Jack Johnson
By Angela E. Chamblee
Jack Johnson
In 1908, Jack Johnson won the heavy-weight boxing. championship of the world. He was the first Black heavy-weight champ. During his reign as boxing’s heavyweight champ, Black men were lynched, if there was even the suggestion that a Black man raped a White woman. Why? Maybe, because Jack Johnson dated exclusively White women, and he felt it was nobody’s business who he slept with or married. Maybe it was because Jack Johnson used to put toilet tissue down into his boxing shorts to make himself appear more endowed than he was. People say that Jack Johnson was the greatest boxer of all time. Why? Because when boxing first started the average boxer was a “brawler,” meaning he would run wildly throwing out fists punching so hard and fast that he would, unpredictably, and luckily hit the man and knock him out.But Jack Johnson was a scientific boxer. Motion pictures had just begun and Johnson would buy film footage of his opponents and study them. He would know their mannerisms and could see a punch coming long before it was actually thrown and actually dodge it. Most boxers were flat-footed. They could not dance in the ring, and dodge punches.
People may remember a boxer named Muhammad Ali. Ali is known for saying repeatedly that he was the greatest boxer of all time, but Ali was asked one time what he thought of Jack Johnson, and even Ali said Johnson was the greatest boxer of all time because he was the first Black heavyweight boxing champ, and he had to endure a tremendous amount of racism, more than Ali said he ever had to endure. That is why he ranked Johnson as #1.
We do know that during Jack Johnson’s reign as the heavy weight champ more Black men were lynched more than ever before. Every weekend there would be a lynching. Ironically, Jack Johnson was never lynched, or assassinated, and he received numerous death threats. The question is why? Maybe because Jack Johnson put a little too much toilet paper into his boxing shorts, just enough forJack Johnson to be ridiculously well endowed, and White people knew it was a joke, at their expense. Then some White men started getting ridiculous too, and started stuffing toilet paper down in their boxing shorts. Black people had a good belly laugh. The exploits and stories of Jack Johnson passed down orally through generations of Black people. Jack Johnson was a master showman; he really knew how to promote a fight.
In Australia, white women were not generally going in to see boxing matches, but White women flocked in droves to the camp where Jack Johnson practiced for his big match with Tommy Burns for the Heavyweight Champion of the World, just to catch a glimpse of what Jack Johnson looked like.
Jack Johnson knew how to psych out his opponents. He would often talk to a man when boxing him. Many times, in the ring, Johnson would dance over to where a man’s girl friend or wife who was sitting on the front row. He would call out to her,”What round you want me to knock this chump out in.” She would say “What round is it Jack?” Johnson would dance away from her, then come back 1 minute and say “4th round.” The woman would say “4th round Jack.” Jack Johnson would have less than a minute to knock the man out, but he would immediately do it.
Furthermore, Jonson was a scientific boxer. He was one of the first boxers to actually study film footage of fights with his opponents. In the early days of boxing, most boxers were “brawlers.” They would run out as soon as the fight began flailing their arms, hoping to land a lucky punch, and they actually would land a lucky punch and knock out an opponent. They fought with heart and emotion above qualities made Jack Johnson the greatest boxer of all time.
The allegation of rape became just an excuse to round up as many innocent Black people as possible to terrorize and practice genocide on them. Was it worth it? . . Yes. A good belly laugh is healing. It is also a non-violent approach to fighting racism.