Above all—and as always—I want to thank my wife, Diane, without whom I could never have written this or done much else over the past twenty-four years. “We have faith in and love for each other,” Jack Johnson wrote about himself and the woman he married in 1924, “and we look to the future with keen anticipation of the happiness it holds.” Given Johnson’s track record, it’s impossible to tell if he really meant it. I do.
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NOTES
NOTE: So far as possible this book is built from contemporaneous sources, and as often as possible, Jack Johnson is allowed to speak for himself. No modern biographer is quoted anywhere in its pages, but two pioneering studies were nonetheless essential to telling Johnson’s story: Al-Tony Gilmore’s Bad Nigger! remains an indispensable survey of black and white newspaper reaction to Johnson’s rise and fall; and Randy Roberts’ biography, Papa Jack, the first serious scholarly look at Johnson’s life, was an invaluable resource all along the way. I owe a special debt to both of them.
CHAPTER ONE: THE PURE-BLOODED AMERICAN
Halley’s comet: The May 18, 1910, events inspired by the comet come from newspaper clippings cited in Etter and Schneider, Halley’s Comet.
“But there ain’t gonna be”: Quoted in Rickard, Everything Happened to Him, pp. 234–35.
“When a white man writes his memoirs”: Jack Johnson, Ma Vie et Mes Combats.
“Those devilish brooms”: Jack Johnson, Ma Vie et Mes Combats.
“Jack was readin’”: Galveston Daily News, January 3, 1909.
“keep your mother’s image before you”: Milwaukee Evening Wisconsin, March 11, 1910. “grew up with the thought”: Jack Johnson, “Mason-Dixon Line.” No specific date or newspaper name is found in the clipping of this article in the Alexander Gumby Collection, Folder 50, Special Collections Division, Columbia University—hereafter called Gumby Collection.
“You had all walks of life”: Galveston native Bill Millican, quoted in Beasley, Alleys and Back Buildings of Galveston, p. 12.
“From the time I was old enough”: Jack Johnson, “Mason-Dixon Line.”
“It was in that year”: Unpublished manuscript memoir found in the Jack Johnson File; Inmate Case Files; United States Penitentiary-Leavenworth; Records of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Record Group 129; National Archives and Record Administration–Central Plains Region (Kansas City)—hereafter called Prison Memoir.
“as luck would have it”: Prison Memoir.
“I didn’t have a nickel”: Chicago Tribune, July 5, 1910.
“I got there just as fast”: Ibid.
“I went to Boston”: Ibid.
“Sonny, [boxing’s] a great game”: New York Evening Graphic, April 5, 1929.
“He could predict every blow”: Farr, Black Champion, p. 8.
“grown and toughened”: Prison Memoir.
“people went around asking”: Ibid.
“It was arranged for us to fight”: Ibid.
“Why, Jack’s going to fight”: Galveston Daily News, January 3, 1909.
“we were stripped ready for battle”: Prison Memoir.
“nothin’ at all for me to drop”: Galveston Daily News, January 3, 1909.
“it was the hardest earned money”: Prison Memoir.
“We are in the midst of a growing menace”: New York Sun, December 15, 1895.
John L. Sullivan: My portrait of Sullivan draws heavily on Michael T. Isenberg’s John L. Sullivan and His America, which I reviewed altogether too critically when it first appeared in 1988. (Had I known then how hard it is to separate fact from fiction in boxing history, I’d have been more admiring.)
“all … fighters”: Ibid., p. 301.
“the clapper of some great bell”: Ibid., p. 242.
“Mr. Sullivan was quite as good”: Ibid., p. 289.
“I done him up”: Ibid., p. 33.
“I go in to win”: Ibid., p.219.
“the most phenomenal production”: Ibid.
“Sullivan is as fierce”: Gorn, Manly Art, p. 207.
“I have never felt a man’s blow”: Isenberg, John L. Sullivan, p. 219.
“I thought a telegraph pole”: Gorn, Manly Art, p. 109.
“never been angry”: Isenberg, John L. Sullivan, p. 185.
“a son-of-a-bitch”: Ibid., p.227.
“full but never drunk”: Ibid., p.186.
“Peter is doing a great deal”: James Weldon Johnson, Along This Way, p. 208.
“humiliation of being defeated”: David K. Wiggins, “Peter Jackson.”
“It was a mistake”: New Orleans Daily Picayune, September 8, 1892.
“Gentlemen … All I have to say”: Isenberg, John L. Sullivan, p. 318.
