PRIZE FIGHTING. “Jack” Johnson.

The decisions the United States Government made during the World War, regarding the urgent necessity of including boxing in its all-round training in preparing the soldiers and sailors for war, at last brought the art of self-defense into its own and accorded it the proper recognition and value it should have officially received years ago. In private life prize fighting had its followers in both America and Europe as far back as a hundred years ago. About that time a Virginia Negro slave by the name of Tommy Molineaux whipped all American boxers who met him after which he went to Europe where he was beaten by the Englishman, Cribb, who was at that time the champion of Great Britain.

Along in the 70’s, George Godfrey was in his prime and became known on both sides of the ocean on account of whipping the famous white fighter, Lannon, in one of the greatest prize fights ever “pulled off” in New England. Godfrey fought seventy-six rounds with the great fighter, Jake Kilrain and he also staid twenty rounds with the “Australian Black Wildcat,” Peter Jackson. As John L. Sullivan, known as the greatest white slugger of all times, was then in his prime and zenith, Godfrey repeatedly tried to meet him in the ring but Sullivan always managed to evade a fight with him.

Peter Jackson, although an Australian by birth, spent his best fighting years in America. He fought with, came out even or on top of all the best men of his days. It was he who fought a 61 round draw with James J. Corbett, who is known as the most scientific heavyweight champion boxer the world has ever seen. Jackson was considered by many as the quickest heavyweight foot worker in the game. It is said that he was so uncanny quick on his feet that many times when an opponent made a lunge at him, Jackson would dodge the blow, circle to the rear of the fighter and pin him one back of the ear before the opponent could regain his balance, face around and throw up his guard to block off the blow. During all the time he was meeting the best heavyweights, Jackson held out a standing challenge to John L. Sullivan, who never would meet him in the ring. But John L. was always truthful enough to admit that he did not consider himself champion of the world because he had never whipped Peter Jackson. (for proof of this statement write to the Editor of Everybody’s Column, Philadelphia Inquirer, Phila., Pa.) According to an article that appeared in the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin of January 26, 1921, and which was written by Hughey Fullerton a white sport critic, John L. Sullivan also side stepped another Colored heavyweight prize fighter, who was known in Louisiana as “Black Zeke”. This “Zeke” who weighed 220 pounds and was six feet two inches tall, could lift a bale of cotton weighing five hundred pounds. In reference to this fighter a paragraph in the above mentioned article read as follows: “After the Sullivan-Kilrain fight Mr. Carrol tried to arrange a bout between “Zeke” and John L. The latter refused and the planter followed Sullivan over the country, but to no avail.” So while Sullivan was truthfully champion over the world of white fighters, there were at least three Colored fighters, George Godfrey, Peter Jackson and “Black Zeke” over whom John L. never was champion, because he had never whipped any one of them although all three had repeatedly followed and challenged him after they had met and held their own with the other best men of their times.

Of all prize fighters, Colored or white, the world has ever known, George Dixon was declared the most wonderful of them all. Being a little over four feet tall, weighing less then 130 pounds, with small tapering legs that seemed to sweat tears of pain under the weight of his gigantic chest and unusually broad shoulders from which dangled muscular arms of such thickness and length that they looked unnatural, Dixon presented a most uncanny and formidable foe when stripped in the ring waiting for action. He always proved just as formidable as he looked; for when he warmed up and got into real action, it seemed to his opponent that Mr. & Mrs. Satan and their entire brood of little Satan imps from Hades had been turned loose in the ring. During a period of ten years (1890-1900) Dixon at different times held both the Bantamweight and Featherweight championships of the world. And one of the main reasons why his name will ever go down in ring history as the “Wonder of Wonders” is that he did something no other world champion has ever done—he “came back” three times and regained his lost championship. It is said that he made a record of over a thousand clean knockouts during his fighting career. His three “Come backs” were staged as follows: Benny Jordan took the title from him and he regained it from Eddie Santry; Frankie Erne gave Dixon a good spanking one year and the next year he thrashed that same Frankie Erne; Sol Smith gave him a good lacing, and the same year, Dixon in a return battle took back his title and in doing so (to use a frequent and amusing expression of one “Tommy” Howard, a jolly fellow and Virginia old-time friend of the writer’s) “nearly shook the living life out of him.”

