All three faced a ton of backlash 0:19:50.119 --> 0:19:52.160 for the action, and where all three of them were 0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:56.720 ostracized by their nation's sports communities. They had been inspired, 0:19:56.720 --> 0:19:59.119 of course, by the courageous career at risking actions of 0:19:59.160 --> 0:20:02.560 a black athlete from before them, Muhammad Ali from the 0:20:02.640 --> 0:20:06.360 years for them. Actually, I'll talk about the other big 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:08.919 piece of context, the Nation of Islam. Are you familiar 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:09.480 with the Nation of. 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:14.560 Islam Again, I think, like more cliff notes version. I know, 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:18.480 and I may be wrong about this, but I believe 0:20:18.520 --> 0:20:23.080 they were a slightly more like militant wing of Islam. 0:20:23.240 --> 0:20:24.760 And I know they attract a lot of people in 0:20:24.800 --> 0:20:27.679 African American community. I know a lot of people converted 0:20:28.240 --> 0:20:31.600 to Nation of Islam. So that's like kind of the 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:32.600 extent of what I. 0:20:32.520 --> 0:20:36.440 Know, not without like I would say, for lack of 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:37.800 a better word, controversy. 0:20:39.040 --> 0:20:39.359 Yeah. 0:20:39.440 --> 0:20:39.880 Yeah. 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:46.439 Oh, then the next line in Margaret's script literally says, 0:20:47.080 --> 0:20:49.480 the Nation of Islam is one of the most controversial 0:20:49.560 --> 0:20:50.760 organizations I can think of. 0:20:52.400 --> 0:20:53.880 Like, I know a lot of people would like hire 0:20:53.920 --> 0:20:56.679 them for security for things and stuff like that. Like 0:20:56.760 --> 0:20:59.080 that's next the gist of my knowledge. 0:20:59.400 --> 0:21:03.040 Yeah, so yeah, say they're controversial, Margaret. 0:21:03.080 --> 0:21:04.399