WEBVTT - SYMHC Classics: Jack Johnson 0:00:02.320 --> 0:00:06.000 Happy Saturday. We have a two parter on Eugene Jack 0:00:06.040 --> 0:00:08.319 Bullard coming up on the podcast, and in it we 0:00:08.400 --> 0:00:11.760 mentioned Jack Johnson, so we're bringing out our episode on 0:00:11.880 --> 0:00:15.600 him as a Saturday classic. Just a heads up. Toward 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:18.040 the end of this episode, there is a brief discussion 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:21.800 of intimate partner violence and of someone dying by suicide. 0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:26.759 Also as an update to this episode, in Johnson was 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:30.360 convicted of violating the Man Act that was passed during 0:00:30.400 --> 0:00:33.279 a moral panic around the idea of white slavery, and 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:35.720 we talked about that law more in our episode on 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:39.880 Grace Humiston's This law was grounded in racism and xenophobia 0:00:39.920 --> 0:00:44.199 and it round up criminalizing various types of consensual sexual activity, 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:47.400 which is really what happened here and more on Johnson's conviction. 0:00:47.440 --> 0:00:51.599 As part of this episode, President Donald Trump posthumously pardoned 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:57.200 Johnson on and just as a random note, since previous 0:00:57.200 --> 0:01:00.520 host Sarah and Bablina mentioned doing this episode for Black 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:04.000 History Months, we try to cover Black history and other 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:07.400 history that's usually put into a particular month year round, 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:09.880 so folks do not need to save their Black History 0:01:09.920 --> 0:01:12.959 topic suggestions for February. Send those in whenever they occur 0:01:13.040 --> 0:01:18.080 to you at any point, Yes, so enjoy. Welcome to 0:01:18.120 --> 0:01:20.840 Stuff you missed in History Class A production of I 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:30.479 Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Sarah 0:01:30.480 --> 0:01:33.400 Dowdy and I'm Deblina Chalk Reboarding, and we are of 0:01:33.480 --> 0:01:37.520 course covering Black History Month for February and today. It's 0:01:37.520 --> 0:01:40.959 pretty hard to imagine professional sports in the United States 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:45.119 were once segregated, perhaps especially a sport like boxing, where 0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:48.520 some of the biggest names guys like Muhammad Ali, Joe Louis, 0:01:48.600 --> 0:01:53.480 George Foreman, the recently departed Joe Frasier are African American, 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:56.680 But at the turn of the twentieth century, the idea 0:01:56.760 --> 0:02:01.600 that there could be a black heavyweight champion was impossible. 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:05.240 And surprisingly, the issue wasn't just about a white man 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:08.760 fighting a black man and the physical contact that that 0:02:08.800 --> 0:02:12.640 would necessitate, which, unfortunately, in the context of segregation that 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:16.239 kind of makes sense, where sharing a water fountain or 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:20.320 sharing a waiting room was considered not okay. It's gonna 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:23.880 figure my extension that something is physical as boxing where 0:02:23.880 --> 0:02:27.160 you're gonna swap sweat and blood and embrace in the 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:30.800 ring would also not be okay. But black and white 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:34.800 boxers did fight each other. Exhibition matches weren't uncommon, and 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:38.120 just as the white Major League Baseball players would barnstorm 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:42.360 with their Negro League counterparts decades before integration, boxers of 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:46.119 different races would fight at pretty much all levels, except 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:50.760 at the highest level, the heavyweight championship. For several reasons, 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:54.240 which will discuss some more. The heavyweight title was considered 0:02:54.280 --> 0:02:58.120 so prestigious, so honorable, it couldn't be sullied by a 0:02:58.160 --> 0:03:02.720 black contender in some people's opinion, let alone a black champion. 