Latest / The Twin History Podcast / Unforgivable Blackness: The Jack Johnson Story

Transcript

Unforgivable Blackness: The Jack Johnson Story · The Twin History Podcast

0:01
The Twin History Podcast brings together 2 Black Scotsman, 2
0:06
twins, 1 historian and one storyteller to explore the
0:10
moments that shaped our world. The show features Joe McCann,
0:15
the eldest twin and resident storyteller, the one always
0:20
asking why any of this shit actually matters, alongside
0:25
Johnny McCann, 13 minutes younger, and the historian.
0:29
Equipped with the dates, the fact and the receipt, Every week
0:34
they invite listeners to pull up a chair as they unpack some of
0:38
history's greatest tales, The ones you think you know, the
0:44
ones you've never heard, and the ones that hit different when
0:49
told by them. Enjoy.
1:26
Welcome to the Twin History podcast.
1:29
So today we're doing another special mini sword or mini
1:33
episodes and it's just myself, Johnny McCann today because my
1:38
twin Joseph has been detained for unspecified reasons.
1:43
I'm only can Joseph is busy today so I thought I'd go ahead
1:49
and record an episode on one of my favourite sporting idols of
1:53
all time, Jack Johnson, who was the first black heavyweight
1:57
boxing champion of the world. So I was going to empty chair
2:02
Joseph, like Clint Eastwood, empty chair Obama at the 2012
2:07
Republican convention. But I, I mean, we love Clint,
2:12
Clint, but I don't don't want to end up looking and saying so I
2:16
think I would just keep it as it is.
2:19
So Joseph will be back next time.
2:21
And for those who've been listening to us, obviously the
2:25
main dynamic of the show is between Joseph and myself.
2:28
The main interplay of the show was between Joseph and myself.
2:33
So this is a format deviation. So I hope you'll bear with me
2:40
and hopefully what I have to say will be enjoyable enough for
2:45
everyone. So as I said, Jack Johnson,
2:48
first black heavyweight champion of the world, nineteen O 8.
2:52
He beat Tommy Burns in Sydney, Australia on December 26th,
2:58
Boxing Day, which is apartment, isn't it for a boxer.
3:02
But I I first became aware of Jack Johnson maybe when I was in
3:10
my early 20s, and I was always awestruck by him because he
3:15
lived his life the way he wanted to live it.
3:18
At a time when black people were being lynched for merely looking
3:23
at a white woman, Johnson flaunted his romantic
3:29
engagement, shall we say, with white women.
3:32
So throughout our life, Joseph and I have been able to date
3:35
white women with impunity. And it may not be clear, but
3:39
both our wives are white. So remarkable at that time that
3:44
Johnson was married to white women.
3:49
He was him having affairs, numerous affairs with white
3:52
women. And as I mentioned at the top of
3:56
the show, you could have been killed for acting in such a way
4:00
at that time. It wasn't until 1967 where the
4:03
Supreme Court, they ruled that interracial marriage was not
4:09
illegal and that was lovin versus Virginia.
4:15
They had been married 10 years previously, about 10 years
4:20
previously. And they they when they got back
4:23
to Virginia, they were told by there was good old Virginian
4:27
boys that their marriage was illegal and they were both
4:30
arrested. So they went to the Supreme
4:32
Court and the Supreme Court ruled in their favour.
4:35
So, yeah, I mean, Virginia, you have to understand, was a huge
4:43
slave state and that's where Robert E Lee was from.
4:47
Robert E Lee, the the famous general of from the American
4:51
Civil War and a lot of people don't know about Lincoln,
4:54
actually asked him to lead the Union Army, but he said like,
4:58
no, I I go with my state and at that state was Virginia.
5:03
So you can understand why Virginia was so opposed to
5:08
interracial marriage. But it's just remarkable that
5:10
Johnson lived his life that way on I was on social media that
5:15
the right wing in both America and the UK, they seem incensed
5:20
at the moment by interracial relationships, interracial
5:25
marriage. And I always said to my wife, I
5:28
don't understand why people get so upset about things they can't
5:32
do anything about. I mean, is basically has nothing
5:35
to do with anyone else who marries whom or who marries or
5:42
dates whom. So you can't be getting upset
5:46
about these things because it basically has nothing to do with
5:49
you. And he doesn't bow down to
5:53
anyone in the ring or outside the ring.
