Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson

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Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson

4.19 of 5 stars 4.19 · rating details · 236 ratings · 25 reviews

He was the first black heavyweight champion in history, the most celebrated–and most reviled–African American of his age. In Unforgivable Blackness, the prizewinning biographer Geoffrey C. Ward brings to vivid life the real Jack Johnson, a figure far more complex and compelling than the newspaper headlines he inspired could ever convey. Johnson battled his way from obscuri...more

Hardcover, 492 pages

Published October 26th 2004 by Knopf (first published 2004)

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Nov 07, 2008 Rose rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Rick

Jack Johnson was one of the early twentieth century’s most controversial figures. He was the first black man to attain the world heavyweight championship title, an honor that had been the exclusive domain of white boxers since the sport began. His flashy personality, considerable wealth, and refusal to let his race limit his career and marital prospects belied the traditional concept of the servile, grovelling black. When Johnson beat up white men in the ring and consorted with white women in pu...more Jack Johnson was one of the early twentieth century’s most controversial figures. He was the first black man to attain the world heavyweight championship title, an honor that had been the exclusive domain of white boxers since the sport began. His flashy personality, considerable wealth, and refusal to let his race limit his career and marital prospects belied the traditional concept of the servile, grovelling black. When Johnson beat up white men in the ring and consorted with white women in public, Caucasian America reacted violently. Blacks like Booker T. Washington worried that the hostile attention he attracted would reflect badly on them. “Just who do you think you are?” he was often asked- by both races. “Jack Johnson,” he invariably replied.

The first half of ‘Unforgivable Blackness’ traces Johnson’s rise from Galveston street fighter to heavyweight champion of the world. It was hard going for years: white title holders refused to fight him, worried at the battering their legends would take if they lost to a black man. In what must be the epitome of persistence, Johnson chased the Canadian heavyweight champion Tommy Burns across the world, showing up in European cafes and Australian hotel lobbies to issue challenges. He finally defeated Burns in Sydney, Australia, in 1908, but hostile whites refused to acknowledge him as the new champion until 1910, when he beat the legendary Jim Jeffries, who had retired undefeated six years previously and only agreed to fight so he could show that “a white man is better than a negro.”

In the second half of this fast-paced volume, white America crucifies Johnson for his boxing success and affinity for white women (all three of his wives were Caucasian). Congress banned prizefight films from being taken across state lines, sparing thousands of whites the demoralizing sight of Stanley Ketchel and Jim Jeffries being defeated by a Negro. Policemen wrote Johnson tickets for driving a car that they felt no black should be able to afford. He was accused of violating the Mann Act, which made it illegal to take a woman from state to state for immoral purposes. Found guilty of ‘transporting’ Chicago prostitute Belle Schreiber, Johnson fled to Europe with his wife Lucille and wandered the globe for years. He lost the heavyweight championship to Jess Willard in Havana in 1915 and hoped that he might finally go home now that the title had been reclaimed by a white fighter. But when he did, Johnson was arrested and spent 10 months in Leavenworth prison for the Mann Act conviction. Upon his release, he was considered too old to box professionally again and therefore reduced to minor film roles and speaking engagements. He was killed in a car crash outside Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1946, after speeding furiously away from a restaurant that refused to serve him.

Geoffrey Ward has written Johnson’s story in an highly readable style, combining sports history with popular biography. You don’t have to be a boxing aficionado to enjoy ‘Unforgivable Blackness’. The entire book has an high-velocity undercurrent that keeps the reader turning the pages. Perhaps that’s because Jack Johnson himself was an energetic, fascinating individual who only let himself be beaten in the ring.
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Jul 27, 2008 Jill rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A great book about a great man- the first black heavyweight champion of the world- a fascinating, erudite modern man. It makes no difference if you are interested in boxing-Goeffrey Ward gives a highly detailed account of society, sports, politics and good 'ol American pre-civil rights prejudice. Minus the lynchings, reminds us how little has changed today in backwoods white vs. black America (except then the hate was publicly spewed in shocking daily headlines). Because of the champion title of...more

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Aug 23, 2007 Jacob rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Jack Johnson is one of the great Self-created characters of American History. The things he did and said are the stuff of legend, and would be remarkable regardless of his race. The fact that he did these things as a black man in a time when lynchings were routine, and segregation was the norm, is incredible. The Comparison to Muhammad Ali is often made, and perhaps rightfully so, however it should not be overlooked that Johnson built HIS eccentric legend without an entourage, without television...more

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Jan 10, 2010 Eric marked it as to-read

I grew up knowing that Johnson had been a dapper man because anything sharp or tight or natty was defined as such by its likeness to "Jack Johnson's hatband." My dad is a storehouse of old southern sayings; I feel ashamed of my teenage eye-rollings.

