Boxing legend Jack Johnson may get posthumous pardon

DONALD TRUMP says he is considering a posthumous pardon for Jack Johnson, more than 100 years after the first black heavyweight boxing champion of the world was convicted of transporting a white woman across state lines.

The case – exposing America’s Jim Crow [the historical enforcer of racial segregation in the South] past – is a cause célèbre among race activists and boxing aficionados.

Now the intervention of Sylvester Stallone, the Rocky actor, may have won him an unlikely ally.

“Stallone called me with the story of heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson. His trials and tribulations were great, his life complex and controversial,” said Mr Trump on Twitter at the weekend.

“Others have looked at this over the years, most thought it would be done, but yes, I am considering a full pardon!”

Johnson’s 79-8 record of wins over losses made him a fighting phenomenon and one of the first black celebrity athletes. Today, his name is mentioned among the greats such as Muhammad Ali and Joe Louis.

But when he was crowned heavyweight champion of the world in 1908 after defeating a string of white boxers, his success brought him enemies as well as adulation.

A lavish lifestyle and refusal to accept social norms – by dating outside his race – fuelled criticism.

In 1913, he was convicted by a white jury of violating the Mann Act, which made it illegal to transport women across state lines for “immoral purposes”. Sentenced to a year in prison, he fled the country and lost his title after a bout in Cuba in 1915.

He died in 1946 and his story was turned into The Great White Hope, a film named after the appeal that went out to find a challenger to defeat him and starring James Earl Jones.

His supporters have always maintained the conviction was racially motivated but attempts to pass legislation to secure a pardon have so far failed in Congress.