5:57
So I would rank Jack, Jack Johnson, and we'll get into
6:02
this. We'll do a full episode on him
6:03
because his life is so fascinating.
6:06
But I would rank Jack Johnson as the greatest heavyweight
6:09
champion or greatest heavyweight boxer of all time.
6:13
So for me it would be Jack Johnson, then Muhammad Ali, then
6:17
Joe Lewis. So Johnson he basically
6:22
introduced before in the 1800s boxers, late 1800s.
6:28
I always, if you've ever seen like a cartoon where there's a
6:32
kangaroo and the way a kangaroo fights and cartoons, I don't
6:36
know. I don't think they fight like
6:38
this in real life because there's plenty of videos on
6:40
YouTube of kangaroo's faith in humans, which is they're always
6:44
quite terrifying looking creatures.
6:47
Like not how we see them depicted in cartoons.
6:50
But yeah, the the kangaroo stance, I would call it where
6:56
their gloves would be raised and they'd be like putting their
7:00
gloves over each other like in a spinning motion.
7:05
So Johnson for me, he introduced the hands down like boxing style
7:09
hands by the side that Ali, Sugar Ray Robinson, Floyd
7:15
Mayweather all basically imitated and their own boxing
7:20
careers. I, I have always loved boxing.
7:24
I've been boxing since 2006. It's actually using the punch
7:28
bag as my most enjoyable like workout routine.
7:32
I roadrun. I also lift weights and I played
7:36
football, amateur football until 2015 when I retired because I, I
7:41
was 33 at the time, could no longer keep up with the younger
7:45
guys. So even though I'm very
7:48
physically fit, I just, it's a different kind of fitness for
7:51
football. So yeah, I, I love to box and I
7:55
have images or videos on my Instagram of myself on the punch
8:00
bag. So maybe we'll put something on
8:04
on the twin history pod for our listeners to look at of me on
8:10
the punch bag. But then again, that'd be quite
8:12
narcissistic, so maybe we won't. But the main books I've used for
8:18
this Jack Johnson mini episodes for my research as Jeffrey C
8:24
Ward's Unforgivable Blackness. If I can say that the Rise and
8:29
Fall of Jack Johnson which is a great by cradle to grave
8:34
biography of Johnson Ring of Hate by Patrick Mailer which is
8:38
about the life of Joe Lewis, Life of Joe Lewis and Max
8:41
Smellin but Johnson features heavily Muhammad Ali The Life
8:47
and Times by Thomas Hauser which is a great like talking heads
8:51
style narrative in book form which for me is the best book
8:56
written on Ali and Ali participated in the writing.
8:59
It was almost like an autobiography but not.
9:03
And America, Empire of Liberty, where Johnson is mentioned
9:09
briefly in passing by David Reynolds, which for me is the
9:15
best single volume. History of America is one of the
9:21
best books I've ever read so I would highly recommend it.
9:25
And also, I wrote a short story on Jack Johnson or where John
9:31
Johnson featured in 2018 or so. So it's primarily set in Bolton
9:36
and England in early 1930s. And Johnson is like a like a
9:43
mythical figure who had fascinated and horrified Bob the
9:48
Seagull man and an amateur wrestler.
9:51
The story's called the Seagull. It's not about Bob the amateur
9:54
wrestler. It's about his lover who
9:57
narrates the story and Bob claimed that he had seen as he
10:04
as he described Johnson. And we'll get into the appalling
10:07
racial language of the time as the big American darky won the
10:11
title in Sydney, Australia against Tommy Burns in 2002.
10:16
Thousand and eight in 19 O 8. So Martin would go.
10:22
He would bore patrons of ale houses all around Lancashire
10:28
with his stories and his love interest speaks in a
10:31
dispassionate torn after witnessing Manning being killed
10:34
in the ring. She writes as Bob.
10:38
She says sorry as Bob Lee motionless on the canvas.
