59. Jack Johnson Fight And Riots

For stirring up controversy, there’s nothing like implying that African Americans are only a spit watermelon seed’s distance from the jungle. But nothing quite approaches the fury that gripped America in 1910, when boxer Jack Johnson became the first undisputed black heavyweight champion of the world.

In those unenlightened times, a desegregated fight was unheard of. But after years of dodging Johnson’s challenges, honky champ James J. Jeffries came out of retirement, “for the sole purpose of proving that a white man is better than a Negro.”

When the pair squared off in Reno, the crowd chanted “Kill the nigger” and the ringside band played “All Coons Look Alike to Me.” And then Jeffries threw in the towel in the 15th round. When the news broke, riots and lynchings around the U.S. claimed the lives of at least twenty blacks and two whites.

Johnson was hounded out of the country for marrying a white woman in 1911, lost his title in Cuba in 1915, and spent the remainder of his life as the kind of fallen spectacle we now call “Mike Tyson.” Racism, as ever, remains the hardest palooka to keep down.

Watch Jack Johnson fight in 1909:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp20AKdyyXg

-Charles Bottomley