# Jack Johnson (boxer)

John Arthur Johnson (March 31, 1878 – June 10, 1946), more famous as Jack Johnson and nicknamed the "Galveston Giant", was an American boxer and arguably the best heavyweight of his generation. He was the first black Heavyweight Champion of the World, 1908–1915.

## Quotes

* The search for the "white hope" not having been successful, prejudices were being piled up against me, and certain unfair persons, piqued because I was champion, decided if they could not get me one way they would another.
** As quoted in Introduction to "Knockout" at Unforgivable Blackness at PBS (2005)
* There have been countless women in my life. They have participated in my triumphs and suffered with me in my moments of disappointment. They have inspired me to attainment and they have balked me; they have caused me joy and they have heaped misery upon me; they have been faithful to the utmost and they have been faithless; they have praised and loved me and they have hated and denounced me. Always, a woman has swayed me — sometimes many have demanded my attention at the same moment.
** On women, as quoted in "Jack's Women" at Unforgivable Blackness at PBS (2005)

## Quotes about Johnson

* You know, boy, the heavyweight division for a Negro is hardly likely. The white man ain't too keen on it. You have to be something to go anywhere. If you really ain't gonna be another Jack Johnson, you got some hope. White man hasn't forgotten that fool nigger with his white women, acting like he owned the world.
** Jack Blackburn, in warnings to Joe Louis, as quoted "Ghost in the House" at Unforgivable Blackness at PBS (2005)
* When the legislature convened for its first session in 1913, the Democrats signalized their victory by immediately offering several bills against the Negro. Jack Johnson, champion a few years before, was then in the high tide of his prosperity. He was already married to a white woman, and it seems that in his theatrical engagements which followed after his victory he was accompanied by another white woman who had fallen under his spell. Seeing their chance to get even, racially prejudiced persons brought a charge against him under the Mann Act. He was accused of transporting the woman in the case into the different states where he gave shows. Before this happened, however, he had opened a saloon on Thirty-first Street called the Cafe DeChampion. This place became the resort of the kings and queens of the pugilistic world, and while the common people were served on the first floor, the leading sports and their lady friends of the white race were entertained upstairs, with Jack Johnson as the bright particular star. I was publishing a little paper called the Fellowship Herald at that time and my comment on the opening of this saloon with its "gold" cuspidors was that "what Mr. Johnson should have done with his money was to open a gymnasium in which the colored boys would have the chance to develop themselves physically. He, better than anyone else, knew under what difficulties he had succeeded in getting his training. He also knew that even as champion, the owner of the white gymnasium in the city felt that they were doing him a favor to allow him to give exhibitions therein."...Instead Mr. Johnson chose to open a saloon to cater to the worst passions of both races. When he was not on the road, he spent most of his time there, entertaining the wildest of the underworld of both sexes and especially of the white race. His neglect of his white wife was so marked that she committed suicide during this time. Very soon thereafter came his arrest and imprisonment. When he was found guilty and sentenced to the penitentiary he did a fade away and was gone two or three years in other lands, but ultimately had to come back and do his time in the government prison at Leavenworth...It was shortly after these occurrences that the Illinois legislature convened, and among the first bills offered were four against intermarriage between races. It was clearly stated that these were the aftermath of the Jack Johnson episode.
** Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells (1991)

## External links

* Profile at Unforgivable Blackness at PBS (2005)