Speaker 1: Lessons from the world's top professors anytime, any place, world
Speaker 1: history examined and science explained. This is one day university. Welcome,
Speaker 1: and we're back on the untold history of sports in America.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Mike Coscarelli. Last time we talked about
Speaker 1: sport Jim Crow, how racist ideology poured into early American
Speaker 1: professional sports. Today we expand that conversation to America's first
Speaker 1: black heavyweight champion, Jack Johnson, and his never ending fight
Speaker 1: against the great White Hope you'll get an idea of
Speaker 1: how Johnson was treated after winning the title and some
Speaker 1: of the measures White America was willing to take to
Speaker 1: assert that treatment. Will it surprise you, probably not. Here's Matt.
Speaker 1: We're going to continue our discussion about sport and race.
Speaker 1: So we're going to continue our exploration of how racial
Speaker 1: anxieties affected American sports at the turn of the twenty century.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to tell you one story today, the
Speaker 1: incredible and shattering story of the heavyweight boxing match between
Speaker 1: a black man named Jack Johnson and a white man
Speaker 1: named Jim Jefferies. And this fight is, in my mind,
Speaker 1: the single most significant sporting event in all of American history,
Speaker 1: and I say that because of all of the racial
Speaker 1: drama surrounding this fight, and I say that because of
Speaker 1: all the people who were murdered when this fight was over.
Speaker 1: All Right, the last time we were discussing boxing, the
Speaker 1: manly art, I ended with the idea that boxing had
Speaker 1: exploded in popularity at the end of the nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: and boxing was especially popular in this country with white
Speaker 1: American men. And one of the reasons is that the
Speaker 1: sport told them something that they wanted to believe. It
Speaker 1: told white men that they were the best, They were
Speaker 1: the strongest and most courageous people on earth. And the
Speaker 1: proof they said was that the heavyweight champion of the
Speaker 1: world was white, always had been, you know, in American sports,
Speaker 1: in American culture, the heavyweight champion, he stands at the
Speaker 1: pinnacle of masculinity. You know, he's he's held up as
Speaker 1: the toughest person on the planet. And he was always
Speaker 1: a white man. Now there were some fantastic white fighters,
Speaker 1: but one of the reasons the heavyweight champion was always
Speaker 1: white was that that white heavyweight champions they refused to
Speaker 1: fight black challengers, that they never let black men fight
Speaker 1: for the heavyweight championship. I told you how even the
Speaker 1: great John L. Sullivan he rue the color line. That's
Speaker 1: what it's called drawing the color line. He did this
Speaker 1: as champion. He drew the color line and refused to
Speaker 1: fight black fighters. The same was true with Jim Corbett.
Speaker 1: Corbett defeated John L. Sullivan in and once he was champion,
Speaker 1: he drew the color line and refused to fight black
Speaker 1: boxers as well. The next great heavyweight champion, and he
Speaker 1: was also white, was Jim Jeffries, and Jim Jefferies is
Speaker 1: one of our two main characters today, all right. Jefferies
Speaker 1: was six ft three. He weighed two hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: five pounds, which is big today, but very big for
Speaker 1: one hundred years ago. His nicknames were the Grizzly Bear.
Speaker 1: In fact, he kept a chain grizzly bear as a pet.
Speaker 1: Some people called him the boiler Maker because he reminded
Speaker 1: people of a massive train engine. Jefferies was an immense,
Speaker 1: raw solid man, and he was heavyweight champion from eighteen
Speaker 1: nine nine to nineteen o five and he never lost
Speaker 1: a professional fight, not once. But he also did not
Speaker 1: fight black challengers. Jeffrey said that black boxers, he said
Speaker 1: they're inferior fighters. He said black men have a well
Speaker 1: known weakness in the stomach that made them easy to
Speaker 1: knock out. He said, they possessed a yellow streak. They
Speaker 1: were cowards, and if given the chance to fight for
Speaker 1: the title, they likely would not even show up. You know. So,
Speaker 1: just as so many Americans believe that African Americans that
Speaker 1: black Americans were inferior to white Americans in general, white
Speaker 1: boxers like Jeffreys, they repeated the lines that black boxers
Speaker 1: were mentally and physically inferior as well. So in nineteen
Speaker 1: o five, with no one left to fight, or so
Speaker 1: he said, Jim Jeffreys walked away from Xing undefeated and
Speaker 1: he retired to his alfalfa farm in California. But he'll
Speaker 1: be back into this segregated boxing scene, came Jack Johnson.