10:41
I surprised that he would no longer be regaling the pubs of
10:45
Lancashire with tales of Australia and a big American
10:48
darkie. So this is what the stories
10:53
about. Johnson, as I said, said, is
10:55
like a Rafe like figure in the story and Bob who was a
11:00
professional wrestler who's now going around Bolton or
11:06
Lancashire or just boarding the pants off everyone with his
11:10
stories and his racial tales of of Jack Johnson.
11:15
And in Australia when he won the title against Tommy Burns, this
11:19
was many years after Johnson had started fighting.
11:24
You have to remember that time white champions refused to fight
11:27
black boxers even when these boxers were more than capable of
11:33
fighting for the title. And Johnson, he again, we, we're
11:38
not doing a cradle to grave. We will do a more a deeper dive
11:43
into him on a later episode. So Johnson was born in
11:47
Galveston, TX 1878. So this is only eight years
11:54
after the Emancipation Act of 1870, which essentially freed of
11:59
the slaves and made African Americans or black Americans
12:05
full fully fledged American citizens and continental
12:11
America. So we have to remember that and
12:15
how Johnson lived his life. We'd astonish most people but
12:18
again we're not doing cradle to grape.
12:20
So as I said, Johnson won the title in 19 O eight against
12:25
Tommy Burns in Australia. Interestingly, the promoter of
12:29
the fight, Hugh McIntosh, he was he was also the referee because
12:34
no one Johnson didn't trust anyone else, the referee of the
12:38
fight. And he just thought, if I'm
12:41
going to get a fair shake from the referee, then it's clear
12:45
that the promoter of the fight doesn't want to be seen as being
12:49
dishonest. So he he'll give me like a fair
12:52
chance in the ring on apparently Johnson, who was being paid much
12:56
less than Tommy Burns. He was in the dressing room
13:00
before the fight and he he asked for more money from Hugh
13:04
McIntosh, who pulled a cotton on Johnson and told him that if he
13:09
didn't get into the ring, he'd be skinned alive.
13:12
So he didn't disappear. He was skinned alive.
13:16
But yeah, so Johnson wedding and there were 20,000 spectators at
13:22
that fight, a further 30,000 outside.
13:25
And this is the first time Johnson was filmed.
13:29
So if you go back and look at the the video I saw on YouTube
13:33
or look at the film, obviously it's almost like stop motion
13:37
because of the the cameras of the time.
13:39
But Johnson, he's beautiful. He's black, he's strong, he's
13:44
fast, he's the greatest heavyweight, whoever stepped
13:48
into the ring. And there were points where he
13:51
taunted his opponent. At one point he said to him, who
13:55
taught you to fight your mother? I mean, I don't know about your
13:59
guys, but I love the Rocky films.
14:01
And there's one point in Rocky 3 where Rocky says to Clubber
14:06
Lang, played by Mr. T like who like my mother hits harder than
14:10
that when during the the the climatic rounds of the the
14:15
fight. So I don't know if Stallone got
14:18
that from from the Johnson fight.
14:21
We know Stallone is like connoisseur of boxing history.
14:26
So we probably did. And Byrne said that Johnson also
14:30
made a comment about the champion's wife, Burns, his wife
14:33
in the seventh round. And he said if the crowd heard
14:36
that or if they'd been in America, that the *** as he
14:39
permit, would have been lynched. So the fight ended in the 14th
14:43
round by the local police. Burns was beaten to a pulp.
14:46
They didn't want the crowd didn't want to see him like
14:49
knocked out and so the police rushed into the the ring to stop
14:55
the fight and post fight the Sydney Sportsman, a paper of the
15:00
time, the writer wrote. Johnson was a gluten Coon who
15:04
only had the instincts of a *** So this is what we were dealing
15:08
with at the time. And Jack London, the famous
15:11
author who was at the fight, he described it as, I mean, I don't
15:15
know where he got this from. I mean, he was a great writer.
15:17
But an Armenian, Armenian massacre in which the giant
15:21
Ethiopian had toyed with barns as if he'd been a naughty child.
15:25
I mean, I don't know about Johnson's African heritage, but
15:30
I, I'm, I'm going to surmise he wasn't Ethiopian.
