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Jack Johnson

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Jack Arthur Johnson (March 31, 1878 – June 10, 1946), nicknamed the "Galveston Giant," was an American boxer who, at the height of the Jim Crow era, became the first black world heavyweight boxing champion (1908–1915). He is widely regarded as one of the most influential boxers in history, and 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.

In 1912, Johnson opened a successful and luxurious "black and tan" (desegregated) restaurant and nightclub, which in part was run by his wife, a white woman. Major newspapers of the time soon claimed that Johnson was attacked by the government only after he became famous as a black man married to a white woman and was linked to other white women. Johnson was arrested on charges of violating the Mann Act—forbidding one to transport a woman across state lines for "immoral purposes"—a racially motivated charge that embroiled him in controversy for his relationships, including marriages, with white women.

Sentenced to a year in prison, Johnson fled the country and fought boxing matches abroad for seven years until 1920, when he served his sentence at the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth. Johnson continued taking paying fights for many years and operated several other businesses, including lucrative endorsement deals. He died in a car crash in 1946 at the age of 68. He is buried at Graceland Cemetery in Chicago. In 2018 Johnson was formally pardoned by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Johnson was born on March 31, 1878, the third child of nine born to Henry and Tina Johnson, former slaves who worked service jobs as a janitor and a dishwasher. His father had served as a civilian teamster of the Union's 38th Colored Infantry. He was described by his son as the "most perfect physical specimen that he had ever seen," although Henry had been left with an atrophied right leg from his service in the war.

Growing up in Galveston, Texas, Johnson attended five years of school. As a young man, Johnson was frail, though, like all of his siblings, he was expected to work. Although Johnson grew up in the South, he said that segregation was not an issue in the somewhat secluded city of Galveston, as everyone living in the 12th Ward was poor and went through the same struggles. Johnson remembers growing up with a "gang" of white boys, in which he never felt victimized or excluded. Remembering his childhood, Johnson said: "As I grew up, the white boys were my friends and my pals. I ate with them, played with them, and slept at their homes. Their mothers gave me cookies, and I ate at their tables. No one ever taught me that white men were superior to me."

After Johnson quit school, he began a job working at the local docks. He made several other attempts at working other jobs around town until, one day, he made his way to Dallas, finding work at the race track exercising horses. Jack stuck with this job until he found a new apprenticeship with a carriage painter by the name of Walter Lewis. Lewis enjoyed watching friends spar, and Johnson began to learn how to box. Johnson later declared that it was thanks to Lewis that he became a boxer.

At 16, Johnson moved to New York City and found living arrangements with Barbado's Joe Walcott, a welterweight fighter from the West Indies. Johnson again found work exercising horses for the local stable until he was fired for exhausting a horse. On his return to Galveston, he was hired as a janitor at a gym owned by German-born heavyweight fighter Herman Bernau. Johnson eventually put away enough money to buy boxing gloves, sparring every chance he got.

At one point, Johnson was arrested for brawling with a man named Davie Pearson, a "grown and toughened" man who accused Johnson of turning him in to the police over a game of craps. When both of them were released from jail, they met at the docks, and Johnson beat Pearson before a large crowd. Johnson then fought in a summer boxing league against a man named John "Must Have It" Lee. Because prizefighting was illegal in Texas, the fight was broken up and moved to the beach, where Johnson won his first fight and a prize of one dollar and fifty cents.

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