“the most beautiful boxer”: Stockton (CA) Independent, May 6, 1936.
“had no objection to fighting Peter Jackson”: David K. Wiggins, “Peter Jackson.”
“He was ‘Black Prince Peter’”: Langley, Life of Peter Jackson, p. 78.
“all the big fellows”: Prison Memoir.
“I was nothing but a poor Negro”: Jack Johnson, “Mes Débuts dans le noble art.”
“For the love of God”: Ibid.
“There have been countless women”: Jack Johnson, In the Ring and Out, p. 70.
“My fortune in those days”: Ibid., p. 71.
“There was nothing more for me to do”: Prison Memoir.
“I waited until dark”: Ibid.
“All the managers”: Ibid.
“Two very clever”: Curley, Memoirs.
“an enlightened form”: Heinz, What a Time It Was, p.212.
“In those days most all Battle Royals”: Prison Memoir.
“like he was praying”: Ibid.
“the glamour of the streets”: Curley, Memoirs, May 1930.
“Did you see that battle royal”: Ibid., July 1930.
“the big coon”: Ibid.
“thimbleful of victuals”: Siler, Inside Facts, on Pugilism, pp. 112–14.
“Hogan bellowed, ‘One!’”: Curley, Memoirs, July 1930.
“Frank … disliked me”: Jack Johnson, “Mes Débuts dans le noble art.”
“it seemed to me”: Ibid.
“Oh, what a pleasant week”: Ibid.
“brimming full of dollars”: Ibid.
New Haven: Johnson’s time here is described in a clipping from the Milwaukee Free Press, July 27, 1910.
“I was digging”: Jack Johnson, Ma Vie et Mes Combats.
“In those days there were very few carriages”: Prison Memoir.
“the managers, trainers and fighters”: Prison Memoir.
CHAPTER TWO: THE GOOD MAN
“one of the few residents”: Jack Johnson, In the Ring and Out, pp. 240–41.
“saved many lives”: Ibid.
“I am my own manager”: Chicago Tribune, June 25, 1910.
“had progressed rapidly”: Curley, Memoirs, July 1930.
“Oh, say, what a lacing”: Prison Memoir.
“No, I don’t want any more”: Cleveland Advocate, March 1, 1919.
“no white boxer should meet a negro”: Milwaukee Evening Wisconsin, February 1, 1901. “We’ve got a big, fresh Negro”: Curley, Memoirs, July 1930.
Joe Choynski: My sketch of him draws on contemporaneous newspaper accounts, as well as his own “I Fought ’Em All” and Kramer and Stern, “San Francisco’s Fighting Jew.”
“Little Joe was the hardest hitter”: Ibid.
“He lives right out here”: Curley, Memoirs, July 1930.
“I had whipped a big fellow”: Fleischer, Fighting Furies, pp. 26–27. “two colored boys”: Galveston Daily News, February 26, 1901.
“we both did a lot of dancing”: Fleischer, Fighting Furies, p.27.
“I never asked anyone”: Prison Memoir.
“a pugilistic encounter”: Galveston Daily News, February 27, 1901.
“Joe went to his hotel”: Prison Memoir.
“A lot of us”: “Old sports reporter,” quot
ed in undated clipping from Police Gazette, archives of the Antiquities of the Prize Ring.
“A man who can move like you”: Prison Memoir.
“very tame draw”: Rocky Mountain News, April 27, 1901.
Colorado summer: Randy Roberts suggests in Papa Jack that the events Johnson describes as having taken place in the Rockies in the summer of 1900 are imaginary, since he could find no independent evidence of them. But there is ample evidence that they happened the following summer. Events were important to Jack Johnson only in that they affected him; when they occurred and in whose company never mattered to him much.
“Sharkey could not hit me”: Prison Memoir.
“a dispute of minor origin”: Jack Johnson, In the Ring and Out, p. 72.
“it appeared as if his stomach”: Los Angeles Times (hereafter LAT), November 22, 1903.
“imperious manner”: Ibid.
Frank Carillo: My description is drawn largely from Stump, “Rowdy Reign.”
“The wisest among my race”: Harlan, The Making of a Black Leader, 1856–1901, p.219.
“Today, two classes of Negroes”: Reverdy Cassius Ransom, quoted in Lewis, W. E. B. Du Bois, p. 329.
“White people often point”: Jack Johnson, In the Ring and Out, p. 329.