15:34
So from there, Johnson goes on to defend this title.
15:40
And it's in 1910 where we get to what people called the fight of
15:46
the century is when Jim Jeffries, who had been an
15:50
undefeated champion white champion, came out of retirement
15:54
to fight Johnson and Reno, NV on the 4th of July 1910.
16:01
So this was belled as the battle of the two races.
16:10
So you've got Jeffreys. Jeffreys won the title in his
16:13
13th fight against heavyweight champion Bob Fitzsimmons.
16:17
This would have been June 1899. So Jeffreys was known as being
16:21
powerful. He's he's faster than people
16:23
expect. He's durable.
16:26
Jim Corbett former champion who would work the ring for Jeffreys
16:33
and the Johnson fight he said like no one can ever hurt this
16:37
man not even if you have an axe. So Johnson had defeated
16:42
Jeffrey's younger sibling, younger brother Jack in 19 O2
16:48
again, Paul and language at the time reporter for the Los
16:53
Angeles time Los Angeles Times wrote that Jack was a fine
16:57
looking young man with a figure like a Greek God.
17:00
Johnson, by comparison, was a long, lean, bullet headed, flat
17:04
chested couldn't I mean absolutely despicable language
17:09
and Johnson, not the younger Jeffries out in the fifth round.
17:15
So Jeffries had retired himself as champion in May 19 O five.
17:20
He said there was no one left to fight again to evoke Rocky and
17:25
Rocky 4 after Apollo Creed is killed by Ivan Drago.
17:32
Rocky's asked at a press conference after he agrees to
17:35
fight Drago if a champion had ever given up his title because
17:38
the the very sorry the American Boxing Association would not
17:43
would not sanction the fight. And Rocky answers he doesn't
17:48
know about that. But the first heavyweight ever
17:50
to give up his title was Jeffrey's in 19th of May of 19 O
17:55
5. And although Johnson was an
17:58
actual successor to the crown, he didn't get a shot.
18:01
And there are other black great black heavyweights of the time
18:04
like Sam Langford, Giorgionetti and Sam McVey.
18:08
They all were overlooked. So Jeffrey's returns as a great
18:13
white hope. So the contract to fight is
18:17
signed in Albany, NY in October 19 O 9.
18:23
So they they agree on 45 rounds and 64 is split to the winner
18:28
and the fight is eventually scheduled for Reno, NV.
18:32
So I'll read something from Jeffrey C Ward's unforgivable
18:37
blackness. So carpenters were still banged
18:40
together paint boards when the five gates opened and some
18:43
20,000 people, including women began edging their way.
18:46
And past armed deputies. Posted by promoter Text Record
18:52
record had asked Jeffrey himself to action an appeal to fans to
18:56
remain calm. Whatever took place in the ring,
18:59
Jeffrey C Ward so they were as Ward shows on his superb book,
19:07
there were genuine fears that have drawn someone, someone from
19:10
the crowd would try to to hurt him, shoot him, maim him, kill
19:14
him, whatever. So Jeffrey is in all fairness to
19:18
him, that assure that decree and ask the crowd not to harm
19:23
Johnson before the fight. So you have to, you have to
19:27
understand at that time, racism is, is basically impugned in
19:36
societies and the fabric of society.
19:39
So everyone, most white people even after emancipation are
19:46
going to have the word racial fears.
19:48
So Jeffries was undoubtedly racist.
19:51
So he he said before the fight, because they've been retired for
19:55
so long, there's no way I can beat this *** So those of us who
19:59
follow boxing. Being out of the ring for so
20:03
long obviously has its effects. And the The thing is now with
20:07
the advances in medical and sports science, people can fight
20:12
longer than they used to. Like Muhammad Ali, when he beat,
20:18
when he beat George Foreman and Zaire in 1974, he was seen as
20:22
being an old man. He was 33, he was 33.
20:25
So we've got all these like heavyweights fighting today who
20:30
are like in their late to early 40s.
20:34
And it's because condition is better.
20:36
And also people just were living longer.
20:40
So myself as a 43 year old, I'm still able to run 20 miles a
20:47
week. I'm still able to lift three or
20:50
three to five times a week. So we're just in better physical
20:53
condition than we ever were. So.
