Jack Johnson vs. Barack Obama–It’s a Draw

 

There are two aspects of my life that I can say, with unequivocal certainty, are right up there with eating the livers of animals and hearing the sound of fingernails dragged along a chalkboard.

One: The study of history—of the World, of The U.S., of Modern Europe or of my block on 13th Avenue -- during all levels of my 16-year schooling was a colossal waste of too much time, something I endured through the grace of a well-developed rote memory and the fear of taking “unacceptable” grades home to my mother.

And,

Two: Pugilism as a sport is the most barbaric, testosterone-soaked remnant of mankind’s membership in the animal kingdom still allowed under the law.  Michael Vick, speaking of testosterone, did time in the pokey for allowing dogs to do what Muhammad Ali is idolized for.

Well, I still hate boxing and refused to watch it, even when my son decided he needed to take it up for reasons known only to him.  If I want to see burly, muscular men in their underwear—and, of course, I do -- I sure as hell don’t want to watch them punch the crap out of each other.

But history?  I have developed an almost insatiable appetite for learning the details of what went on before we were plunged into the mess we find ourselves today.  This long, Thanksgiving weekend I combined this new passion with my love of catching up on multi-episodic documentaries, all within two or three consecutive days.

And who better than the prolific Ken Burns to feed the beast?

Friday’s popcorn-fueled marathon consisted of “Unbelievable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson.”  Yep, the first African-American Heavyweight Champion of the World.  A boxer.

For those of you readers who share my distaste for fisticuffs and, like me, never even heard of the guy, Johnson (March 31, 1878-June 10, 1046) was the son of former slaves, born in Galveston, Texas, and had only five or six years of schooling before getting a job as a dock worker in Galveston.

Johnson took up boxing.  He was a machine.  He defeated all the storied black fighters enough times to become the World Colored Heavyweight Champion, a title he held for 2,151 days.

The thing about Jack Johnson was that he refused to allow Mr. Jim Crow to tell him how to live his life.  He lived large on his boxing purses, drove fast cars (for the time, of course) and made a habit of cohabitating with white women.  Some were prostitutes.  He married three times; they, too, were white. One of them was a Brooklyn socialite.

Jack Johnson pissed off every white establishment racist in the nation, which included the majority of the press. His ostentatious lifestyle rankled.  His custom suits and shoes, his phallic cigars, his ever-present and oft-flashed roll of hundred dollar bills – it was like waving a porterhouse steak in front of an awakening grizzly bear. 

Jack Johnson had a hard time getting any of the white heavyweight contenders to join him in the ring.  They said it was because they wouldn’t fight a nigger.  Or that nobody would pay to watch them fight a colored fighter.  I say it was because they were scared shitless of him.

Finally, on July 4, 1910, 20,000 people in Reno, Nevada watched the “Fight of the Century”  when reigning white World Heavyweight Champ James J. Jeffries came out of retirement to challenge Johnson.  Jeffries, who ultimately lost to Johnson, was paid $120,000.  Johnson got $65,000 and HE won!

What followed?  Race riots on the Fourth of July all across America.  White dreams of a Great White Hope to beat Johnson were dashed. Many white citizens felt humiliated.  That championship was a white man’s domain.

Hmmmmm.  Something about this story was sounding not-too-vaguely familiar.  Uppity Negro who refused to stay in his place.  Johnson overcame his lack of formal education and became a kind of Renaissance Man.  He was eloquent, highly intelligent and charming.  He beat The Man at The Man’s own game.

When President Barack Obama and his supporters refused to send his uppity, intellectual, charming ass into exile on November 6, 2012, some of the descendants of those Jim Crow era white haters seemed to have had a very similar, if not identical, sense of humiliation. 

Sure, the very fact that Mr. Obama managed to attain the White House is more than just remarkable.  It felt like a miracle.  That he made it through the first term alive is a relief.  But my history lesson this past, 21st century Saturday in Atlanta, GA rang through loudly and clearly.  Jack Johnson did his thing a century ago, but a century later, the reaction of many served as proof of George Santayana’s famous statement:

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”