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:07.480 So it took Texas born Jack Johnson. We're not talking 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:09.760 about the singer, of course, we're talking about the boxer 0:03:10.160 --> 0:03:12.840 to break that color line. And to do it, he 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:16.160 had to be not only a powerful fighter, but really 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:19.280 dogged in his pursuit of the fight, trying to get 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:23.840 somebody to actually fight him. He hounded his potential opponents, 0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:27.720 knowing that eventually the honor of defending that title, which 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:31.280 was so such an important thing in the boxing world, 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:34.160 plus of course the purse money that would come with 0:03:34.240 --> 0:03:37.960 defending it, would eventually make it worthwhile for a white 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:41.000 champion to step into the ring and fight with a 0:03:41.040 --> 0:03:43.440 black man. So first We're gonna give you a little 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:46.840 bit about Jack Johnson's background before we get to the fighting, 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:50.560 the really exciting part. John Arthur Johnson or Jack, was 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:54.200 born March thirty one, eight seventy eight, in Galaston, Texas. 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:57.560 His parents were former slaves who educated all six of 0:03:57.600 --> 0:04:01.280 their kids, working as a school janitor and a laundress. 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:03.960 And though Jack only had five years of schooling, he 0:04:04.040 --> 0:04:08.000 became a voracious student of history, with a particular fondness 0:04:08.040 --> 0:04:12.880 for Napoleon. And he also played bass fiddle, loved classical music, 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:15.960 and invented stuff he invented. He had a patent on 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:17.880 a wrench. I think we should have put him in 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:22.320 our earlier podcast on Unlikely Invented. Unlikely Inventors would have 0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:25.560 been a good one. So as a kid, Johnson started 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:29.480 fighting in battle royals, which were these really horrible sounding 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:34.120 underground fights. But from that sort of inauspicious start, Johnson 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:37.800 worked his way up, moved up to fights with actual purses, 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:41.400 and started riding the rails to barnstorm around the country 0:04:41.440 --> 0:04:45.360 and also helping more experienced boxers train as a as 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:48.840 a sparring partner. And as we already mentioned, blacks did 0:04:48.880 --> 0:04:52.480 fight whites it just wasn't for that top spot. In fact, 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:57.120 much of Johnson's defensive expertise he could seemingly swat away 0:04:57.200 --> 0:05:00.560 punches very easily, and that came from practicing and training 0:05:00.560 --> 0:05:03.719 with Joe choin Ski after the two were jailed together 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:06.400 for boxing in the first place. And just a note 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:08.200 for you here, just a little side note at the 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:12.400 turning contact boxing context for you guys. Exactly around the 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:15.000 turn of the century, boxing was a popular sport with 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:18.000 all classes of people, but it was still a sport 0:05:18.080 --> 0:05:20.800 that was considered kind of a lista even illegal in 0:05:20.839 --> 0:05:25.760 many places. Despite the gloves rules and timed rounds, and 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:28.800 with new techniques picked up from Joe, plus his naturally 0:05:28.839 --> 0:05:32.119 powerful punch and his six foot one and a half 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:36.159 inch frame, Johnson moved on to bigger cities and he 0:05:36.240 --> 0:05:40.200 eventually made up to one thousand dollars per fight. He 0:05:40.480 --> 0:05:43.000 was becoming a contender, but one who would never be 0:05:43.040 --> 0:05:45.719 allowed or so a lot of people thought to fight 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:50.040 the heavyweight champion, But why why wasn't he allowed? And 0:05:50.080 --> 0:05:52.400 we're gonna talk about that some, but at first I 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:55.680 really want to recommend there's a fantastic Ken Burns documentary 0:05:55.760 --> 0:05:59.680 on Jack Johnson called unforgivable blackness, and for me, it 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:03.960 really helped explain the racial politics behind boxing at the time. 0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:06.960 It's easy to find a lot of biographical information on Johnson, 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:10.360 but it helped put some of that into context for me. 