Jack Johnson, Rebel Sojourner

by Theresa Runstedtler

  82. Dawson News (Georgia), 16 September 1908, quoted in Lloyd, Eugene Bullard, 29. The population figures also come from this article.

  83. “Got the ‘Black Scare,’” Indianapolis Freeman, 15 March 1913.

  84. Jeffrey Green, Black Edwardians: Black People in Britain, 1901-1914 (London: Frank Cass Publishers, 1998), 1-14, 80-137.

  85. Harry Reynolds, Minstrel Memories: The Story of Burnt Cork Minstrelsy in Great Britain from 1836 to 1927 (London: Alston Rivers, 1928), 17, 70; Peter Fryer, Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain (London: Pluto Press, 1984), 443.

  86. Lloyd, Eugene Bullard, 30. Also see Reynolds, Minstrel Memories, 9.

  87. Lester A. Walton, “Hooray for the British,” New York Age, 10 July 1913.

  88. Billy Lewis, “England Disappointing,” Indianapolis Freeman, 6 September 1913.

  89. “The Arena: Welsh Criticism,” African Times and Orient Review, August 1912.

  90. Fryer, Staying Power, 294-95. Unemployed black seamen could also be found in Newport, Barry, Liverpool, Hull, Tyneside, and Glasgow.

  91. “The Arena: Welsh Criticism.”

  92. Evening Standard quoted in “Contesting the Negro's Right to Exist,” Indianapolis Freeman, 22 March 1913.

  93. “Negro Invasion Feared,” Atlantic Advocate, 11 January 1913.

  94. “The Dark Side of the White Hope Problem,” in Boxing New Year's Annual 1914 (London, 1914).

  95. “Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured,” in Boxing New Year's Annual 1913 (London, 1913).

  96. See “Miscegenation Abroad Excites No Comment,” Baltimore Afro-American, 9 July 1910. This report used the marriage of Prince Dhuleep Singh, the eldest son of the maharaja of Lahore, to Lady Anne Coventry, the daughter of the Earl of Coventry, as an example of British racial tolerance.

  97. “Contesting the Negro's Right to Exist.”

  98. Walton, “Theatrical Comment.”

  99. Times, 27 August 1913, quoted in Ward, Unforgivable Blackness, 350.

  100. “Object to Jack Johnson,” New York Times, 20 August 1913. The ban did not affect Johnson's engagements in Ireland and Scotland.

  101. “Likely to Bar Johnson,” New York Times, 22 August 1913.

  102. “Jack Johnson's Engagement,” Times, 23 August 1913.

  103. “A Queensberry Revises an Indictment,” New York Times, 27 August 1913.

  104. “Johnson Upsets London Music Hall,” New York Times, 26 August 1913. Also see “Cheer Jack Johnson in London Theaters,” Indianapolis Freeman, 6 September 1913.

  105. “Champion Jack Johnson Lionized in London,” Chicago Defender, 30 August 1913.

  106. Era, a London-based theatrical weekly, quoted in “Johnson at Euston,” New York Age, 18 September 1913.

  107. “Champion Jack Johnson Lionized in London.”

  108. “Johnson Upsets London Music Hall.”

  109. “Champion Jack Johnson Lionized in London.”

  110. Lewis, “England Disappointing.”

  111. Ward, Unforgivable Blackness, 352-53; Randy Roberts, Papa Jack: Jack Johnson and the Era of White Hopes (New York: Free Press, 1983), 190-91.

  112. Pieterse, White on Black, 137-38.

  113. “Johnson to Fight Moran and Pelkey,” Chicago Defender, 4 October 1913.

  114. “University of Budapest Entertains Jack Johnson,” Chicago Defender, 15 November 1913.

  115. “Ernest Stevens Visits Jack Johnson in Paris,” Chicago Defender, 25 April 1914.

  CHAPTER 5. TRADING RACE

  1. “Ernest Stevens Visits Jack Johnson in Paris,” Chicago Defender, 25 April 1914.

