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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. A quick content warning before we start the show.

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Speaker 1: This episode contains mention of sex work. Hey everyone, I'm

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Speaker 1: Eves and welcome to This Day in History Class, a

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Speaker 1: show that brings you a little slice of history every day.

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Speaker 1: Today's marche the day was March one, boxer Jack Johnson

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Speaker 1: was born. Johnson went on to become the first African

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Speaker 1: American world heavyweight boxing champion. Johnson was born in Galveston, Texas.

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Speaker 1: His parents, Henry and Tina Johnson, were both formerly enslaved

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Speaker 1: and had blue collar jobs. Jack was the third of

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Speaker 1: nine children, five of whom reached adulthood. He grew up

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Speaker 1: in a racially mixed neighborhood and went through five years

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Speaker 1: of school. After Jack left school, he took a series

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Speaker 1: of jobs. Throughout this time, he participated in fights and

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Speaker 1: built up his self defense skills. It was in Dallas

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Speaker 1: that Johnson was encouraged to train as a boxer. Back

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Speaker 1: in Galveston, he took on more jobs and saved up

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Speaker 1: enough money to buy a pair of boxing gloves. He

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Speaker 1: moved from street fights to taking part in loosely organized

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Speaker 1: boxing bouts. Johnson began traveling across the country to fight

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Speaker 1: in the late eighteen nineties, and it was during this

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Speaker 1: time that he became a professional boxer. He gained a

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Speaker 1: reputation as a formidable heavyweight and became known as the

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Speaker 1: Galveston Giant, but he was limited to fighting on the

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Speaker 1: black boxing circuit, which meant that he got less money

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Speaker 1: and could not fight in world championship matches. Throughout his

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Speaker 1: boxing career, he supplemented his income by taking speaking engagements,

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Speaker 1: as well as singing, dancing, and playing instruments on the

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Speaker 1: vaudeville circuit. Johnson won his first title when he beat

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Speaker 1: Denver at Martin for the unofficial World Colored Heavyweight Championship

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Speaker 1: in nineteen o three. The press urged James Jeffries, the

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Speaker 1: reigning white heavyweight champion, to take on Johnson, but Jeffries

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Speaker 1: refused to fight a black man. Once Jeffries retired, Johnson

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Speaker 1: pursued a fight with the new champion, Tommy Burns. Burns

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Speaker 1: agreed to the fight after he was offered thirty thousand

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Speaker 1: dollars to take it. In December of nineteen o eight,

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Speaker 1: Johnson and Burns went up against each other. The fight

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Speaker 1: lasted fourteen rounds before the police broke it up. As

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Speaker 1: Johnson had beaten Burns badly. Johnson was declared the winner.

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Speaker 1: His win upset a lot of white America, and the

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Speaker 1: search for a white boxer who could beat Johnson began.

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Speaker 1: Novelist Jack London coined the term great White Hope to

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Speaker 1: describe the man who would fulfill this role. So in

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Speaker 1: nineteen ten, James Jeffries came out of retirement for the

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Speaker 1: fight he had previously refused. The press intensified tensions around

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Speaker 1: the fight by claiming that a Johnson win might lead

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Speaker 1: black people to riot. Johnson won in the fifteenth round

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Speaker 1: when Jeffreys threw in the towel before an inevitable knockout happened.

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Speaker 1: Race riots did erupt in cities across the US in

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Speaker 1: the aftermath of the match. Johnson continued to fight professionally

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Speaker 1: into the nineteen thirties and did exhibition matches after that,

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Speaker 1: but beyond his career, his personal life was also riddled

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Speaker 1: with controversy. He was married to and in relationships with

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Speaker 1: several white women at a time when interracial relationships were taboo.

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Speaker 1: He was charged with violating the Man Act after he

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Speaker 1: was accused of transporting a white sex worker across state lines.

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Speaker 1: He fled the US and lived in exile for several

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Speaker 1: years until he surrendered to U. S Marshals in nineteen twenty.

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Speaker 1: He served ten months in prison. Johnson also faced allegations

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Speaker 1: of domestic violence. Johnson died in a car crash in

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Speaker 1: North Carolina in In the decades following his death, people

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Speaker 1: began to speak out on the racist motivations of the

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Speaker 1: charges that he faced. He was granted a presidential pardon

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Speaker 1: in I'm Eve cheff Cote and hopefully you know a

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Speaker 1: little more about history today than you did yesterday. And

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Speaker 1: heeart media dot com. Thanks again for listening to the

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Speaker 1: show and we'll see you again tomorrow. For more podcasts

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