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:14.400 So even though boxing was an illicit sport, I mean, 0:06:14.440 --> 0:06:19.000 people would campaign against its violence, the heavyweight championship was 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:23.200 really kind of an upstanding position. It was well respected 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:27.240 and John L. Sullivan, who was called the Boston strong Boy, 0:06:27.320 --> 0:06:30.400 had a lot to do with the respect for that position. 0:06:30.760 --> 0:06:34.679 He was the first gloved heavyweight champion and really became 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:38.080 a huge celebrity, kind of a sports hero, long before 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:43.520 sports heroes really existed, and he made the title something 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:47.919 that was actually important to the general audience, almost a 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:51.240 byeword for the strongest man in the world. And he 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:55.160 even bragged that he could beat anyone in the world, except, 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:58.720 of course, it was understood African Americans, who he just 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:02.960 would not fight. He refused to fight black boxers, drawing 0:07:03.160 --> 0:07:06.040 a color line after he became the heavyweight champion. Since 0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:10.840 the heavyweight title represented more than just physical prowess or 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:16.800 boxing expertise, it represented physical superiority to all other men 0:07:16.960 --> 0:07:21.200 and so it had this really weighty social significance to it, 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:25.480 and Sullivan's precedent continued with later heavyweight champs all the 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:29.240 way through Jim Jeffries, the boiler Maker, who had made 0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:31.760 his early name fighting some of the best black boxers 0:07:31.800 --> 0:07:34.360 of the day. And Jeffreys was kind of the ultimate 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:38.360 boxing specimen of that era, who was hairy chested, he 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:41.000 once drank a case of whiskey in two days, and 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:43.600 he kept a bear as a pet. But even though 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:46.400 up and coming jack Johnson was winning against all other 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:50.240 major black boxers of the time, clinching the unofficial Negro 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:54.640 heavyweight Championship, Jeffries wouldn't fight him. They instead engaged in 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:58.600 a kind of battle of words and intimidation. After knocking 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:00.920 out Jim Jeffrey's brother Jack in an l a fight, 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:04.560 Johnson told the spectator champ that he could beat him too, 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:09.320 egging him on really, and then in a San Francisco saloon, Jefferies, 0:08:09.400 --> 0:08:11.960 after Jackson had again said why don't you fight me, 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:17.559 Jefferies offered Jackson two dollars on the bar to fight 0:08:17.680 --> 0:08:20.800 him completely alone in the seller You know this really 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:24.880 sketchy sounding scenario. Johnson refused, that he was only going 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:27.920 to fight him if it was a real fight. Finally, though, 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:32.360 in nineteen o five, the undefeated Jefferies decided that he 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:35.560 was going to retire from boxing, retire and become an 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:40.160 alfalfa farmer. And of course, though retiring like that, he 0:08:40.280 --> 0:08:45.240 needed to um crown a new champion, a new heavyweight champion, 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:49.319 and so he refereed about between two white contenders and 0:08:49.640 --> 0:09:03.200 name the winner the new heavyweight champion. Johnson obviously was 