  2. Ibid; Geoffrey Ward, Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson (New York: Knopf, 2004), 358.

  3. Jacques Mortane, “Tous les nègres en Europe,” La Vie au grand air, 9 May 1908, 292. Several scholars have noted the difficulty of translating the French word nègre into its English equivalent. Despite its visual similarity to “negro,” nègre in the early 1900s was still a derogatory term whose meaning was likely closer to that of the word nigger. Since the word nègre appears most frequently in boxing publications that used colloquial language, I have chosen to translate it as “nigger.” See Brent Edwards, The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), 25-38; Jack Johnson, My Life and Battles, trans. Chris Rivers (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2007), xv-xvi.

  4. “French Call Fight a Fake Unless a Knock-out Ends It,” Washington Post, 19 February 1911.

  5. French newspaper reports corroborate this story of African American independence. McVea took his white manager to court and then took over the management of his own affairs. “Sam Mac Vea devant le tribunal,” L'Auto, 28 March 1909; “Sam Mac Vea manager,” L'Auto, 15 October 1909.

  6. “A vous…touché!” La Boxe et les boxeurs, 29 March 1911. Also see Claude Meunier, Ring noir: Quand Apollinaire, Cendrars et Picabia découvraient les boxeurs nègres (Paris: PLON, 1992), 39.

  7. Michel Fabre, “The Ring and the Stage: African Americans in Parisian Public and Imaginary Space before World War I,” in Space in America: Theory, History, Culture, ed. Klaus Benesch and Kerstin Schmidt (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2005), 524.

  8. “Why Black Men Favor France,” New York News, [12] August 1914.

  9. On the French civilizing mission in this period, see Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize: The Republican Idea of Empire in France and West Africa, 1895-1930 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997).

  10. Shawn Michelle Smith's critical analysis of the French praise for W. E. B. Du Bois's photographic exhibition of the American Negro at the Paris Exposition in 1900 exposes the same interimperial dynamic. Shawn Michelle Smith, Photography on the Color Line: W. E. B. Du Bois, Race, and Visual Culture (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004).

  11. See “La Caricature à l'étranger: ‘Boxing One of Most Popular Sports in France Just Now,’” La Boxe et les boxeurs, 7 June 1911. A reprint from a New York newspaper, this cartoon lampooned French sports fans for their fascination with black boxers.

  12. I borrow the term “contact zone” from Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (New York: Routledge, 1992), 6-7.

  13. Boxing manuals acquainted French fans with the basics of boxing technique and training, the Queensberry rules, the history of the ring, and the current championship scene. See Jacques Mortane and André Linville, La Boxe (Paris: Pierre Lafitte, 1908); Fernand Cuny, La Boxe (Paris: Éditions Nilsson, [1910]).

  14. J. Delcroix, “Le ‘Wonderland’ français,” L'Education physique, 31 December 1907.

  15. See Jacques Mortane, “Les Critériums de boxe anglaise,” La Vie au grand air, 19 January 1907, 48-49; Jacques Mortane, “Le Critérium international de boxe,” La Vie au grand air, 26 January 1907, 53; Jacques Mortane, “Le Critérium de boxe,” La Vie au grand air, 26 January 1907, 63; “Le Critérium de boxe,” La Vie au grand air, 2 February 1907, 82; Jacques Mortane, “Tournois de boxe à Paris,” La Vie au grand air, 19 October 1907, 275.

  16. Much of the literature on African American performers and artists in France still focuses on the interwar years. Brett Berliner, Ambivalent Desire: The Exotic Black Other in Jazz-Age France (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2002); William Shack, Harlem in Montmartre: A Paris Jazz Story between the Great Wars (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001); Tyler Stovall, Paris Noir: African Americans in the City of Light (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1996).

  17. Sieglinde Lemke, Primitivist Modernism: Black Culture and the Origins of Transatlantic Modernism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). Lemke describes primitivist modernism as a hybrid, multiracial, and transatlantic cultural formation.