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Jul 25, 2007 Joslyn rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: anybody

Shelves: recentlyread

This is a biography of Jack Johnson (the boxer) and it is a really good read. It is a tragic story, but is very reflective of the spirit it took for African-Americans to succeed in anything at that time. Although he eventually was his own downfall, you can see the chain of events that led to his demise. One thing I admired about him was that he reveled in his heritage and loved what and who he was. He never apologized for being black, which was the custom in those days, and he never tried to dow...more

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Nov 10, 2007 stacy marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Boxer Jack Johnson's 1914 memoir MES COMBATS (My Fights) appears at Harvard University's Widener Library....

Sure wish American audiences at large could read about his largely unknown 1911 musings to a French sports magazine, including candid observations on racism likely never intended for American readers. The comments have been translated to English in their entirety for the first time. The result, "My Life & Battles." 127-pages. But you'll have to hope train, plain or automobile to get to...more

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Aug 11, 2012 G.d. Brennan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Once upon a time, before Ron Artest, Latrell Sprewell, and Allen Iverson started undoing the legacy of NBA saints like Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson, before the Kobe trial and the O.J. trial and the Tyson trial, before Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised Black Power fists at the 1968 Olympics, and before Muhammad Ali refused to be drafted, there was one original Controversial Black Athlete. Like so many others, his personal life spawned as many newspaper headlines as his professional accompli...more Once upon a time, before Ron Artest, Latrell Sprewell, and Allen Iverson started undoing the legacy of NBA saints like Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson, before the Kobe trial and the O.J. trial and the Tyson trial, before Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised Black Power fists at the 1968 Olympics, and before Muhammad Ali refused to be drafted, there was one original Controversial Black Athlete. Like so many others, his personal life spawned as many newspaper headlines as his professional accomplishments; like too many others, his race added to the enmity caused by his actions. But he was like none of them because he was the first, the original, the man who set the standard against which all others would be measured. And his name was Jack Johnson.

Johnson, like so many athletes and so many people both black and white, was no saint. He cheated on wives and mistresses, consorted with prostitutes, drank too much, drove too fast, and generally lived a life of relentless excess. What earned him so much hostility, though, was not so much his actions but (according to W.E.B. Du Bois, whose words inspired the book's title) this "unforgivable blackness." In the early 21st century, Johnson's actions might have earned him probation, a few snarky newspaper stories, and perhaps a few lines in the gossip columns; in the early 20th century, however, they earned him several years of exile and, when he got tired of running, a stint in Leavenworth.

Unlike many later controversial athletes, though, Johnson had to fight as many battles on the way up as he did on the way down. From his early life in Galveston until he won the world heavyweight championship in 1908, he battled not only for victory over his opponents, but for the very right to face them in the ring. White champions would not face black challengers. White audiences would rather laugh at blindfolded black boxers pummelling each other aimlessly in "battles royal" than watch them compete against white boxers on a level playing field. And so black boxers toiled in obscurity, forgoing their shot at the title. That is, until Jack Johnson (by virtue of his persistence, skill, patience and sheer excellence) forced the boxing world to take notice and grant him what any similarly talented white boxer would have long before had: a chance to prove he was the best in the world.

Ward chronicles Johnson's struggles to reach this point almost too thoroughly; the unending series of setbacks and rejections and prejudices that Johnson had to overcome end up feeling as repetitive and painful as a series of jabs to the head. (The era's racism was so overt that major newspapers would edit Johnson's quotes to make him sound more like what they thought a black person must sound like.) But it is only after Johnson's championship that the book really starts to hit home. For while Johnson's rise to fame might have been compelling, his fall is all the more fascinating. Like a figure from Greek tragedy, Johnson is undone not only by his enemies, but by his own hubris and grand dreams.