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:07.240 really mad that this had happened this way. He hadn't 0:09:07.240 --> 0:09:10.960 gotten his chance to fight the undisputed champion, and so 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:14.760 he started still just going after the title anyway he could, 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:19.000 going after the new title holders. Eventually, that title holder 0:09:19.120 --> 0:09:23.559 was Tommy Burns, who was a Canadian born Noah Brusso, 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:28.120 and Burns, like his predecessors, wouldn't fight Johnson either though, 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:29.560 so it seemed like it was going to be a 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:33.559 losing battle. Yeah, but Johnson wouldn't relent. He followed Burns 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:38.320 around the world, challenging him everywhere he went, and eventually 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:40.800 it started to get embarrassing for Burns, even though in 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:45.080 some twisted logic, Burns would call Johnson yellow even though 0:09:45.080 --> 0:09:47.200 he was the one where he don't get that I 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:49.840 don't either, So he said what he thought would be 0:09:49.880 --> 0:09:53.840 an insurmountable barrier between him and Johnson, Burns said he 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:56.920 wouldn't break the color line for less than thirty thous dollars. 0:09:56.920 --> 0:09:59.760 So he thought, Okay, surely nobody's going to go for that. 0:10:00.440 --> 0:10:04.680 But sure enough somebody did agree to pay that much. 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:07.840 In the fall of nineteen o eight, Australian Hugh known 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:11.079 as Huge Deal McIntosh agreed to put up the money 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:14.080 and put on the fight. So Burns accepted the thirty 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:17.440 thousand dollars. Johnson, by the way, only got five thousand, 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:20.600 and their fight took place the day after Christmas nineteen 0:10:20.679 --> 0:10:23.480 o eight in Sydney, Australia. So we're gonna give you 0:10:23.520 --> 0:10:26.160 a brief play by play of how the fight went down. 0:10:26.280 --> 0:10:30.520 It started amid huge cheers for Burns and jeers for Johnson, 0:10:30.920 --> 0:10:33.360 even though and you can see this in the footage, 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:37.440 he was still blowing the crowd kisses quite kindly. Johnson 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:41.400 had Burns on the floor within seconds, and even though 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:45.679 Burns started to call Johnson racial slurs, Johnson really had 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:50.640 a more effective way to um anger or embarrass his opponent. 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:53.800 He would point at spots on his own body, like 0:10:53.920 --> 0:10:56.200 on his side or on his stomach, just point at 0:10:56.200 --> 0:10:59.920 it with his glove, urging Burns to punch him there. 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:03.280 And when Burns, after clearly a second of hesitation, like 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:06.280 what on earth is going on here, would really punch him, 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:09.600 Johnson wouldn't even flinch or react, I mean, really kind 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:13.640 of stuff to psych him out. Johnson, meanwhile, would hug Burns, 0:11:13.840 --> 0:11:16.000 holding him up to keep him fighting when he was 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:18.960 starting to get tired. By the fourteenth round, it was 0:11:19.120 --> 0:11:21.920 clear that Johnson was going to be the winner. Police 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:25.320 stopped the fight and the cameras. You can see a 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:29.920 freeze frame the last the last second of the cameras rolling, 0:11:30.280 --> 0:11:32.800 and then Johnson was declared winner. They stopped the cameras 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:36.000 because they didn't want to see They didn't want everybody 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:39.000 to see Johnson defeating this white guy. But it didn't 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:41.319 matter if people saw it or not. At thirty years old, 0:11:41.440 --> 0:11:45.520 Johnson was the new heavyweight champion. So now it's time 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:48.760 to start talking a little bit about Johnson's personal life, 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:51.240 because it's what everyone else was doing at