  18. On the American method, see Marc Gaucher, “Les Méthodes anglais et américaines,” La Vie au grand air, 29 February 1908, 122-23; Mortane and Linville, La Boxe, 61-66. On the popularity of chewing gum, see “La Boxe gaie,” La Boxe et les boxeurs, 29 D
ecember 1909. On American fashion, see “Mac Nab, American Tailor, 131, rue Montmartre,” La Boxe et les boxeurs, 26 November 1913.

  19. Jody Blake, Le Tumulte noir: Modernist Art and Popular Entertainment in Jazz-Age Paris, 1900-1930 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999), 15, 37-38; Fabre, “The Ring and the Stage,” 526, 528.

  20. Jacques Mortane, “Athlétisme: un beau combat de boxe,” La Vie au grand air, 11 January 1908, 26.

  21. “Race Suicide in France,” Savannah Tribune, 16 January 1909; C. C. Pagés, “Dégénérons-nous?” La Culture physique, 15 March 1910; E. Desbonnet, “Un grand défaut nationale,” La Santé par les sports, 8 January 1913; Rene DuBois, “The French Nation Dying Out,” Physical Culture, December 1908.

  22. Sylvie Chalaye, Nègres en images (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2002), 110-11; Berliner, Ambivalent Desire, 9-10.

  23. Charles Mangin, La Force noire (Paris: Hachette, 1910), 355.

  24. Ibid., 343.

  25. Chalaye, Nègres en images, 99-101; Blake, Le Tumulte noir, 23-25. Also see Jean-Michel Bergougniou, 'Villages noirs' et autres visiteurs africains et malgaches en France et en Europe, 1870-1940 (Paris: Karthala, 2001); Dana S. Hale, Races on Display: French Representations of Colonized Peoples, 1886-1940 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008).

  26. Henri Dispan, “Au fil des rounds: au Cirque de Paris,” La Boxe et les boxeurs, 5 April 1911.

  27. Louis Chude-Sokei, The Last ‘Darky’: Bert Williams, Black-on-Black Minstrelsy, and the African Diaspora (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005), 124-25.

  28. Chalaye, Nègres en images, 103; Hale, Races on Display, 91-96; Berliner, Ambivalent Desire, 9-36.

  29. “Après le match—Sen-Sen chewing gum,” L'Auto, 28 March 1909.

  30. Blake, Le Tumulte noir, 11-36.

  31. Segonzac quoted in Meunier, Ring noir, 35-36.

  32. L. Manaud, “Un véritable championnat du monde,” L'Auto, 6 January 1909.

  33. “Comment s'entraînent Jeannette et Mac Vea,” L'Auto, 12 February 1909.

  34. See, for example, “Les deux terribles nègres s'entraînent avec ardeur,” L'Auto, 15 January 1909.

  35. L. Manaud, “Joe Jeannette au travail,” L'Auto, 9 January 1909. Also see Jacques Mortane, “Joe Jeannette à l'entraînement,” La Vie au grand air, 13 February 1909, 106-7.

  36. “Les deux terribles nègres s'entraînent avec ardeur.”

  37. G. Dubois, “Leurs mensurations,” L'Auto, 18 February 1909; “Silhouettes des combattants,” L'Auto, 20 February 1909.

  38. “Les grands combats de boxe,” L'Auto, 14 January 1909; “Joe Jeannette contre Sam Mac Vea: Joe Jeannette à Paris,” L'Auto, 8 January 1909; Mich, “Joe Jeannette ne trouve plus d'adversaires!” L'Auto, 29 January 1909; Mich, “Les grands champions,” L'Auto, 1 February 1909. Mich's caricature of Jeannette shows the black fighter squaring off against a bucking horse.

  39. Regarding his race, Jeannette wrote in a British sporting magazine, “Although I have been called a Canadian, I was born in Hoboken, N.J., of a white mother. I am the happy father of two children, also begot of white blood, so that we are none of us of the race known as ‘niggers.’” “That World's Title,” in Boxing New Year's Annual 1914 (London, 1914), 43. While one could argue that Jeannette expressed an alarming level of racial self-hatred, his marketing of himself as a “mulatto” fighter certainly played into the prevailing narratives of whiteness and civilization in Europe, where the one-drop rule was less applicable than in the United States.

