It was the Fourth of July, in 1910, in Reno, Nevada. The audience included about 20,000 spectators. The “Fight of the Century” was entering its fifteenth round.
In one corner was James J. Jeffries, the former undefeated heavyweight champion, who had come out of retirement to challenge his opponent. Jeffries was going into the boxing match “for the sole purpose of proving that a white man is better than” an African-American man. Jeffries had not fought in 6 years, and had to lose over 100 pounds to return to his championship fighting weight. Regardless, Jeffries had said before the fight that, “It is my intention to go right after my opponent and knock him out as soon as possible.”
In the opposite corner was John Arthur (“Jack”) Johnson, the “Galveston Giant,” the current world heavyweight champion, and first African-American to hold that title. Johnson was famous for his uppercut. Johnson had beaten the previous world champion, Canadian Tommy Burns, at the Sydney Stadium in Australia, in a fight that lasted fourteen rounds and that was stopped by the police before Johnson was named the winner. Racial animosity against Johnson had soared, including in the international press. After beating Burns, Johnson had fought and defeated a series of boxers, each billed as a “great white hope,” including Tony Ross, Al Kaufman, and middleweight champion Stanley Ketchel. Ketchel was a friend of Johnson’s, and the fight between them had been an exhibition until the twelfth round, when Ketchel knocked Johnson down with a right punch to Johnson’s head. Johnson regained his feet, and surprised Ketchel with an uppercut to Ketchel’s jaw, knocking him out, and knocking out his front teeth in the process. Johnson could be seen on film afterwards, removing Ketchel’s teeth from his glove.
The purse for the fight was $101,000 (equivalent to $3,425,000 in 2023), to be divided 75%/25% between winner and loser. Each boxer would also receive one-third of the revenue from sales of the right to film the fight. Due to the racial tension that had been brewing prior to the fight, guns had been prohibited from the arena, as well as sale of alcohol and anyone exhibiting signs of intoxication. All potential weapons—including apples—had been banned. Gambling odds favored Jeffries 10-7.
By the fifteenth round, Johnson had dominated the fight. Jeffries had been knocked down twice in one fight for the first time in his career. Johnson later would say that he knew the fight had been over in the fourth round when he landed an uppercut and saw the look on Jeffries’ face. Ultimately, Jeffries’ corner threw in the towel to end the fight and prevent Jeffries from having a KO on his record. Jeffries would later admit that “I could never have whipped Johnson at my best. I couldn’t have hit him. No, I couldn’t have reached him in 1,000 years.”
Johnson’s win in the fight triggered race riots that evening—the Fourth of July—in more than 25 states and 50 cities, including New York, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Atlanta, St. Louis, Little Rock, and Houston. At least 20 people were killed and hundreds were injured.
Within three days of the fight, many states and cities banned exhibition of the Johnson-Jeffries Fight film in an effort to censor Johnson’s victory. The controversy surrounding the film spurred Congress to ban distribution of prizefight films across state lines in 1912. The ban was lifted in 1940. In 2005, the film of the “Fight of the Century” was entered into the National Film Registry as worthy of preservation.
Johnson was the third of nine children born to Henry and Tina Johnson in Galveston, Texas, in 1878. Henry and Tina were former slaves who worked service jobs. Henry had served as a civilian teamster in the Union Army.
As a young man, Johnson was frail. He attended five years of school, but then was expected to work. Johnson never felt that segregation had been an issue in Galveston, because the 12th Ward was poor and everyone experienced the same struggles. He grew up among a group of white friends, and never recalled feeling victimized or excluded. The group ate together, played together, and he slept at his friends’ homes and ate at their family tables.
Tina was a major influence in Johnson’s life. He had been known as a coward when younger, and when Johnson came home bruised and crying, Tina warned him that if he got beat at school, he’d be whipped worse at home. Johnson learned from Tina that he needed to defend himself, and he never lost a fight to another boy again.
After quitting school, Johnson made his way to Dallas, and found work at the race track exercising horses. He then found an apprenticeship with Walter Lewis, a carriage painter. Lewis enjoyed watching friends spar, and Johnson began to learn how to box. Upon his return to Galveston, Johnson was hired as a janitor at a gym owned by German-born heavyweight fighter Herman Bernau. Johnson eventually saved enough money to buy boxing gloves, and sparred at every opportunity.
Johnson was arrested for brawling with Davie Pearson, who accused Johnson of turning him over to the police over a game of craps. When both men were released from jail, Johnson beat Pearson before a large crowed at the docks. He then fought in a summer boxing league against John “Must Have It” Lee. Because prizefighting had been illegal in Texas, the fight was broken up, and moved to the beach. Johnson won against Lee for a prize of $1.50.
Johnson debuted as a professional boxer on November 1, 1898, in Galveston, when he knocked out Charley Brooks in the second round of a 15-round bout. Over the next four years, Johnson won at least 50 fights. On February 3, 1903, Johnson won his first title by beating Denver Ed Martin for the World Black Heavyweight Championship. Johnson would hold the title until it was vacated by his win against Burns for the World Heavyweight Championship.
Johnson would defend the Black Heavyweight title 12 times, defeating Martin again, as well as former champion Frank Childs, and future champions Sam McVey and Sam Langford.