the time anyway, 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:54.480 And if you've studied the Harlem Renaissance, Red w E, 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:57.520 DWO Boys, or even listen to our Mark Scarvey podcast 0:11:57.559 --> 0:12:00.800 You've Heard of the New Negro. A Mike Walsh article 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:03.520 in The Smithsonian does a lot to put that era 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:06.640 of the New Negro into context. It came after a 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:11.240 dark post reconstruction era where Jim Crow laws codified segregation 0:12:11.320 --> 0:12:15.440 and lynchings really increased. And by the turn of the century, though, 0:12:15.559 --> 0:12:19.640 with the Great Migration providing African Americans with new opportunities 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:22.880 in industrial work up north, things seemed to be looking 0:12:22.960 --> 0:12:26.120 up a little bit. The idea of the New Negro developed. 0:12:26.200 --> 0:12:29.880 They were born free, ready for opportunity, and not content 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:33.000 to just hang back and wait. So Johnson was the 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:38.000 epitome of that New Negro. He dressed immaculately, he lived finely, 0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:41.280 and he spoke freely. But for many African Americans, and 0:12:41.280 --> 0:12:44.240 certainly for many white Americans, he took things a little 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:48.480 bit too far. He drank heavily, he raced and crashed 0:12:48.520 --> 0:12:52.120 fast cars. He had gold crowns. He got into arguments 0:12:52.120 --> 0:12:54.800 with the owners of the vaudeville theaters that he'd moonlight in. 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:58.480 Most seriously, though, he dated white women who he would 0:12:58.480 --> 0:13:01.880 often meet at Chicago's fancy is Bordello. When the news 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:04.440 that the new champion, Johnson, was traveling around with a 0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:08.720 white companion, his hometown of Galveston canceled the big parade 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:11.440 they had planned for him. So that was the big issue, 0:13:11.480 --> 0:13:13.439 and it's important to keep that one in mind as 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:15.760 we go forward. But there was another issue going on 0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:19.319 for Johnson, to one that was actually pertinent to boxing. 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:24.080 Since the old champion, Jim Jefferies, had retired undefeated to 0:13:24.200 --> 0:13:28.080 his elf Alfa farm, some people began questioning whether Johnson 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:31.760 was really a legitimate champion at all. Had really bothered 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:34.520 folks when they're there when there were the white champions 0:13:34.520 --> 0:13:38.360 in between, but was bothering them now? So Johnson answered 0:13:38.440 --> 0:13:42.120 that he would fight Jeffreys or anyone else who wanted 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:45.720 to fight him, and almost immediately the search to find 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:49.520 that anyone who was considered or called the great white 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:54.559 hope started, so seriously, anyone who was white could be 0:13:54.600 --> 0:13:58.360 a challenger. They'd come from the fields, from circuses, and 0:13:58.360 --> 0:14:01.720 if they finally got to Johnson, he'd steamrolled them. And 0:14:01.760 --> 0:14:04.760 after running out of white hopes, Johnson took on his 0:14:04.800 --> 0:14:07.600 pal and drinking Buddy Stanley Ketchell the white and middleweight 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:10.640 champion of the world, and according to the Burns documentary, 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:13.880 fight promoters dressed Ketchell up for photos and high healed 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:16.440 cowboy boots and a bulky coat to make him look 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:20.840 more comparable to Johnson. They also had each fighter promised something, 0:14:21.320 --> 0:14:24.080 so Ketchell promised that he wouldn't try to actually win 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:27.120 and in the process wind up getting really badly hurt. 