20:57
But as I said, Jeffries comes out of retirement after five
21:01
years. He was 300 lbs when when he was
21:06
retired. So he got down to like 227,
21:11
which is a huge weight loss. So he he was obviously training
21:15
very hard and Johnson was like 208 lbs.
21:19
So during the first round, Jeffrey's, he tried to use a
21:23
superior weight to SAP Johnson's energy.
21:25
He would lean on him again. If you go back to Muhammad Ali,
21:31
a lot of critics of Ali said that he would do that in his
21:35
fights where he would, like, lean his heads on his opponent's
21:39
shoulders. And it does.
21:42
If you've ever boxed it. I mean, it's just like having a
21:46
weight on your body. So it's obviously harder to
21:49
move. It's going to, like, SAP your
21:52
energy. So that this was a tactic that
21:55
Jeffrey's use in the first round against Johnson, but and even by
22:01
round four, he'd caught Johnson's mouth.
22:03
Johnson had suffered a cotton training and his mouth and and
22:07
sparring and Jeffrey's opened it.
22:10
But Johnson by the fifth round was in charge.
22:17
So Jeffrey's 58 rounds badly caught in mango.
22:22
Jim Corbett, who I mentioned earlier, who was work in
22:25
Jeffrey's corner, he knew the fight was over by the 8th.
22:29
So some of the spectators began to cheer for Johnson's undoubted
22:33
ring mastery by the 12th round. So that was unexpected and
22:38
Johnson was surprised by it, as most people in the arena would
22:42
have been. But the the thing with boxing is
22:46
for me, these guys are the bravest, bravest athletes on
22:51
earth. When you go into that ring, you
22:53
know that you can be killed or maimed.
22:57
So by going in there, you're showing your bravery and courage
23:01
already. So I think the crowd recognised
23:04
that and Johnson and obviously out of the 20,000 spectators,
23:09
the majority are there to see this bag again, American Darky
23:15
get beaten to a pulp. So the fact that he was moving
23:20
gracefully and punishing this guy who they've never seen take
23:25
so much punishment was obviously going to bring out this reaction
23:32
and those who naturally love the sport.
23:35
So again, give them credit for that.
23:38
So by the 15th round, Jeffrey's nose is on the opposite side of
23:44
his face, there's lacerations all over his body and his eyes
23:48
are all but slits in his head. The thing is, even again, me who
23:52
loves boxing, you never like to see anyone in that state.
23:57
You don't want to see people hurt.
23:58
Even if he is like an old racist, but you still need to
24:04
respect a man for coming out of retirement.
24:07
Even if he probably just did it for money and he probably knew
24:11
deep down he couldn't win, he still stepped into to the in
24:15
between those ropes. So by the 15th, Johnson then
24:20
proceeded to knock Jeffrey's down for the first time in
24:22
Jeffrey's career. Jeffries was then illegally
24:25
helped his feet by his corner after another heavy knockdown.
24:28
I don't know if you guys, I mean, maybe some people of a
24:32
summer age to draw. And I when Nigel Benn fought for
24:38
Gerald Mcclennan McLennan, I think it was 1995 in London,
24:43
McLennan was seen as the best heavyweight on the planet at the
24:48
time, Best heavyweight, best middle weight on the planet at
24:51
the time. So he came to London to fight
24:53
Nigel Benn. And in the first round, Benn got
24:56
knocked out of the ring. He got knocked like clean out of
25:00
the ring. And the rules are in boxing
25:02
there's if you get knocked out the ring, you have 20 seconds to
25:05
get back in the ring. But obviously if you get knocked
25:08
down in the ring, it's 10 seconds to get back up.
25:11
So Jeff, Jeff, because Ben was like, if you look at the
25:17
footage, he's kind of helped his feet by someone in the audience.
25:20
So as soon as he got touched, the fight should have been that
25:25
should have been a McLennan should have won and on a
25:28
technicality. But Ben got back in and
25:32
obviously he stopped McLennan because McLennan had a brain
25:37
haemorrhage during the fight. And you see McLennan now and
25:42
it's absolutely horrific to see when you go back and watch him
25:46
as a boxer before they Ben fight this like specimen of an
25:51
athlete. And you see him now because of
25:53
that brain injury and and he's like, basically he needs 24 hour
25:58
care. But it came out later.