Speaker 1: Jack Johnson was born in Galveston, Texas, in eighteen seventy eight.
Speaker 1: He was born to parents who had once been enslaved,
Speaker 1: and he took up boxing and he was good at it,
Speaker 1: but he lived a hard early life. It was the
Speaker 1: typical life of the boxer, you know, traveling from city
Speaker 1: to city looking for a fight a little money. But
Speaker 1: as a black man, Johnson's life was different from most
Speaker 1: other boxers. It was harder to find fights, and when
Speaker 1: he did find fights, at least early on, it was
Speaker 1: often in something that are called battle royal's. A battle
Speaker 1: royal is a derisive form of athletic entertainment in which
Speaker 1: white promoters they would put end to twelve black fighters
Speaker 1: in a ring, sometimes blindfold them, sometimes ply them with alcohol,
Speaker 1: and have them raw until only one was left standing,
Speaker 1: and all the while the white audience would who holler
Speaker 1: at the chaotic mayhem inside of the ring. These things
Speaker 1: didn't happen too often, but they did occur. Now, I
Speaker 1: assume Jack Johnson did well in these battle royals because
Speaker 1: his strength and his skill they are undeniable. He was
Speaker 1: a real student of boxing, and once Jack Johnson developed
Speaker 1: his trademark defensive style of fighting, he became a top
Speaker 1: contender for the heavyweight title. But of course, there's one
Speaker 1: problem for a black man who wants to be heavyweight
Speaker 1: champion of the world. White champions refused to fight black challengers.
Speaker 1: They just did not give them a shot. And the
Speaker 1: white champions especially did not want to give a man
Speaker 1: like Jack Johnson a shot at the title. For Jack
Speaker 1: Johnson and was not just a black fighter. Jack Johnson
Speaker 1: offended white Americans. Jack Johnson was bold, he was brash.
Speaker 1: You know, from the perspective of many white Americans, Jack
Speaker 1: Johnson was a transgressive black man, both inside the boxing
Speaker 1: ring and out. Jack Johnson's every move was a challenge
Speaker 1: to the ideology of white supremacy in the United States.
Speaker 1: Inside the ring, Jack Johnson didn't just defeat his white opponents.
Speaker 1: He mocked them. He taunted them. Now here's how I
Speaker 1: see it. It's as if whenever Jack Johnson entered the ring,
Speaker 1: he was trying to take revenge on his white opponents
Speaker 1: for the three hundred years of abuse that black Americans
Speaker 1: had endured in this country. Well, white Americans considered Jack
Speaker 1: Johnson a problem outside of the ring as well. Jack
Speaker 1: Johnson displayed his growing wealth in ways that black men
Speaker 1: just were not supposed to do back then. He he
Speaker 1: wore expensive suits and diamond jewelry. He drove fancy and
Speaker 1: expensive cars, and he drove these cars fast. There's a
Speaker 1: great story about Jack Johnson. He was in San Francisco
Speaker 1: driving one of his cars and he was stopped by
Speaker 1: a white police officer for speeding and told he had
Speaker 1: to pay a five dollar fine. Jack Johnson gave him
Speaker 1: ten dollars and said, I'm coming back the same way.
Speaker 1: The point being white authorities, so we might say the
Speaker 1: white power structure. It did not intimidate Jack Johnson. Alright,
Speaker 1: all that said, by far, and I mean by far
Speaker 1: Johnson's greatest social transgression or his relationships with white women.
Speaker 1: Jack Johnson openly associated with white prostitutes. Jack Johnson was
Speaker 1: married three times, all three of his wives were white.
Speaker 1: This open interracial sexuality just was not done in this country.