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:30.760 It was much smaller, and Johnson promised that he wouldn't 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:35.360 knock out Ketchell. Broken promises all around. However, things did 0:14:35.440 --> 0:14:37.520 not go according to Plant what they did. For a 0:14:37.520 --> 0:14:39.480 little bit. For the first part of the fight, it 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:43.040 seemed like everybody was happy. It was gonna turn out 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:45.120 to be a great movie. The boxers could make a 0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:47.480 lot of money off of it. Everybody would be good. 0:14:47.800 --> 0:14:51.360 But in the twelfth round, Ketchell really started trying to win, 0:14:51.560 --> 0:14:55.200 and he knocked down Johnson as soon as he was up. 0:14:55.200 --> 0:14:57.120 There was obviously a huge mistake. As soon as he 0:14:57.200 --> 0:15:01.680 was up, Johnson knocked out Ketchell in the process, knocking 0:15:01.720 --> 0:15:04.600 out all of his front teeth. At the route, which 0:15:04.760 --> 0:15:07.400 is I'm looking at to Blina is cringing right now. 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:13.680 It's maybe one of the more disturbing physical parts of 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:17.560 this podcast, Getting your teeth Knocked Out. Eventually, though, after 0:15:17.920 --> 0:15:21.040 all of these defeats of the Great White Hopes the 0:15:21.080 --> 0:15:23.880 defeat of Ketchel, it was clear that there was only 0:15:24.000 --> 0:15:28.240 one legitimate contender out there for Johnson. That was, of course, 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:31.240 Jim Jefferies. Even though now he was thirty four, he 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:35.080 was nearly three hundred pounds and he was seriously enjoying 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:40.000 his alfalfa farming, he was enjoying retirement. He however, had 0:15:40.040 --> 0:15:43.680 to be the Great White Hope, and eventually Jeffreys agreed 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:48.240 to come out of retirement and fight us Marshall. Text 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:51.000 Rickard won the rights to promote what promised to be 0:15:51.040 --> 0:15:53.280 the fight of the century, and it was sent for 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:58.600 July four so each fighter would be paid fifty thou dollars, 0:15:58.760 --> 0:16:01.640 which is about one point six million dollars today for 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:05.160 film rights, plus as signing bonus of ten thousand dollars, 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:07.760 and plus the winner would receive two thirds of a 0:16:07.760 --> 0:16:11.760 one and one thousand dollar purse. The governor of California 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:14.520 ended up banning the match, though, and after that Record 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:18.600 moved it to Reno, Nevada, where price fighting was legal. Basically, 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:21.360 still kind of a wild Westish area. I guess seemed 0:16:21.400 --> 0:16:24.200 like prize fighting was a civilized pursuit with all of 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:27.360 its rules and gloves and people not usually getting killed. 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:30.960 The only condition of the sudden venue switch was that 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:33.520 the governor of Nevada had records swear that the fight 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:36.960 wasn't stacked, So Ricord did a lot to try to 0:16:37.040 --> 0:16:40.200 make sure that the fight was secure. He placed deputies 0:16:40.240 --> 0:16:44.280 at the arena's entrances who confiscated firearms from the crowd 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:48.600 of twenty thousand. Celebrities and attendance included former champ John L. 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:52.800 Sullivan and novelist slash sports commentator Jack London. There were 0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:55.720 even mock fights set up around the country with reenactors 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:58.880 recreating the fight blow for blow. Really was the fight 0:16:59.000 --> 0:17:01.680 of the century at the point, but don't forget for 0:17:01.720 --> 0:17:04.520 a minute that the whole thing was largely about race. 0:17:04.680 --> 0:17:08.040 The Smithsonian article Dablina mentioned has a quote from The 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:11.000 New York Times on the eve of the fight that read, 0:17:11.440 --> 0:17:15.000 if the black man wins, thousands and thousands of his 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:19.080 ignorant brothers will misinterpret his victory as justifying claims to 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:23.520 much more than physical equality with their white neighbors. Pretty 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:28.320 serious stuff. So despite Jeffrey's rush training, though in a 0:17:28.560 --> 0:17:31.880 massive sudden weight loss he lost about a hundred pounds, 0:17:32.320 --> 0:17:35.520 he was still favored over Johnson ten to four. But 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:38.560 Johnson wasn't worried. He was quoted as saying he felt 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:40.760 like a kid on Christmas morning on the on the 0:17:40.760 --> 0:17:43.280 eve of the fight. This was, after all, what he 0:17:43.359 --> 0:17:47.800 had been waiting for, you know, not just achieving the championship, 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:51.920 but defending it from any further claims. So now we're 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:54.280 going to give you a little rundown of this particular fight. 