These same problems may well have rubbed off on the author, however. Ward's book seems at times to be less a biography than an effort to prove that the author knows more about early 20th century boxing than anyone, anywhere, ever. Beneath all too many pages, he's put footnotes. Not just any footnotes, mind you, but grand, expansive, overlong footnotes that, if they are fully read, inevitably distract the reader from what is otherwise a very fine story. There's a school of thought among historians that says that footnotes should only be used to document sources; if facts are important to the story, they should be worked in to the story, and if they aren't important, they shouldn't make it into the book. While reading this book, one ends up wishing Ward bought into that school of thought.

But this criticism should not detract from Ward's accomplishment: he waded into a project that required him to sort through a mess of lies, fabrications and tall tales, and he emerged with a fascinating and generally compelling portrait of a man who defied every stereotype and convention, who challenged the world on his own terms and, in many ways, lost to it--but only after a knock-down, drag-out fight.(less)

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Mar 05, 2010 Owen Hurd rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a fascinating account of Jack Johnson, the first African-American heavyweight boxing champion. As a Chicagoan who's read a little bit about our city's history, I was especially drawn to the passages describing Johnson's domestic life (such as it was), the home where he put up his mother, and the club he opened in the city's red-light district, the Levee.

I was interested to learn that Johnson was arrested for violating the white slave act (Mann Act), for transporting a white woman over s...more

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May 29, 2009 Christopher Carbone rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: sports fans

The first black heavyweight champion of the world was, for a time, the most hated man in America, drawing the color line into sharp contrast. The story of Jack Johnson is a complicated, stark one filed with contradictions and easy to hate and hard to love men and women. Overall, its the story of Jack Johnson and the way he lived his life.

The book explains in very good detail Johnson's life, how he got into boxing and how his personality exploded onto the world stage. Johnson was a crafty, sleek...more The first black heavyweight champion of the world was, for a time, the most hated man in America, drawing the color line into sharp contrast. The story of Jack Johnson is a complicated, stark one filed with contradictions and easy to hate and hard to love men and women. Overall, its the story of Jack Johnson and the way he lived his life.

The book explains in very good detail Johnson's life, how he got into boxing and how his personality exploded onto the world stage. Johnson was a crafty, sleek boxer whop used his strange style, quick hands and long reach to easily defeat his opponents- white and black (but he lost to both white and black fighters as well). Johnson's out-of-the-ring exploits also told much about Johnson- he told great stories that were usually wildly untrue; he partied very hard and knew how to antagonize the extraordinarily vile white media.

The common theme throughout the books is the bald, blatant and toxic racism of America at the turn of the twentieth century. Johnson is depicted as crudely as a monkey, a black devil, and most notably a sub-species that was beating up on the "gentlemen" of the sport.

Johnson captured the title by defeating Tommy Burns in Australia (Burns was fighting all away around the world, trying to avoid Johnson). After that a long list of "Great White Hopes" (that is where the term derives) lined up to reclaim the superiority of the white race- Stanley Ketchel, Bob Fitzimmons, and Gentlemen Jim Jacobs, all were touted as the men to take back the title, and all were mercilessly destroyed. All the while, the white media vilified Johnson and made him out to be a true villain. The book explains how Johnson truly played along, antagonized the media and made his image up to help his amazing career. Johnson married only white women and was involved in an almost career-ending sex scandal.

Ultimately, Johnson trained less and less and took fighters lighter and lighter, culminating in his defeat at the hands of Jess Willard in Havana Cuba. The book notes purposefully that despite many rumors, Johnson diod NOT take a dive, and Willard defeated the fading champion fair and square.

The book then catalogs Johnson's pathetic demise- fighting for too long afterwords, is money problems, how he drank, and how he sold his "story" for a buck, making it more and more outlandish at each telling. The story is clear- Johnson's mouth was as unreliable as his hands were reliable. While his punches were true, his stories were anything but.

The book's truest glory is in the unvarnished struggle Johnson had against the unimaginable tide of racism, hatred and the color barrier. It would be 30+ YEARS before another black man would fight for the title, the color line having been drawn. The media's stories and coverage of Johnson is almost a parody of itself; its as if Saturday Night Live printed their headlines, except its not funny. That is the truest value of this book- it reminds us of how ridiculous we were and how scathing that hatred was, and maybe still is.