Speaker 1: A hundred and ten years ago. You know, there were
Speaker 1: ministers in the South, ministers so called men of God,
Speaker 1: who gave sermons in which they called for Jack Johnson
Speaker 1: to be kidnapped from his home up in Chicago, brought
Speaker 1: to the South and executed. All right, from the perspective
Speaker 1: of most white Americans, all of these personality traits of
Speaker 1: Jack Johnson, Okay, they were problematic, but they were not
Speaker 1: a gargantuan problem as long as Jack Johnson never got
Speaker 1: the opportunity to fight for the heavyweight title. But Jack
Speaker 1: Johnson was persistent and he got his chance in in
Speaker 1: eight with Jim Jeffreys retired. Now for three years, the
Speaker 1: new heavyweight champion was a white Canadian named Tommy Burns,
Speaker 1: and at first Burns refused to fight Johnson, but Jack
Speaker 1: Johnson stopped Tommy Burns. Wherever Tommy Burns went the United States, Europe, Australia,
Speaker 1: there was Jack Johnson, you know, calling him a coward,
Speaker 1: calling Burns yellow. And eventually Burns was goaded into the fight,
Speaker 1: or a little more accurately, he was lured into the
Speaker 1: fight by the promise of a big pay day. The
Speaker 1: fight took place in Sydney, Australia on December Boxing Day,
Speaker 1: although that means something else. Most of the boxing experts
Speaker 1: they believed that Tommy Burns, the white man, would win.
Speaker 1: I mean, after all, Burns was white. As they saw it,
Speaker 1: he was the dominant representative of the dominant race. But
Speaker 1: the experts were wrong. I mean, Jack Johnson was a
Speaker 1: much bigger, much stronger, and far superior fighter. He toyed
Speaker 1: with Tommy Burns, finally knocking Burns out in the fourteenth round.
Speaker 1: So now here we are, December eight. The heavyweight champion
Speaker 1: of the world is a black man. I'm guessing many
Speaker 1: of you know who Jack London is. London was an
Speaker 1: American author. He wrote those classics like White Fang and
Speaker 1: The Call of the Wild. These are books that on
Speaker 1: their surface seemed to be about dogs, but they are
Speaker 1: really about men and masculinity, about manhood and race. Jack
Speaker 1: London was also a boxing writer, and in fact he
Speaker 1: was at that fight in Australia. He was sitting ringside
Speaker 1: reporting for the New York Herald. And here's how he
Speaker 1: ended the column that he wrote that day about the fight.
Speaker 1: But one thing now remains. Jim Jefferies must now emerged
Speaker 1: from his alfalfa farm and removed that golden smile from
Speaker 1: Jack Johnson's face, jeff And that means, Jeffreys, jeff it's
Speaker 1: up to you. The white man must be rescued. After
Speaker 1: the break, Jim Jeffries comes out of retirement for the
Speaker 1: greatest sporting event in American history. So we've discussed this.
Speaker 1: Boxing is a very symbolic sport. The heavyweight champion of
Speaker 1: the world can, with some justification, claimed to be the strongest,
Speaker 1: most skillful, most fit man on the planet. What does
Speaker 1: it say about the ideology of white supremacy when the
Speaker 1: heavyweight champion of the world is black. The defeated Jim
Speaker 1: Jefferies had to come out of retirement, Jack London is saying,
Speaker 1: and put Jack Johnson in his place and regained that crown.
Speaker 1: But Jeffreies didn't want to do it. Jeffries refused the fight.
Speaker 1: He was retired and content. You know, he had not
Speaker 1: fought since nineteen o five, for three years. So other
Speaker 1: white boxers tried to beat Johnson. They were known collectively
Speaker 1: as great White Hopes. And Jack Johnson he beat them
Speaker 1: all one by one. There's there's one fight of note
Speaker 1: that I want to mention. It took place in San Francisco,
Speaker 1: Jack Johnson against the white fighter named Stanley Ketchel. And
Speaker 1: this was in nineteen o nine, and Ketchell was a
Speaker 1: lot smaller than Johnson, but he was a ferocious brawler.
Speaker 1: The two of them were actually friends. They liked to
Speaker 1: carouse and visit saloons and brothels together and for this
Speaker 1: fight they made an agreement. The agreement was not to
Speaker 1: fight too hard in the early rounds. The idea was
Speaker 1: to prolong the fight so the fight film moving pictures
Speaker 1: of the film they could make more money. This was
Speaker 1: an era when moving picture companies they were beginning to
Speaker 1: film price fights to show American audiences, and the thought
Speaker 1: was that the more people would go to see the film.
