JACK JOHNSON
(John Arthur Johnson)
Johnson was the greatest boxer of his era and perhaps of all time. The not only beat the what champions in an era of Jim Crowe but he lived an ostentation life as a celebrity -- almost unheard of for a Black man at tht time. He never assumed any subervience which was expected of all Negroes at the time, He lived openly with a white woman and was jailed for a while. What is particualrly interesting about this quotation is that with all his accomplishments as the best boxer in the world, a man wh was very wealthy, that the thing he was most proud of was that he had maintained his manhood and did not cower as almost all blacks were forst to do. What he achieved ia what most Black men have striven for and still do.
John Arthur Johnson, nicknamed the "Galveston Giant", was an American boxer who, at the height of the Jim Crow era, became the first African American world heavyweight boxing champion (1908–1915). Widely regarded as one of the most influential boxers of all time, one of the period's most dominant champions, and as a boxing legend, his 1910 fight against James J. Jeffries was dubbed the "fight of the century". According to filmmaker Ken Burns, "for more than thirteen years, Jack Johnson was the most famous and the most notorious African-American on Earth". Transcending boxing, he became part of the culture and history of racism in the United States.