  40. “Les deux terribles nègres s'entraînent avec ardeur.” (Another newspaper claimed that there were more than five thousand people in attendance. “L'Opinion de la presse,” L'Auto, 22 February 1909.) “Une grande soirée pugilistique,” L'Auto, 21 February 1909; “Le grand match de samedi prochain,” L'Auto, 17 February 1909; “Le Chiffre de la recette,” L'Auto, 22 February 1909; L'Auto, 16 January 1909.

  41. La Patrie quoted in “L'Opinion de la presse”; Georges Dupuy, “Le Tigre et le bison,” L'Auto, 21 February 1909; “A Coups de confetti,” L'Auto, 24 February 1909.

  42. La Vie illustrée quoted in “Après le grand match: que diton de la rencontre?” L'Auto, 23 February 1909.

  43. J. Joseph-Renaud, “Un cinématographe?…!” L'Auto, 24 February 1909; Tristan Bernard, “Après le grand match: Sam et Joe,” L'Auto, 22 February 1909.

  44. “Les Jaloux,” L'Auto, 3 March 1909.

  45. Marcel Prévost of Figaro quoted in “L'Opinion de la presse.”

  46. “La Revanche aura lieu!” L'Auto, 30 March 1909.

  47. Georges Dupuy, “Sam Mac Vea contre Joe Jeannette: après le grand match,” L'Auto, 19 April 1909; Meunier, Ring noir, 33-34.

  48. Segonzac quoted in Meunier, Ring noir, 35-36.

  49. “Après le grand match: Impressions d'un monsieur chauve,” L'Auto, 20 April 1909.

  50. Tristan Bernard, “Le plus beau combat,” L'Auto, 19 April 1909.

  51. “Joe Jeannette—Sam Mac Vea,” L'Auto, 8 December 1909.

  52. “Lettres du kangourou boxeur,” L'Auto, 14 December 1909.

  53. “Au Cirque de Paris—match nul,” La Boxe et les boxeurs, 15 December 1909.

  54. Le plein air, 7 April 1911.

  55. For descriptions of Grognet's school, see L. Manaud, “Le Rendezvous des combattants,” L'Auto, 30 September 1909; L. Manaud, “Maitres et champions: un grand établissement sportif à Paris,” L'Auto, 16 September 1909.

  56. La Boxe et les boxeurs, 22 December 1909; “A vous…touché !” La Boxe et les boxeurs, 15 December 1909.

  57. Leon Sée, “Casse = Cou! Il ne faut pas que les nègres continuent,” La Boxe et les Boxeurs, 1 June 1910.

  58. “Les Sports et la politique,” L'Auto, 1 March 1909.

  59. Billy Lewis, “The War Has Broken up the Fight Game in Europe,” Indianapolis Freeman, 12 September 1914.

  60. Billy Lewis, “Jack Johnson in Paris, Says He Will Stick,” Indianapolis Freeman, 19 July 1913.

  61. Fabre, “The Ring and the Stage,” 525.

  62. Chalaye, Nègres en images, 106.

  63. Henri Dispan, “Au fil des rounds,” La Boxe et les boxeurs, 17 December 1913.

  64. Gaston Mauvières, “La Gala de l'hippodrome,” Les Sports, 15 March 1909.

  65. Gaston Mauvières, “La Soirée de l'hippodrome,” Les Sports, 22 March 1909.

  66. Fabre, “The Ring and the Stage,” 522.

  67. Gus Muller, “Anecdote: souvenirs d'Amérique,” La Boxe et les boxeurs, 15 April 1914. Also see Charles Ledoux, “Impressions d'Amérique,” La Boxe et les boxeurs, 8 January 1913. This serial story recounted the French boxer's travels across the United States.

  68. Muller, “Anecdote: souvenirs d'Amérique.”

  69. Ibid.

  70. Les Nègres contre Peaux-Rouges (Paris: A. Eichler, 1913). This book was part of a French-language series of U.S. frontier stories.

  71. “Le Retour de Major Taylor,” La Vie au grand air, 27 April 1907, 279.