Because Dixon always went into the squared-circle to give his best in manhood fighting and not his worse in childhood playing and faking, he was respected and beloved by fight fans of all classes and colors, which was proved by the most celebrated sport followers of the day, including ex-Heavy-weight Champion James J. Corbett, acting as pallbearers at his funeral.

Joe Walcott and Dixie Kid were two other great little fighters and they both became Welterweight world Champions, Walcott from 1901 to 1904 and Dixie Kid from 1904 to 1908. It is said of these two fighters, that, like Dixon, they became famous in their readiness to meet top-notch fighters who were nearly twice their height and weight. When they could get such big men in the ring with them, they usually jumped clear off the floor to land a mighty crushing paw upon some rival’s tempting jaw that then and there felt nothing more.

But the “Old Master” of them all, who even today is conceded to have been one of if not the cleanest hitting, quickest moving, gamest staying and most scientific boxers, Colored or white, big or little, who ever one-stepped, two-stepped, waltzed and Virginia-reeled into and around a roped-circle, was the ring’s national favorite, Joe Cans of Baltimore, Md. This great little fighter, who was as much a pet of the white sporting faction as of the Colored element, took the Lightweight championship away from Frank Erne in 1892 and kept it for six years. During that time he defeated all the best men in his field and jumped over the fence into the Welterweight pastures where he gored and tossed into the air several human beings and caused many to climb up on the fence in order to keep out of his way, until they saw that his constant mad rushes had weakened his stamina and tore down his system. It was during the zenith of his fighting career that whenever Gans started from home to engage in a fight his mother would laughingly say, “Bring home the bacon, Joe.” The boy fully understood and appreciated his mother’s encouraging joke and never returned home, when in his prime, without bringing along the winner’s roll of money. Joe Gans was as game as any game rooster that ever threw defiant crows from a barnyard gate and when he was in great need of money, to get a fight he would make such vitality sapping and strength weakening weights that people wondered how he was able to stand up much less jump around and fight. And to the very last, poor, broken-bodied, but not broken spirited, Joe Gans put up one of the gamest losing battles ever fought against that greatest champion—of all times among all peoples—Death.

“Panama Joe Gans” a Colored fighter of today has added laurels to the name he has adopted by becoming Middleweight Champion. Like his late namesake he is willing at all times to give the best of them in and out of his class chances to win his title. Just because he is a champion he does not draw the “color line” against any white fighter but fights as often as four and five times a month with his championship at stake every time.

Other Colored fighters who were among the best in their times and who no doubt would have won championships in and out of their classes, had the “color lines” not been drawn around them, are; Bob Armstrong, Jack Blackburn, Bobbie Dobbs, Sam Hopkins, Young Peter Jackson, Joe Jeanette, Sam Langford, Sam McVey and Fred Morris.

Some of the present day Colored fighters who are most frequently heard about are Jeff Clark, Leo Johnson, Jamaica Kid, Kid Norfolk, Benny Ponteau, Bill Tate, Jack Thompson, Jack White and Harry Wills, challenger and dreaded foe of Dempsey.

From 1908 to 1914 the world heavyweight champion fighter was Jack Johnson, the only Colored man who ever wore that crown of ring glory and belt of fighting fame. Unlike any of the white heavyweight champions, Johnson won the title twice: first from Tommy Burns in 1908 and secondly on that memorial Fourth of July 1910, from Jim Jefferies, who along with the American public disputed Jack’s right to the title. After his complete whipping of Jefferies, the Colored fighter, proved to the entire world that he was not only the rightful holder of the title but that he was also one of the best champions the ring had ever seen. Because of his having the pantherlike movements and quickness of a Peter Jackson, the straight-arm punch of a John L. Sullivan, the scientific hit-and-get-away style of a James J. Corbett, the ring generalship and craftiness of a “Bob” Fitzsimmons and the gameness and stamina of a “Jim” Jefferies, plus his own level-headedness and cheerful fighting disposition, the best fight critics in America and Europe considered “Jack” Johnson when in his prime, as being the best all-round and equally balanced heavyweight fighter who ever crawled through the ropes to battle in a prize ring.

