The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
President thanked for boxing hero’s pardon
Dundee Freemason hails Trump ‘on behalf of Scotland for great gesture’ over former champion Johnson
Dundee Freemasons have thanked President Donald Trump for a posthumous pardon granted to a heavyweight boxing hero.
Past Master Graham Letford has now written to President Trump to praise him for “this great gesture” on behalf of “the whole of Scotland”.
Heavyweight champion Jack Johnson became a Freemason in Forfar and Kincardine, No 225 Lodge, in Dundee, on October 13 1911, while visiting England for a fight at Earl’s Court.
During his spell in England he fought in exhibition matches and Army officer Sydney McLaglen told Johnson about his masonic lodge.
He told the boxer he was due to travel to Dundee to have his second degree conferred and asked if he wanted to go with him and join the lodge.
Mr Letford said: “I wanted to thank President Trump most sincerely for his decision to award a posthumous pardon to Jack Johnson who was the first black heavyweight champion of the world.
“Jack joined the lodge in controversial circumstances in October 1911.
“His membership led to the lodge being closed for 18 months and three of the principal office-bearers being suspended for alledgedly bending the rules to allow his admission.
“The rumour was he would be opposed on colour but those officebearers brought the meeting forward to thwart any attempt to do so.
“He is and I think will always be our most famous member and I have for many years lectured on his life story and the fight to have him pardoned.”
Mr Letford said he wanted to thank President Trump “on behalf of the Lodge, the Freemasons of Dundee and indeed the whole of Scotland for this great gesture”.
Johnson claimed the title of “World Coloured Heavyweight Champion” in 1903, before becoming overall World Heavyweight Champion in 1908, after winning a fight in Australia against a white boxer from Canada.
Johnson was quoted at the time saying: “I have always wanted to be a member and I chose the Dundee Lodge because it is one of the oldest.”
He was convicted by an all-white jury in 1913 of taking a woman across state lines for “immoral purposes”.
Johnson, whose consensual relationship with a white woman was seen by many at the time as taboo, fled to Europe but returned in 1920 and spent a year in prison.
He returned to the city in a later visit and was booked for exhibition shows at the King’s Theatre in Dundee over a seven-day period.
For some years, there was a campaign to get him pardoned but it was not until May that President Trump gave Johnson a posthumous pardon.
Johnson died in a car crash in 1946 at the age of 68.
Jack is – and I think will always be – our most famous member and I have for many years lectured on his life story and the fight to have him pardoned. GRAHAM LETFORD