![]() it was his misfortune to be the foremost example of the evil in permitting the intermarriage of whites and blacks," one of the prosecutors later said. Johnson was perhaps persecuted as an individual, but. When a bail bondsman showed up, Landis jailed him, too, according to an account that filmmaker Ken Burns relays in his documentary "Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson."Īn all-white jury convicted Johnson in less than two hours. Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, later to become the first commissioner of Major League Baseball, set Johnson's bail at $30,000, the equivalent of more than $660,000 today. Justice Department lawyers argued it was a "crime against nature" for him to have a sexual relationship with a white woman. That case fell apart, but investigators soon after charged him with a similar offense involving a woman he had dated years earlier. Johnson was first arrested for breaking the Mann Act in 1912, four years after winning the heavyweight crown. It provides, they agree, a unique window into American politics and culture at a time when Jim Crow-style racism reigned supreme. He served 10 months in prison on charges "brought forward clearly to keep him away from the boxing ring, where he continued to defeat his white opponents," McCain and King said.Īlmost a century after Johnson's conviction, his compelling saga has continued to capture the interest of sports writers, civil rights activists and historians. Johnson, the first African-American to win the heavyweight title, was convicted for violating the Mann Act, which outlawed the transportation of women across state lines for "immoral" purposes. ![]() "It is our hope that you will be eager to agree to right this wrong and erase an act of racism that sent an American citizen to prison," they wrote Friday in a letter to Obama. Peter King, R-New York, two of Congress' top boxing enthusiasts. The push for a rare posthumous pardon has been spearheaded for years by Sen. The House of Representatives on July 29 unanimously passed a resolution urging Obama to grant a pardon the Senate passed a similar measure by a voice vote on June 24. ![]()
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