I recommend this book to non-boxing fans as well; the story is far more about race and society at the turn of the century than it was about boxing. And that's what makes the story so very compelling. (less)

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Feb 05, 2009 Bookmarks Magazine added it

Jack Johnson's colorful personality and his impact on American racial politics make him a fascinating topic for a biography. Critics were interested in this account of his extraordinary life, but many had complaints. Foremost among these was Ward's failure to provide historical analysis and context. Unforgivable Blackness doesn't ask any probing questions about Johnson's influence or his legacy; even though Ward did his research, those seeking an in-depth examination of his life will be disappoi

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Nov 27, 2010 J.B. Shearman rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

Reading this biography made me wonder what magnitude of celebrity Jack Johnson would have been if he were a heavyweight in today's day an era. His brash and confident personality was vilified because of his skin color but today his individualism would be celebrated. His ability to look at society and life beyond the black and white of that era was met with tons of opposition.

I'm glad I picked this book up randomly on a trip in to borders after reading the back cover because I now know about the...more

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Oct 17, 2008 Patrick rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: history/sports fans

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Simply eye opening look at racism in America through the eyes of sports.
Johnson's unforgivable sins were a: pummeling white fighters in the ring, and b: cavorting with white women outside the ring. But he was the rarest of men who simply lived his life (albeit not simply) without regard for how others saw him.
At the time I read it, Terrell Owens was in the news for doing something stupid, and the contrast between the perception and tolerance for two similar men in the span of 100 years was a fas...more

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Feb 09, 2009 Blake rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This story is very interesting and I am wondering why it took a Ken Burns film to get a book written about it. Jack Johnson is a very dynamic person, though not the best moral compass. Great story, could almost seem like fiction.

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Dec 14, 2008 Mfalco65 rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I went through a phase where I was wholly obsessed with PBS documentaries. I picked up the book the moment I heard the documentary was forthcoming. It is a great snapshot at a man who refused to be backed into a corner.

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Oct 27, 2010 Jay rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Great book! Jack Johnson dared to live his life the way he wanted at a time when people of color were still regarded as less than. He paid a price but Jack Johnson still walked with his head held high!

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May 15, 2009 Doodle added it · review of another edition

Jack Johnson had it rough, but I think the disrespect aimed at him for not being the legit champ would've been directed at anyone.

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Aug 25, 2012 Neil Sammells rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Essential reading for anyone interested in dandyism...

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Mar 03, 2011 Maxo Marc added it · review of another edition

A man determined to be himself despite the cost; a must read.

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Dec 27, 2012 Adam Madvibe added it · review of another edition

1 of my favorite books.........

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Mar 05, 2012 Sebastian rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A little too methodical at times (a fighter of Jack Johnson's stature, who brought his own distinct and remarkably successful approach to the ring, deserves something with a bit more style to match!), but generally speaking a very interesting look into one of the most significant and overlooked figures in American sports history.

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Feb 03, 2009 Nathan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: franklin-library, history

The story of Jack Johnson has all the right elements: the racial tensions of the Schmeling-Louis fights, a hero brash and colorful as Muhammad Ali. Ward's detached and colorless narrative are made that much more disappointing, though he tries gamely and manages to end his story on a poetic, if somewhat predictable, note.

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Feb 18, 2008 Erin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

An amazing story. Jack Johnson was certainly an intriguing guy. He had a lot against him, but at the same time, didn't care what people thought to the point that he aliented himself from practially everyone. Very tragic. Definitely a long, but good read!

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May 21, 2012 Scott Finley rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

If Jack Johnson were alive today I think SportsCenter or Outside The Lines would have to create a new show just for him. The footnotes alone make for a pretty interesting read.

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Mar 21, 2012 Nora rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I kept going back and forth on this... The writing is good, and the story is intriguing, but somehow it just didn't hold my attention.

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Apr 25, 2008 Jonathan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Great book! Johnson is a unique American character, particularly in the context of Jim Crow.

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May 12, 2013 James Boyd rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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About Geoffrey C. Ward

Geoffrey Champion Ward is an author and screenwriter of various documentary presentations of American history. He graduated from Oberlin College in 1962.

He was an editor of American Heritage magazine early in his career. He wrote the television mini-series The Civil War with its director Ken Burns and has collaborated with Burns on every documentary he has made since, including Jazz and Baseball....more

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