Once Johnson had won the World Heavyweight Championship, Johnson did not fight a black opponent for five years, denying matches to Joe Jeanette, Sam Langford, and Harry Wills. He denied black fighters a chance at the title because Johnson thought he could make more money fighting white boxers, which offended the African-American community. In late 1913, Johnson finally agreed to fight a black opponent, Battling Jim Johnson, in Paris. For the first time in history, two black fighters fought for the world heavyweight championship. The fight ended in a draw, because Jack Johnson’s arm was injured in the third round and he was unable to use the arm for the remainder of the fight. Because of the draw, Johnson retained his champion title.
On April 5, 1915, Johnson lost his world heavyweight title to Jess Willard in Havana, Cuba, in which Johnson was knocked out in the 26th round of the 45-round fight. Johnson had begun to tire after the 20th round, and had been visibly injured by body punches in rounds preceding the KO.
Johnson would never again fight for a heavyweight championship. He fought professionally until he was 60, in 1938, when he lost 7 of his 9 last bouts. He also indulged in “cellar” fighting, or unadvertised bouts fought for private audiences. At the age of 67, Johnson made his final appearance in the ring to fight three one-minute exhibition rounds against Joe Jeanette nad John Ballcort, in a benefit fight for U.S. War Bonds.
By endorsing various products, Johnson grew wealthy. He indulged in expensive hobbies, including automobile racing, tailored clothing, and jewelry and furs for his wife. Once, when pulled over for speeding and issued a $50 ticket, Johnson paid the officer a $100 bill; the officer responded that he could not make change for that much money, and Johnson told the officer to keep the change because he would make a return trip at the same speed. In 1920, Johnson opened the Club Deluxe, a night club in Harlem, and sold the club three years later to gangster Owney Madden, who renamed the establishment as the “Cotton Club.” Duke Ellington would be one of the original orchestra leaders at the Cotton Club.
Johnson also opened an interracial nightclub in Chicago called Café de Champion.
Johnson was known to flout conventions regarding the socioeconomic position of blacks in American society at the time. He broke taboos by consorting with white women, three of whom he married.
Johnson’s second marriage was to Lucille Cameron, an 18-year-old prostitute from Minneapolis. The relationship resulted in his arrest under the Mann Act in 1912, for “transporting women across state lines for immoral purposes” due to Cameron being a prostitute. Johnson’s first charge under the Mann Act fell apart, because Cameron refused to cooperate. Less than a month later, similar charges were brought against Johnson, and another alleged prostitute with whom Johnson had been involved in 1909 and 1910 testified against him. Johnson was convicted by an all-white jury, even though the incidents used to convict him occurred before passage of the Mann Act. Johnson was sentenced to a year and a day in prison.
Johnson fled to Canada by posing as a member of a black baseball team, and met Lucille in Montreal before fleeing to France. For seven years, the couple lived in Europe, South America, and Mexico. On July 20, 1920, Johnson returned to the U.S.-Mexico border and surrendered to federal agents. Johnson served his sentence at the United States Penitentiary, Leavenworth, in Kansas.
While an inmate, Johnson filed a patent for improvements to a wrench. Little could be found on the development of Johnson’s invention. However, it is unlikely that in his years fighting abroad, he was as focused on developing his improved wrench as he was when he was an inmate, with little else to occupy his time. The improvements included the ability to open and close the jaws by rotating the end of the handle. Further, the wrench design facilitated disassembly for cleaning or repair. Johnson was awarded U.S. Patent No. 1,413,121 on April 18, 1922. Though the patent lists Johnson’s address as Leavenworth, Johnson had been released on July 9, 1921.
On June 10, 1946, Johnson and a friend visited a segregated diner en route from Texas to New York. The diner refused to serve Johnson, and he drove away angrily. The car collided with a telegraph pole in North Carolina. While Johnson’s friend survived the crash, Johnson suffered fatal injuries and died later that day, at 68 years old. He was buried at Graceland Cemetery in Chicago.
World Black Championship (“WBC”) president Jose Sulaiman reached out to presidential administrations beginning with Ronald Reagan’s to request a posthumous pardon for Johnson. A bill requesting that George W. Bush pardon Johnson passed the House, but failed to pass the Senate. In 2009, Senator John McCain, Representative Peter King, film maker Ken Burns, and Johnson’s great-niece Linda Haywood, requested President Obama pardon Johnson, and Congress passed a resolution calling on Obama to pardon Johnson. In 2016, another request was made to Obama to pardon Johnson, on the 70th anniversary of his death, with Harry Reid and Mike Tyson joining the chorus. Finally, on May 24, 2018, 105 years after Johnson’s conviction, Johnson received a presidential pardon in a ceremony attended by Sylvester Stallone, Deontay Wilder (then-current WBC Champion), Lennox Lewis (WBC Former champion), Mauricio Sulaiman (WBC President), Linda Haywood, and Hector Sulaiman (President of the Board of Advisors of Scholas Occurrentes).
Johnson had the longest professional boxing career of any world heavyweight champion, having boxed for over 33 years, until Roy Jones Jr. broke Johnson’s record in 2023. Muhammad Ali often spoke about how he was influenced by and identified with Johnson, because Ali felt that he was ostracized in the same way as Johnson because of his opposition to the Vietnam War and affiliation with the Nation of Islam. Actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s surname is an homage to Jack Johnson; The Rock’s father was born Rocky Bowles before making his professional wrestling ring name, and later his legal name, “Rocky Johnson.” Johnson’s story is the basis for the play The Great White Hope and its 1970 film adaptation, starring James Earl Jones as “Jack Jefferson” and Jane Alexander as his love interest. Both Jones and Alexander won Tonys and were nominated for Oscars.
Johnson was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990.