0:17:55.920 --> 0:17:59.280 Jefferies refused to shake hands with Johnson right off the bat, 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:03.040 and his corner man, former champ gentleman Jim Corbett, whose 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:06.679 defensive style Johnson had actually emulated, started a stream of 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:10.199 racial slurs that lasted the entire match. According to an 0:18:10.200 --> 0:18:14.439 Ebony article by Lauren Bennett Jr. Johnson later remembered quote, 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:17.560 I sensed that most of the great audience was hostile 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:20.679 to me. But despite the sun and the jeering mob, 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:23.400 and the occasional thought that there might be a gunman 0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:26.719 somewhere in that vast array of humanity, I was cool 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:29.800 and perfectly at ease. I never had any doubt of 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:41.399 the outcome, and if you watch the footage, it really 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:44.479 looks that way too. You can watch this uh this 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:49.399 match online and see the two fighters basically locked in 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:54.480 an embrace, with Johnson just lobbing one undercut after another 0:18:54.520 --> 0:18:56.520 at Jeffreys. This is the part that stood out to 0:18:56.560 --> 0:19:00.200 me the most. Jeffrey's head just bounces around every time 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:03.720 he gets hit by Johnson. In the second round, Johnson 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:06.600 told him, don't rush, Jim. I can do this all day. 0:19:07.119 --> 0:19:09.800 He asked Jeffries, how do you feel, Jim, how do 0:19:09.800 --> 0:19:12.520 you like it? Does it hurt? And by the end 0:19:12.560 --> 0:19:16.520 of the fourteenth round, Jefferies just looked horrifying. His nose 0:19:16.640 --> 0:19:20.680 was broken and gushing blood, his eyes were swollen, even 0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:24.119 his legs are all stained with more blood. He looks really, 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:28.119 really bad. In the fifteenth round, he was knocked down 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:31.760 and then knocked down again, falling over the lower ropes 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:34.439 that time, and at that point the crowd started to 0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:36.760 cry for Jefferies not to be knocked out. They didn't 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:40.760 want to see their formerly undefeated champion get knocked out 0:19:40.800 --> 0:19:44.320 by Johnson. So the fight was ended with Johnson declared 0:19:44.359 --> 0:19:46.800 the winner, and again If you see the footage, it 0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:51.399 shows Johnson's cornermen quickly forming this defensive circle around him, 0:19:51.440 --> 0:19:56.640 surrounding him to protect him from the furious crowd around 0:19:56.640 --> 0:20:00.280 the country to some people were celebrating, some or not 0:20:00.440 --> 0:20:04.399 African Americans came out to celebrate, but race riots began 0:20:04.440 --> 0:20:07.760 pretty quickly, and up to twenty six people died as 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:11.240 a result of these race riots over a boxing match. 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:16.719 But Jeffries at least concedes defeat really graciously. He later says, quote, 0:20:16.960 --> 0:20:20.119 Jack Johnson was better than I ever was, and tells 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:22.480 his friends that he couldn't have even beaten him in 0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:25.119 his prime, so kind of putting an end to any 0:20:25.320 --> 0:20:28.399 purizing that, well, maybe if Jeffreys had been younger and 0:20:28.440 --> 0:20:31.640 in better shape, things would have been different. So Johnson, 0:20:31.760 --> 0:20:35.480 now the undisputed champ, was unbeatable, except when it came 0:20:35.480 --> 0:20:38.040 to his private life, that is, which began to fall 0:20:38.080 --> 0:20:41.800 apart pretty quickly. He started drinking heavily, and he threatened 0:20:41.800 --> 0:20:45.120 to commit suicide. He was also treated for nervous exhaustion 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:49.160 and was arrested for speeding. He established the color line 0:20:49.160 --> 0:20:52.440 of his own too, no longer fighting black contenders since 0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:55.399 he considered them harder fights for not as much money. 