“The fight was one of the cleanest”: Bakersfield Daily Californian, November 5, 1901. “Oh mister officer”: New York Journal, July 4, 1910. This same story is told with some-what different details in the Philadelphia Tribune, December 6, 1913, and in Hietala, Fight of the Century, p. 129.
“Akron” and “Cleveland”: Nicholson, A Man Among Men, pp. 35–36.
“I could lick that fellow myself”: Philadelphia Tribune, December 6, 1913.
“The first time he really hit me”: Nicholson, A Man Among Men, p. 44.
“Nobody can ever hurt him”: Ibid., p.143.
“as silent as General Grant”: Inglis, Champions Off Guard, p. 211.
“No mortal ever born”: Nicholson, A Man Among Men, p.110.
“Jeff! Why, Jeff’s the fellow”: Inglis, Champions Off Guard, p. 206.
“I never will fight a negro”: LAT, November 19, 1904.
“Johnson, at that time”: Preface to Jack Johnson, In the Ring and Out, p.13.
“That was the first time”: Johnson, “Mes Premier Combats.”
“nigger club”: LAT, May 16, 1903.
“The great crowd”: Ibid., May 17, 1902.
“For four rounds”: Knockout Weekly, April 12, 1929.
“I can lick you, too”: New York Times, July 5, 1910.
PINK FURIES: LAT, April 17, 1902.
“invisible something”: Jack Johnson, In the Ring and Out, p.72.
“Mary was a splendid woman”: Ibid.
“a big, gobby coon”: LAT, October 20, 1902.
“Johnson was punching him”: Ibid.
“Candor compels me”: Curley, Memoirs, September 1930.
“I still hate to think”: Ibid.
Frank Carillo and the revolver: The Los Angeles Times for January 2, 1903, tells this story. “tugged and hauled”: Curley, Memoirs, September 1930.
“to turn his opponent”: Stanley Crouch interview, Ken Burns’ film Unforgivable Blackness.
“A lot of fellows”: Prison Memoir.
“I was always attacking”: quoted in Farr, “Black Hamlet of the Heavyweights.”
“Johnson was a fellow”: Gunboat Smith, quoted in Heller, In This Corner, p. 44.
“Johnson makes you do all the work”: Sam McVey, quoted in unsourced newspaper clipping dated April 2, 1915, Jim Johnston Collection.
“It was his easy-going manner”: Preface to Jack Johnson, In the Ring and Out, p.13. “while they were fighting”: LAT, December 5, 1902.
“It is said that Jack”: Quoted in Randy Roberts, Papa Jack, p. 28.
“the magnificent footwork”: San Francisco Examiner, February 4, 1903.
CHAPTER THREE: THE SPORT
“a good showman”: “Sports Mirror: The Heavyweight Parade from John L. Sullivan to Louis of the Present,” undated clipping from the San Francisco Chronicle, Jim Johnston Collection.
“towering figure clad”: LAT, February 11, 1903.
“Well, I’ve got”: Ibid.
“tasty” “ready for occupancy”: LAT, October 6, 1903.
“diamond rings with matching stickpins”: Bricktop and Haskins, Bricktop, p.29.
“very mosey walk”: Lomax, Mister Jelly Roll, p. 19.
“There ain’t much money”: LAT, February 11, 1903.
“you never know what that nigger”: LAT, February 15, 1903.
“short and merry mix-up”: Police Gazette, March 1903.
“the worst-acting gang”: LAT, June 10, 1903.
“speckled” bouts: LAT, June 12, 1903.
“Both were colored girls”: Jack Johnson, In the Ring and Out, p. 72.
“A great attachment grew”: Ibid.
the rabbit story: The story of Johnson, Walcott, and the unfortunate rabbit is from the LAT, July 16, 1903.
“That Ferguson stayed the six rounds”: Philadelphia Inquirer, August 1, 1903.
TEXAS WATERMELON PICKANINNY: LAT, October 4, 1903.
“the dance was never given”: LAT, October 27, 1903.
“Sam McVey was hammered”: LAT, October 28, 1903.
“Johnson … has to fight wherever”: LAT, October 30, 1903.
“Aren’t you having a pretty good thing”: LAT, October 30, 1903.
“The color line gag”: Ibid.
“I waive the color line myself”: Quoted in Randy Roberts, Papa Jack, p.32.
“Johnson improved to some extent”: San Francisco Examiner, April 23, 1904.
“Kill that nigger!”: Al Stump described the near riot and Johnson’s flight from the arena in “The Rowdy Reign of the Black Avenger.” He places it in 1905. I have moved it back to where logic suggests it happened.
