Trump weighs pardon for late boxing champion
Johnson defended title in Las Vegas, N.M., before U.S. government accused him of violating human trafficking law
It was Independence Day 1912 and Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion of the world and a thorn in the collective side of America’s white powers, defended his title in the
outpost of Las Vegas, N.M. Johnson’s bout with “Fireman” Jim Flynn, filled with head-butting and grappling, came to an anticlimactic finish in the ninth round when a peace officer jumped into the ring and the referee abruptly declared Johnson victorious.
Johnson would have more encounters with law enforcement, most notably when he was charged the next year under a federal law against human trafficking. Prosecutors targeted Johnson because he had dated and married white women.
Now President Donald Trump has raised the possibility of posthumously pardoning Johnson for his 1913 conviction for transporting white women across state lines for “immoral” purposes, which the government called a violation of the Mann Act.
Trump said he was made aware of Johnson’s case by one high-profile supporter, actor Sylvester Stallone of Rocky fame. But the idea of pardoning Johnson has been raised for years by U.S. senators who closely follow boxing and its history.
“Others have looked at this over the years, most thought it would be done, but yes, I am considering a Full Pardon!” Trump tweeted about Johnson last weekend. “His trials and tribulations were great, his life complex and controversial.”
Trump already is facing backlash from black sociologist Harry Edwards, who criticized the president’s
idea as wrongheaded in an opinion piece for the San Francisco Chronicle.
“Johnson’s real ‘crimes’ were having the audacity and arrogance to be heavyweight boxing champion of the world, his demand for all of the status and social rewards typically occasioned by that achievement and, most egregious of all, his ignoring of any and all barriers and proscriptions — including interracial romantic liaisons — that stood in the way of him garnering such status and rewards,” Edwards wrote.
Johnson won the title in 1908 and went on to defeat a string of “great white hopes.” Johnson’s successes in the ring and his relationships with white women during the Jim Crow era made him a marked man.
His life story was depicted in the 1969 play The Great White Hope, which starred James Earl Jones, and made it to the big screen in 1970, also with Jones portraying Johnson.
After being convicted by an all-white jury, Johnson became a fugitive for seven years. He then spent a year in federal prison. He died in a car crash in 1946 at age 68.
Trump is not the first politician to broach a pardon for Johnson, but he is the highest-ranking one.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., have championed Johnson’s case.
Johnson’s great-great-niece also asked Trump, as well as former President Barack Obama, to grant the fallen heavyweight a pardon.
“Johnson’s imprisonment forced him into the shadows of bigotry and prejudice, and continues to stand as a stain on our national honor,” McCain said this month.
The Department of Justice’s general policy is not to accept applications for posthumous pardons, according to the agency’s website. The time of its officials is “better spent on pardon and commutation requests of living persons,” the website states.
Potential pardons are considered through an application process, and the Justice Department typically makes recommendations to the president.
The New Mexico town that hosted one of Johnson’s title defenses before his conviction has not seized on the current controversy.
The Las Vegas Museum does not display memorabilia from the famous fisticuffs, but it holds items from the event in its collection, said museum specialist Michael Rebman.
It possesses a photo of Johnson in front of La Castañeda Hotel with a large Flynn-Johnson banner across the top, Rebman said.
In addition, there are tickets to ride on a special Pullman car from Trinidad, Colo., to the championship bout in Las Vegas, he said. The museum also has newspaper clippings, a chart showing seating sections, postcards made from photos of the fight and a photo of Johnson in front of a Las Vegas home, likely the place where he trained.
Johnson weighed 212 pounds to Flynn’s 193 the day that 4,500 people witnessed the fight. Johnson received $21,000 instead of the $31,000 initially promised, agreeing to a pay cut because of sluggish ticket sales, according to the Box Rec website. New Mexico had become a state only six months before the Johnson-Flynn fight.
After the bout, the referee said: “Jim Flynn disgraced everybody by fighting as foul a battle as a man can devise. … I was about to disqualify him and give the contest to the champion when the state police burst into the ring and declared the thing at an end,” Box Rec reported.
For Johnson, fights with more powerful opponents in the U.S. government followed.
Information from The Associated Press was included in this story.
After by an being all-white convicted jury, Johnson became a fugitive for seven years. He then spent a year in federal prison. He died in a car crash in 1946 at age 68.