26:01
And as an animal lover, my wife and I will attest to this.
26:05
I mean, I had a beautiful wee Jack Russell for 16 1/2 years.
26:10
I love animals. I never like to see animals hurt
26:13
in any way. But it came out later that
26:15
McLennan used to host dog fights where he would fight his own
26:21
dog, pit bull against other dogs.
26:23
And there was a absolutely horrible story where McLennan,
26:28
apparently, and this came from his trainer, McLennan went to a
26:32
vet's. He, like, bought a Labrador
26:36
puppy and he took it home, put it in the basement, wired up its
26:41
mouth and allowed this pit bill to, like, RIP this Labrador to
26:46
pieces, which was one of the most awful things I've ever
26:49
heard. So after I heard that, I maybe
26:51
had less sympathy for this man because maybe if what happened
26:55
to him hadn't happened, he would have continued to hurt animals.
26:59
But obviously, again, you still have enormous sympathy for the
27:02
condition he's in. But for those who hurt animals,
27:06
and I may be, I'm less sympathetic anyway.
27:11
So Jeffries was illegally helped his feet by his corner after
27:15
another heavy knockdown. As I mentioned by then matters
27:19
as Johnson then knocked Jeffries down for the final time and the
27:22
former champions corner man came into the ring to stop Jim from
27:26
being counted out. So essentially Johnson had done
27:32
them possible this black man who's seen as being inferior in
27:37
every way to this former white champion and proven that the
27:44
white race was not superior. And sadly, those were the terms
27:49
the fight were like where promote was promoted.
27:53
And this is how people saw the fight and such terms, black and
27:57
white terms instead of just like a black man against instead of
28:03
just a fighter against another fighter.
28:04
So the the problem with that is after the fight there was, there
28:12
were like many riots all over the US and again, like around
28:19
about 26 people were killed, hundreds injured.
28:26
It was like a horrific reaction to a fight.
28:31
I mean, if you can imagine recently the heavyweight fight
28:35
between Jake Paul and Anthony Joshua, I mean, I shouldn't call
28:39
it a fight. I mean, Jake Paul for me is a
28:41
complete fraud and he should never have got involved in
28:45
boxing and he's hurt the sport in my opinion, even if he's
28:48
brought in millions of dollars. It's like you, you just pluck
28:52
someone out of an error, a YouTube to go into the ring.
28:55
And I, I hope that Anthony Joshua again, Jake Paul wasn't
29:01
like there was no inreparable damage, so he wasn't really
29:04
hurt. So I'm hoping he never fights
29:06
again. But anyway, if you can imagine
29:09
if there were riots after that because of the colour of the
29:13
fighter's skin. So this was a different time in
29:21
America, a different time in the world.
29:23
So at least we've evolved and I'll finish this many episodes
29:29
and thank the listeners for again coming along on this
29:35
journey with us on the Twin History Podcast.
29:37
And I'll finish with a quote from Jeffrey Salmons, who was a
29:41
a boxing historian, and this is what he said about Jack Johnson.
29:49
As for Jack Johnson, clearly his effect on Black Americans was
29:52
enormous. Johnson, more than anyone else,
29:55
shattered the myth of white physical superiority.
29:58
I see Johnson as a forerunner of the new Black who emerged during
30:02
the period around the First World War, more assertive, less
30:06
subservient and more willing to defend themselves.
30:21
The Twin History Podcast is a Lost Cosmonauts production
30:24
produced by me Virag, Esther Toute.
30:28
Additional producers are Dale McGoldrick, Johnny McCann and
30:32
Joe McCann. Written by Johnny McCann and Joe
30:36
McCann, original music and score by Kevin McLeod.
30:41
The podcast is available wherever you get your podcast.
30:45
You can find us on Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and TikTok
30:49
under the handle The Twin History Pod.
30:53
You can e-mail us at The Twin historypodcast@gmail.com.
30:59
Thanks for listening. The.