“By beating Sam McVey again”: Police Gazette, April 19, 1904.
“piebald match”: Milwaukee Free Press, April 10, 1904.
“too much on the brotherly love order”: Chicago Tribune, June 1, 1904. “the big black boy”: Ibid.
“I want Mr. Jeffries next”: Unsourced clipping, archives of the Antiquities of the Prize Ring.
“fast as an electric spark”: Police Gazette, July 1904.
“I ain’t a cellar fighter”: Jeffries, My Life and Battles, p. 123.
“Jack … boxed with me”: James Weldon Johnson, Along This Way, p. 208.
“I am a Southerner”: Undated Police Gazette clipping, archives of the Antiquities of the Prize Ring. “I tell you right here”: San Francisco Chronicle, March 28, 1905.
“I have notified Johnson”: San Francisco Chronicle, March 29, 1905.
“Please hit him!”: San Francisco Examiner, March 29, 1905.
“Though [Hart’s] face”: San Francisco Chronicle, March 29, 1905.
“the opinion of all fair-minded witnesses”: Police Gazette, July 3, 1905.
“After fighting until I reached the top”: Milwaukee Evening Wisconsin, May 9, 1905.
“That coon has enough yellow”: Ibid.
“I’ve got all the money I want”: Inglis, Champions Off Guard, pp. 229–30.
“I will never go back”: Nicholson, A Man Among Men, p.119.
“Hart may win”: Milwaukee Free Press, July 3, 1905.
“any man in the world”: Ibid., October 14, 1905.
“What right has Hart”: Police Gazette, August 1905.
“It was a wonderful fight”: Ibid.
“He ain’t human”: Ibid.
“I hailed him”: Jack Johnson, In the Ring and Out, pp. 72–75.
“Unknown to me”: Ibid.
“I’d have liked to show you”: Baltimore Sun, December 2, 1905.
“Our money was low”: Jack Johnson, In the Ring and Out, pp. 72–75.
“Of this dollar”: Ibid.
pickup fight in Topeka: Johnson’s brief but disinterested appearance is detailed
in the Topeka Daily Capital, January 27, 1906.
“his championship stock”: Chicago Tribune, December 12, 1905.
visit to Jeffries’ farm: Curley, Memoirs, February 1932.
“Why Mr. Hart”: Burns, “Tommy Burns.”
“a hugger and a wrestler”: Milwaukee Free Press, March 4, 1906.
“I will defend my title”: Quoted in Rutter, White Hopes, p. 49.
“give the white boys a chance”: Broome, “Australian Reaction to Jack Johnson,” p. 346.
“I gave Langford”: Prison Memoir.
“Woodman’s startling fiction”: Fleischer, Fighting Furies, pp. 55–56.
“why Jeffries had taken so much trouble”: Police Gazette, October 1906.
“the yellowest pack”: Police Gazette, November 1906.
“easily beat any fighter”: McLean, “Next Heavyweight Champion.”
“Po’ Artemis Johnsing”: Milwaukee Free Press, January 6, 1907.
CHAPTER FOUR: THE MAN THEY ALL DODGE
“Johnson is a big coon”: Sydney Truth, January 30, 1907.
“it wasn’t an Australian’s”: The Referee, January 30, 1907.
“Jeffries has stated”: Australian Star, January 28, 1907.
Sir Joseph Banks Hotel: My description is based on Jervis and Flack, Jubilee History of Botany, pp. 87–96, 301–3.
“Now, Jack, I think you’ve done enough”: The Referee, February 6, 1907.
“Jack’s ‘enough’” Ibid.
“He’s a beautiful man”: The Referee, March 18, 1908.
“Felix suddenly found himself”: Sydney Bulletin, February 28, 1907.
“Johnson, laughing”: Newcastle Herald and Miner’s Advocate, February 20, 1907.
“staggered to his feet”: Sydney Bulletin, February 28, 1907.
GRAND INTERNATIONAL BATTLE: Melbourne Argus, March 2, 1907.
“chintz or cretonne”: Australian Star, March 6, 1907.
“We don’t want to see Mrs. Johnson!”: Ibid.
“They’re all squabbling”: Ibid.
“This is a joke”: Ibid.
“He began to decide”: McLean, “Next Heavyweight Champion.”
“How much more is coming to you?”: Ibid.
“big black bastard”: Australian Star, March 19, 1907.
“MR. LEVIEN: Your Worship”: Ibid.
Unforgivable Blackness Page 61