  72. F. H. Lucas, “A Few Quaint Anecdotes and Curious Remarks of Well Known Boxers,” Boxing, 13 June 1914.

  73. L. Manaud, “Le dernier grand match de boxe de la saison,” L'Auto, 26 June 1909.

  74. L. Manaud, “Jim Barry disqualifié,” L'Auto, 27 June 1909.

  75. “Au Wagram boxing club: Bob Scanlon contre Charlie Hitte,” Les Sports, 7 April 1910.

  76. Henri Dispan, “Au fil des rounds,” La Boxe et les boxeurs, 20 April 1910.

  77. F. H. Lucas, “Parisian News and Notes,” Boxing, 17 February 1912.

  78. Bob Scanlon, “The Record of a Negro Boxer,” in Negro: An Anthology, ed. Nancy Cunard (1934; New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing, 1970), 209.

  79. “From Pit Boy to Champion Boxer,” Boxing, 30 May 1914.

  80. F. H. Lucas, “The French Boxer of Today,” in Boxing New Year's Annual 1913 (London, 1913).

  81. Daniel Rivoire, “Georges Carpentier contre Joe Jeannette,” Le Journal, 21 March 1914. Also see L. Cams, “Un grand combat de box
e: Georges Carpentier contre Joe Jeannette,” L'Eclair, 21 March 1914.

  82. Joseph Galtier, “Propos de Paris,” Excelsior, 22 March 1914.

  83. “Le Match Carpentier—Joe Jeannette,” Excelsior, 20 March 1914.

  84. “Carpentier et Joe Jeannette seront sur le ring,” L'Auto, 16 March 1914.

  85. F. H. Lucas, “Carpentier Wins His Fight against Jeannette, but Loses the Verdict,” Boxing, 28 March 1914.

  86. “La Combat de l'année,” L'Auto, 8 March 1914; Fighter, “Le grand combat de Carpentier,” L'Auto, 17 March 1914; “Georges Carpentier contre Joe Jeannette,” L'Auto, 5 March 1914; “Attention aux faux billets,” L'Auto, 18 March 1914.

  87. “A Few Mems on the Carpentier-Jeannette Contest,” Boxing, 28 March 1914; “A vous…touché!” La Boxe et les boxeurs, 25 March 1914.

  88. “Lettres d'un habitué du ring,” L'Auto, 25 March 1914.

  89. “A Few Mems on the Carpentier-Jeannette Contest.”

  90. Lucas, “Carpentier Wins His Fight against Jeannette, but Loses the Verdict.” Also see Ch. A. Bernard, “Après le match: impressions d'un spectateur,” L'Intransigeant, 23 March 1914.

  91. Georges Dubujadoux, “Un grand soir,” La Boxe et les boxeurs, 25 March 1914.

  92. Daniel Rivoire, “Carpentier a battu aux points par Joe Jeannette,” Le Journal, 22 March 1914; “A Few Mems on the Carpentier-Jeannette Contest.”

  93. “A vous…touché!” 25 March 1914; Leon Sée, “Le Match Carpentier = Jeannette,” La Boxe et les boxeurs, 25 March 1914.

  94. Daniel Cousin, “Joe Jeannette bat Carpentier,” La Presse, 23 March 1914; “Apres le match Carpentier-Joe Jeanette,” L'Auto, 23 March 1914; “A Few Mems on the Carpentier-Jeannette Contest.”

  95. F. H. Lucas, “Parisian News and Notes,” Boxing, 25 April 1914

  96. Jacques Mortane, “Joe Jeannette a battu Carpentier,” La Vie au grand air, 28 March 1914.

  97. Billy Lewis, “Interest in Sport Increasing in France,” Indianapolis Freeman, 21 February 1914.

  98. “The Editor's Ideas,” Boxing, 4 July 1914.

  99. “The Editor's Ideas,” Boxing, 23 May 1914.

  100. “The Editor's Ideas,” Boxing, 27 June 1914; Georges Lefèvre, “L'Histoire d'un étudiant de Pittsburg,” L'Auto, 16 June 1914.