0:20:55.920 --> 0:20:59.560 He also beat his wealthy girlfriend at a durya badly 0:20:59.680 --> 0:21:02.280 enough for her to be sent to the hospital, and 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:05.639 after that they married. But her sad life living upstairs 0:21:05.680 --> 0:21:09.040 from his black and tan Chicago club Cafe d Champion, 0:21:09.520 --> 0:21:13.000 isolated from both black and white communities, drove her to 0:21:13.000 --> 0:21:17.440 commit suicide in September nineteen twelve, and Johnson was really 0:21:17.480 --> 0:21:21.720 inconsolable after that. But within only a month or so 0:21:21.960 --> 0:21:25.040 he had paired up with a nineteen year old white 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:30.359 prostitute named Lucille Cameron Um and drove with her across 0:21:30.680 --> 0:21:34.040 state lines. And so for all those people out there 0:21:34.119 --> 0:21:36.919 who were ready for Jack Johnson to just go away 0:21:37.480 --> 0:21:41.440 and stop causing so much trouble, finally this was a 0:21:41.440 --> 0:21:44.640 way to eliminate him. So backing up a little bit, 0:21:44.680 --> 0:21:48.200 in nineteen ten, Congress had passed the Man Act, which 0:21:48.760 --> 0:21:53.959 was originally established to ban the transport of women across 0:21:54.000 --> 0:21:56.479 state lines for immoral purposes. It was supposed to be 0:21:56.520 --> 0:22:00.280 something to stop human trafficking, but the Justice to Partment 0:22:00.480 --> 0:22:02.919 used it to attack Johnson. It was never meant to 0:22:02.960 --> 0:22:07.639 be something for two consenting adults traveling together to be 0:22:07.800 --> 0:22:10.760 you know punished with this was just their opportunity, it was, 0:22:10.960 --> 0:22:15.639 so Johnson was arrested October eighteenth, nineteen twelve. He was 0:22:15.680 --> 0:22:20.040 released on bail, and in the intervening months he married Lucile, 0:22:20.119 --> 0:22:23.000 the woman who he had been traveling with, and she 0:22:23.160 --> 0:22:25.960 had already refused to testify against him, So with that 0:22:26.000 --> 0:22:29.920 turn of events, without her testimony, the case against Johnson 0:22:30.000 --> 0:22:33.960 was really worthless. So the Bureau of Investigation got involved 0:22:33.960 --> 0:22:36.840 in the whole thing, trying to find any evidence that 0:22:36.920 --> 0:22:41.800 Johnson had broken the Man Act at some earlier point. Eventually, 0:22:41.840 --> 0:22:45.520 they connected with a former white bordello girlfriend of Johnson's 0:22:45.560 --> 0:22:49.639 who agreed to testify she had cross state lines with him, 0:22:49.680 --> 0:22:52.720 even though they had done so before the Man Act 0:22:52.800 --> 0:22:57.159 even existed, and Johnson has found guilty. He sentenced to 0:22:57.240 --> 0:23:00.520 one year and one day in federal prison. But while 0:23:00.520 --> 0:23:04.160 he was out on bond pending appeal, Johnson just skipped down, 0:23:04.680 --> 0:23:07.040 very likely disguised as a member of a Negro League 0:23:07.080 --> 0:23:11.080 baseball team. He then fled to Montreal, rendezvous with Lucille, 0:23:11.160 --> 0:23:14.359 and they took off together for Europe, where the reception 0:23:14.520 --> 0:23:17.800 was kind of icy, yeah, especially considering he had been 0:23:18.080 --> 0:23:22.159 quite well received in Europe earlier, but after this bad press, 0:23:22.200 --> 0:23:25.400 after this conviction, people weren't fit friendly to him anymore. 0:23:26.240 --> 0:23:29.280 Johnson defended threats to his title abroad, but he soon 0:23:29.320 --> 0:23:31.840 found it impossible to earn a living as a boxer 0:23:31.880 --> 0:23:34.119 in the middle of a war, so he began looking 0:23:34.160 --> 0:23:37.440 for a bigger payday, and back home, folks were still 0:23:37.440 --> 0:23:40.120 looking for a great white hope, a new one, because 0:23:40.200 --> 0:23:44.240 Johnson was, after all, still the heavyweight champion. Finally, on 0:23:44.359 --> 0:23:48.880 April fifth, nineteen fifteen, Johnson met with Kansas native Jess Willard, 0:23:48.960 --> 0:23:52.199 a six ft six twenty seven year old who had 0:23:52.280 --> 0:23:55.240 killed an opponent once with a punch. Since they couldn't 0:23:55.240 --> 0:23:57.760 fight in the US due to Johnson's conviction, they fought 0:23:57.800 --> 0:24:02.560 in nearby Havana, Cuba. So Johnson he by this point 0:24:02.600 --> 0:24:05.800 thirty seven years old, maybe not in the best shape anymore, 0:24:06.240 --> 0:24:09.000 and kind of taking things a little bit too lightly. 0:24:09.040 --> 0:24:12.520 He didn't train like his trainers wanted him to. By 0:24:12.560 --> 0:24:15.760