Jack London, Jack Johnson, and the Fight of the Century

“To me it was not a racial triumph”, wrote Johnson years later in his memoir In the Ring and Out (1927), “but there were those who were to take this view of the situation, and almost immediately a great hue and cry went up because a colored man was holding the championship.”[^21] Johnson held the championship for seven long years. In all that time, he faced only white opponents. Johnson’s motivation was financial; he could earn more money fighting an unknown white opponent than he could facing the toughest Black opponent. The result was that Johnson effectively redrew the “color line”, the practice of the champion refusing challenges from Black contenders, that had stymied his own competing title shot just a few years prior. Greats such as Sam Langford, Sam McVea, Joe Jeannette, and Harry Willis were all denied title shots by Johnson (even though Johnson had been happy to face Langford, McVea, and Jeannette before becoming champion). Johnson eventually lost the title in 1915 to Jess Wi ... Read full article.