Once upon a time the fine art of pugilism better known as boxing was the most popular sport in America. It was one of the oldest sport and was seen as the ultimate test of sportsmanship and manhood.

What other sport was contested one on one with only one man left standing? Wrestling has been around since ancient times; however the loser didn’t have to be knocked unconscious to lose the match. In early boxing matches; they were not declared over until one man was knocked out cold, or simply rendered unable to continue.

Over time the sport would become better regulated by including gloves, mouth pieces, limited rounds, standing eight counts and numerous other reforms; it still stood as the ultimate test of man vs man.

Baseball would come to be known as America’s favorite pastime; it was a team sport and the winner of a particular game was not seen as a demonstration of superiority but more simple a win.

Conversely in boxing; the victor of the match was seen as the better and even the superior man back in the early days due to his demonstration of superior masculinity, controlled aggression, and quick thinking.

Now in let’s get in the time machine and take a trip back to 1908 America. A period of Jim Crow and a coordinated organized nationwide campaign of terrorism directed against the black population in the United States who had just a few decades earlier; were released from slavery later to be abandoned by the federal government during the reconstruction period.

John Arthur Johnson was born during these turbulent times in Galveston, Texas to former slaves in 1878. He was born at a time when the Industrialist in the North, had conspired with former confederates soldiers and planters in the South to re-enslave blacks through sharecropping, convict labor and chain gangs all backed up by propaganda that portrayed whites as superior in every way; and blacks as inferior in every way.

Into this whirlwind of hatred against blacks stepped John Arthur Johnson who would go by the name of Jack Johnson. He grew up in extreme poverty that led him to use his hands in bare fist fighting contest for money from the time he was a boy.

By the time December 26, 1908 came around and the then Heavyweight Champ Tommy Burns would give him a shot at the Heavyweight Title; Jack had grown into a man who was profoundly skilled in all aspect of boxing, fast, powerful and basically invincible. A heavyweight who combined the defensive skills of a Floyd Mayweather, hand speed of a Muhammad Ali, and punching power of a prime Mike Tyson.
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The world of sports and boxing had never seen anything like Jack Johnson. He proceeded to toy with and administer a beating so severe and so complete that the cameramen cut off their cameras before the fight was over due to the distress and dissonance that the beating provoked in them.

They had been forced to come to grips with the fact that a black man; one that all of the propaganda of white supremacy said could not under any circumstance stand a chance against a white man in a boxing ring; had just in a very violent way; done the unthinkable. Jack Johnson single-handedly destroyed a cornerstone to the myth of white supremacy.

This victory by Jack Johnson was seen as a threat to the very way of life for the United States and Western European countries who had colonies in Africa. This victory; they felt would give black people all over the earth the idea that whites were not superior and not ordained to rule; and in fact could be stood up too and beaten.

Jack Johnson would continue to whip one great white hope after another; with each victory resulting in increased hatred and rage among segments of the white population leading to the beatings and lynching of blacks if they were unlucky enough to cross paths with these angry mobs.

The parallel between the ways segments of society reacted to Jack Johnson is strikingly eerie with how it has reacted to Barak Obama as it relates to the white backlash against blacks as a group.

While it would have been relatively easy to kill Jack Johnson; the murderous inclination was overpowered by a profound racist need to prove that a white man can beat him in the ring. To assassinate him while he was Heavyweight Champion; would be to admit that he was the better man. That a black man was the better man. The system and culture of white’s supremacy could not admit this; so while the search for another great white hope went on; other blacks suffered the backlash.

One can make the argument that there are many who hate the President because of his race; however they cannot do anything to him; so this hatred is directed at other blacks who in 2014 are suffering a backlash.

The documentary: unforgivable Blackness – The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson; directed by Ken Burns is highly recommended. Black 2020 gives 5 Stars.

Submitted by Christopher A. Clarke on 10/20/14. 

Christopher A. Clarke is managing editor of Black2020.Com and can be reached through the sites contact page.