Speaker 1: If the fight was longer, you know, movie goers would
Speaker 1: get more for their money. So the agreement was, let's
Speaker 1: go easy on each other in the early rounds and
Speaker 1: then start fighting in earnest later. But Stanley Ketchel strayed
Speaker 1: from the script. In one of the early rounds, when
Speaker 1: Johnson was just going through the motions, Ketchell snuck in
Speaker 1: a right cross and knocked Jack Johnson down. The almost
Speaker 1: all white crowd in attendance, they rose to their feet
Speaker 1: and roared, and then Jack Johnson got to his feet
Speaker 1: and I'm not making this up. You can find the
Speaker 1: grainy black and white film on on YouTube. Jack Johnson
Speaker 1: got off the canvas and with one tremendous, angry punch,
Speaker 1: he knocked Stanley Ketchel unconscious. And the punch was so
Speaker 1: powerful that Ketchell's front teeth were embedded in Jack Johnson's glove.
Speaker 1: Jack Johnson just calmly wiped the teeth away while the
Speaker 1: referee counted Ketchell out. There was film of this. There
Speaker 1: were photographs of this, photographs of Jack Johnson standing over
Speaker 1: the limp unconscious body of Stanley Ketchel. They were printed
Speaker 1: in newspapers around the country, and think of the revolutionary
Speaker 1: potential of these photographs. I mean, here was an awesome
Speaker 1: depiction of black male power. And this is why so
Speaker 1: many black Americans reveled in Jack Johnson's accomplishments in the ring.
Speaker 1: No boxing was providing an arena where a black man
Speaker 1: was allowed to compete with a white man on equal terms.
Speaker 1: Here was a space where a black man could strike
Speaker 1: at a white man without fear of murderous retribution. You know,
Speaker 1: in the context of the times that the racial symbolism
Speaker 1: of Jack Johnson, the transgressive power of Jack Johnson, is
Speaker 1: hard to overstate. But of course moments and scenes like
Speaker 1: this they heightened white anxiety and so even more white
Speaker 1: Americans they turned to Jim Jefferies, imploring him to return
Speaker 1: to the ring and defeat Jack Johnson. The man who
Speaker 1: finally convinced Jeffreys to return is a guy named text Rickard.
Speaker 1: Text Ricord was a sports promoter, a guy with big dreams,
Speaker 1: and he believed that boxing could be a big arena sport.
Speaker 1: He believed that massive amounts of money could be made
Speaker 1: on boxing, and he knew that right here he had
Speaker 1: the racial drama that he needed to propel the sport
Speaker 1: into the stratosphere. Text Record offered one hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 1: to the fighters. The winner would get se the loser
Speaker 1: at a time when the average industrial worker made one
Speaker 1: dollar a day. I mean, this was a staggering, staggering
Speaker 1: sum of money. Jeffreys agreed. He started training to get
Speaker 1: in shape. By some estimates, he had gained nearly one
Speaker 1: hundred pounds since retirement. I mean that weight needed to go,
Speaker 1: and it would go. Jeffrey's got fit. Rickard had wanted
Speaker 1: to hold the fight in San Francisco, which is actually
Speaker 1: a very big boxing town back then, but moral reformers,
Speaker 1: who hated boxing to begin with, and especially into racial boxing,
Speaker 1: they used their influence to get the fight moved out
Speaker 1: of California, and so text Record said, fine, he moved
Speaker 1: the fire across the state border. He built a large
Speaker 1: wooden boxing arena in Reno, Nevada, the town that was
Speaker 1: sort of the Las Vegas of its day, a town
Speaker 1: where Americans went to drink and gamble and get divorced.
Speaker 1: And the date was set July four, Independence Day. It's
Speaker 1: Jim Jefferies, the Great White Hope against Jack Johnson, the
Speaker 1: first black heavyweight champion. And I'm gonna say it again.
Speaker 1: I think that this fight is the most significant sporting
Speaker 1: event in American history. And I say this because of
Speaker 1: the intense build up to this fight. You know, the
Speaker 1: fight was seen as symbolizing a larger racial battle in
Speaker 1: the United States. And I say this because of what
Speaker 1: happened in the immediate aftermath of this fight. On the
Speaker 1: day of the contest, massive crowds gathered throughout the United States,
Speaker 1: eager to get telegraphed reports of the fight. Jeffries himself,
Speaker 1: he received thousands of telegrams wishing him luck. White Americans
Speaker 1: were imploring him to win the fight to restore racial order.
