“And it was fast cars and whiskey
Long legged girls and fun
I had everything that money could bring
And I took it all with a gun”
— from the song I’ve Never Picked Cotton
“Johnson did not care. He had no use for the bourgeois values of thrift and respectability.” —Randy Roberts
“You don’t catch Jim Jeffries losing to a colored man.” — Jim Jeffries
“Quite conceivably there had never been a more important athletic event in American history.” — Randy Roberts
“Even those who have an absurdly exaggerated horror of prize fighting as a ‘brutal’ sport should gently warm in their sensitive minds a little hope that the white man may not lose, while the rest of us will wait in open anxiety the news that he has licked the—well, since it must be in print, let us say the negro, even though it is not the first word that comes to the tongue’s tip.” — New York Times
By 1900, the federal government had long abandoned Reconstruction, and white supremacy was returning to the South with a vengeance. Jim Crow was in full swing. Segregation was the law of the land. And Fifty years before Jackie Robinson challenged segregation in baseball, there was Jack Johnson.
Lynching was a weekly event. Any black man in the South not acting subservient could find himself dangling from a tree. Even African American leaders like Booker T. Washington preached that accepting segregation, keeping one’s head down, and working hard were the best options for black people.
Jack Johnson clearly didn’t get the memo.
At this time when simply looking a white man in the eyes, or talking to a white woman, could get one lynched, Jack Johnson made a living beating the hell out of white men in the ring. Living defiantly as if prejudice didn’t exist—he felt—was the best way to defeat racism.
It would be easy to mistake Jack Johnson’s story simply as a tale of standing up to racism. It’s about that—sure. But it’s also about a lot more. Because as much Jack Johnson stared down white supremacy, he also battled those black people who insisted that he behaved like a hard-working, God-fearing role model. But JJ wasn’t about to trade a cage for another. He wouldn’t be anyone’s puppet. He would have no master telling him how to live—not white ones, but no black ones either. His story is the tale of a man who, in spite of a time and place that would not allow it, was on a defiant quest to be free, and live life on his own terms.
In this episode:
Public Enemy Number One
At home in the integrated criminal underworld
Ladies and fast cars
Jack Johnson’s intellectual side
The Great White Hope
Knocking out and befriending Stanley “The Assassin” Ketchel
“I am going into this fight for the sole purpose of proving that a white man is better than a negro.” Jim Jeffries
Why the Governor of California prohibited the fight
Death threats and attempted poisonings
Jack Johnson’s eerie calm under pressure
A spectator: “He’ll kill you, Jack.”
Jack Johnson: “That’s what they all say.”The verbal fight with Jim Corbett
Triumph and riots in over 50 cities
This episode is sponsored by Flaviar, the world’s largest online club of spirits enthusiasts. Members get a themed tasting box that let you try different spirits before buying a full sized bottle, and access to their Vault which holds a selection of rare and hard to find spirits available to members only. Please, check them out and use the coupon code HISTORY at checkout.
This episode is sponsored by www.blueapron.com/onfire For less than $ 10 per meal, Blue Apron delivers straight to your door seasonal recipes along with pre-portioned ingredients to make delicious, home-cooked meals. Get your first three meals free—with free shipping—by going to www.blueapron.com/onfire
A big thank you for the support to the podcast How It Began: A History of the Modern World by Brad Harris. Brad holds a PhD in history from Stanford University and is the host of a great new podcast focusing the most important scientific, technological and cultural advancements in history. So, please check out his podcast and his website https://howitbegan.com/
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My lady (and author of History on Fire logo, plus producer and editor of History on Fire) has a FB public page about her art & fighting: https://www.facebook.com/NahryEm/. Thank you to Onnit, Float Clinic, Shaman’s Simple Solutions, War Fuel, Proven Nutrition, and Fight Chix for sponsoring her for her first MMA fight. If you’d like to check out Fight Chix merchandise, you can get a 20% discount by going to http://www.fightchix.com/ and entering the code Fire20 upon checkout.
This is my public FB page: https://www.facebook.com/danielebolelli1/
Here is a link to the audiobook of my “Not Afraid”: http://www.danielebolelli.com/downloads/not-afraid-audiobook/
For those of you who may be interested, here is a lecture series I created about Taoist philosophy: http://www.danielebolelli.com/downloads/taoist-lectures/