Regarding the Johnson-Willard fight in Havana, Cuba, at which time the heavyweight title passed from Johnson to Willard the writer quotes here an extract that is taken from the article, “Jack Johnson Tells The Truth” that was written by Juli Jones, Jr. in the August 6, 1921 issue of The Chicago Defender.

“The sporting editor of the New York Sun printed an article which stated that Jack Johnson said the Willard fight was on the level; that he did not lay down to Willard in Havana, Cuba. This statement coming from Johnson, printed in one of America’s first-class dailies, is the first good step that Johnson has taken to win the favor of the real sporting public. The present public will not stand for a crook or a bad loser. It killed Fred Fulton, a very likable man.

“Johnson in part made it quite plain when he stated if he was going to lay down to Willard he would have done so in the seventh or ninth round, and not wait until the twenty-sixth to flop. He also stated he had always fought square and that was the reason he got to the top. Johnson gives a good reason for his failure to whip Willard, a very good reason. First, he had underestimated Willard, hadn’t proper training, ran around on the ocean looking for a battle ground. These had their effects on the fight.”

Throughout his marvelous fighting career, Johnson was climbing to success under most unfavorable conditions. White fighters in winning championships have only to fight against and beat down the opponent in the ring before them. But before he even got a chance to fight for the titled belt, “Jack” had always to mentally fight race prejudice on the outside of the ring at the same time he was physically beating down his white opponent in the ring. It would be hard to find proper words to describe the great fistic career Johnson would have made for himself if he had received the same kind of unprejudiced encouragements and boostings all white champions receive. And if up to this date nearly one hundred million of white Americans consider it wonderful to have produced out of that number seven white heavyweight champion fighters—Sullivan, Corbett, Fitzsimmons, Jefferies, Burns, Willard, and Dempsey; or in other words a champion for ever fourteen million of their population: then it must be most wonderful that less than thirteen million of Colored Americans, under most unfair and persecuting conditions, have produced one heavyweight champion fighter of the world—John Arthur (“Jack”) Johnson.

For the benefit of those people who, on account of their jealousy and envy of Johnson’s fighting ability, try to defame and lower his character to the lowest, the writer would suggest the reading of the logic article—“Jack Johnson, Self-Made Man” that was written in the May 15, 1920 issue of the Chicago Defender by the able sport scribe, Juli Jones, Jr. The following is an extract from that article:

“Both races got Jack wrong. His aim in life was not to be a doctor, preacher, lawyer or Race Leader. He set out to be the best man with his fists, which he did beyond all question of doubt. We cannot find one case where Jack ruined any young girl’s future or broke up any man’s happy home; neither was he mixed up in any barroom fights. Never was he found in the gutter drunk or making a disgraceful fellow of himself, throwing away his money. On the other hand, since Jack has been self-exiled from his country, press reports from England, France, Spain and Mexico tell us that he has conducted himself in the most gentlemanly way and is welcome back in their countries at any time. How many, men who have been born under any flag could have stood what Jack has stood for the past six or eight years and still be in the limelight, handing the world a golden smile, saying, “Good will to all men.”

Now, not for one moment is the writer, in dealing with this subject, attempting to shield or cover-up any short-comings that may have occured in the private life of Jack Johnson. But, if after reading the above quotation there still be those people who continue to sneer at and belittle the upward struggles and crowning success of this professional fighter, the writer would kindly suggest that each one of such people ask himself or herself the following question:

Have I (with all my good birth, pleasant and elevating home life, early encouragements, full privileges, unnumbered opportunities, unchecked enthusiasms, unshaken determinations, wide preparations, various abilities, friendly boostings and perfect living) ever stood for one whole day upon the top round of world recognized success in my chosen life work; as “Jack” Johnson stood for six years on the top round of world recognized success in his self-selected life calling?