Speaker 1: As they saw it, and let me say this, they
Speaker 1: expected Jim Jeffries to do this. Jefferies the white fighter.
Speaker 1: He was the heavy betting favorite. Even though Jeffries had
Speaker 1: been out of the ring for almost five full years,
Speaker 1: most white Americans just assumed he would beat Johnson. Remember,
Speaker 1: Jim Jeffries had never lost a fight, so there were
Speaker 1: many who still considered him to be the real champion. Plus,
Speaker 1: as most white Americans saw it, Jefferies was the dominant
Speaker 1: representative of the dominant race. How could he lose. Well,
Speaker 1: the fight itself was an anti climax. If one's idea
Speaker 1: of a great fight is one that is evenly matched,
Speaker 1: then the Johnson Jeffreies contest was anything but great. Jack
Speaker 1: Johnson not only defeated Jim Jeffries, he thrashed him. In
Speaker 1: the early rounds. Johnson he he just stayed away from Jeffreys,
Speaker 1: that defensive style of his and and every time Jeffreys
Speaker 1: got close, Jack Johnson just wrapped his arm around Jeffreys
Speaker 1: and hugged him. And Jefferies, you know who was older.
Speaker 1: He had been out of the ring for a while.
Speaker 1: He got tired, he got frustrated. He pummeled Jeffreys with
Speaker 1: sharp jabs and devastating uppercuts. By the fifteenth round, jeffreys
Speaker 1: nose was broken, his chest and his shorts they were
Speaker 1: they were soaked in his own blood. And I'll say
Speaker 1: it again, boxing his brutal in the fifteen round, it
Speaker 1: was this fight's last. Jack Johnson repeatedly not Jeffreys to
Speaker 1: the canvas, and eventually the men in Jeffrey's corner they
Speaker 1: threw in the towel that the sign that they were
Speaker 1: conceding defeat. The mostly white crowd just stood there and
Speaker 1: stunned silence. Their their hopes, they're they're great. White hopes
Speaker 1: had been dashed. You know. Racial anxieties and tensions were
Speaker 1: so high before this contest that on the morning of
Speaker 1: the fight, Jim Jefferies put out a statement in the
Speaker 1: newspapers saying that should Jack Johnson somehow win, Johnson should
Speaker 1: be allowed to leave the ring safely and unmolested. And
Speaker 1: Jack Johnson did leave the ring and reno safely, But
Speaker 1: the story was very different for other Black Americans. As
Speaker 1: news of Johnson's victory spread throughout the United States, this
Speaker 1: nation convulse white Americans throughout the United States. They erupted
Speaker 1: in anger and frustration and black men and women. They
Speaker 1: were attacked in St. Louis, in Omaha, New Orleans, Little Rock,
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, In Norfolk, Virginia, white sailors that they roamed
Speaker 1: the streets looking for black men to beat up. In
Speaker 1: New York City, a white mob set fire to a
Speaker 1: to a black tenement building, and they blocked the doorway
Speaker 1: to prevent the occupants escape. In World, Georgia, white gunmen
Speaker 1: opened fire on a construction camp housing black workers. Three
Speaker 1: black men were killed, there in Houston, a black man
Speaker 1: jumped onto a crowded street car and boasted of Jack
Speaker 1: Johnson's victory. A white passenger took out his knife and
Speaker 1: slashed open the black man's throat. No one knows for sure,
Speaker 1: but as many as twenty six black men and women
Speaker 1: may have been killed by white mobs that day, and
Speaker 1: hundreds were assaulted and beaten. Jack Johnson's victory over Jim
Speaker 1: Jeffreys in the boxing ring. It ignited the first national
Speaker 1: race riot in American history. You know, there would be others,
Speaker 1: like in nineteen sixty eight when Martin Luther King Jr.
Speaker 1: Was assassinated, or when the Rodney King verdict was announced.
Speaker 1: And I suppose I'm defining race riot loosely here. I'm
Speaker 1: defining it as a violent uprising sparked by an incident
Speaker 1: that has to do with race. But think about that,
Speaker 1: the first nationwide race riot where violence is happening all
Speaker 1: around the country at the same time. It occurred when
Speaker 1: white Americans unleashed their anger against Black Americans because a
Speaker 1: black man had beat a white man in a boxing match.
Speaker 1: Well unable to beat Jack Johnson in the ring, his
Speaker 1: enemies found another way to bring him down. In nine
Speaker 1: the United States federal government. They went after Jack Johnson
Speaker 1: in court, charging him with violating a new law called
Speaker 1: the Man Act. The Man Act was a federal law
Speaker 1: designed to fight prostitution and made it a federal crime
Speaker 1: to transport a woman across state lines for quote unquote
Speaker 1: immoral purposes. In other words, you could not transport a
Speaker 1: prostitute across state lines. That this this law made prostitution
Speaker 1: a federal crime rather than just a state crime. Now,
Speaker 1: Jack Johnson had indeed traveled across a state line with
Speaker 1: a prostitute, but this prostitute was his girlfriend. It was
Speaker 1: not sex trafficking. They were on vacation. In fact, Jack
Speaker 1: john Nson later married that woman. But it didn't matter.
Speaker 1: The federal government went after Jack Johnson, and by prosecuting
Speaker 1: Johnson for violating the Man Act, it's clear, absolutely clear
Speaker 1: that the goal was to punish Jack Johnson for his
Speaker 1: boxing successes and for daring to engage in romantic relationships
Speaker 1: with white women. Jack Johnson went on trial, he was convicted,
Speaker 1: and he was sentenced to a year in prison, and
Speaker 1: while his case was on appeal, he actually fled the country.
Speaker 1: Jack Johnson lived abroad mostly in Europe for seven years,
Speaker 1: and he continued to box. He eventually lost his heavyweight
Speaker 1: title in Havana, Cuba, in nineteen fifteen. He lost to
Speaker 1: a white American named Jess Willard. This was a grueling
Speaker 1: twenty six round fight in a one degree plus heat.
Speaker 1: But once the title was reclaimed by a white man,
Speaker 1: the white champions once again they drew the color line.
Speaker 1: It would be twenty two years, not until ninety seven
Speaker 1: before another black fighter is going to get the opportunity
Speaker 1: to fight for the heavyweight title. His name is Joe Lewis.
Speaker 1: As for Jack Johnson, he returned to the United States
Speaker 1: in nine surrendered to authorities, and he served one year
Speaker 1: in Leavenworth Prison. You know, one on one, Jack Johnson
Speaker 1: could beat any white man alive, but he couldn't beat
Speaker 1: them all, the white supremacists. One. Jack Johnson died in Raleigh,
Speaker 1: North Carolina in ninety six. He was driving through the
Speaker 1: South and he was refused service at a Raleigh roadside restaurant.
Speaker 1: You know black skin Jim Crow Enraged, he hopped into
Speaker 1: his automobile and he sped away and he lost control
Speaker 1: of his car. He hit a telephone poll and he
Speaker 1: was killed. The remarkable story of Jack Johnson has a
Speaker 1: surprising PostScript. In the early two thousands, two United States
Speaker 1: senators from opposite sides of the political aisle. It was
Speaker 1: the Arizona Republican John McCain and the Massachusetts Democrat Ted
Speaker 1: Kennedy that both of them big boxing fans. They co
Speaker 1: sponsored a petition that was sent to the White House,
Speaker 1: first asking George W. Bush and then Barack Obama to
Speaker 1: pardon Jack Johnson, to remove his nineteen twelve conviction and
Speaker 1: exonerate him. And neither Bush nor Obama did this. And
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, in the summer of President
Speaker 1: Donald Trump heard about the story of Jack Johnson. And
Speaker 1: it was the actor Sylvester Stallone, the man who famously
Speaker 1: played the boxer Rocky Balboa. He was the one who
Speaker 1: told Trump about Jack Johnson. And a few days later,
Speaker 1: with Stallone standing by his side, Donald Trump issued a
Speaker 1: presidential order officially pardoning Jack Johnson. And I'm gonna end
Speaker 1: with this. I have to be honest, I did not
Speaker 1: see that coming. That's all for now. Next time on
Speaker 1: the Untold History of Sports in America, presented by One
Speaker 1: Day University sports become a presence in everyday American life,