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Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson | 
 enlarge | Author: Geoffrey C. Ward
Publisher: Knopf
Category: Book
List Price: $26.95
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Rating:  20 reviews
Sales Rank: 617916
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 512
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.7 x 1.7
ISBN: 0375415327
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.83092
EAN: 9780375415326
ASIN: 0375415327
Publication Date: October 26, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: great book/ we ship daily
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Product Description
He was the first black heavyweight champion in history, the most celebrated–and most reviled–African American of his age. In Unforgivable Blackness, the prizewinning biographer Geoffrey C. Ward brings to vivid life the real Jack Johnson, a figure far more complex and compelling than the newspaper headlines he inspired could ever convey. Johnson battled his way from obscurity to the top of the heavyweight ranks and in 1908 won the greatest prize in American sports–one that had always been the private preserve of white boxers. At a time when whites ran everything in America, he took orders from no one and resolved to live as if color did not exist. While most blacks struggled just to survive, he reveled in his riches and his fame. And at a time when the mere suspicion that a black man had flirted with a white woman could cost him his life, he insisted on sleeping with whomever he pleased, and married three. Because he did so the federal government set out to destroy him, and he was forced to endure a year of prison and seven years of exile. Ward points out that to most whites (and to some African Americans as well) he was seen as a perpetual threat–profligate, arrogant, amoral, a dark menace, and a danger to the natural order of things.
Unforgivable Blackness is the first full-scale biography of Johnson in more than twenty years. Accompanied by more than fifty photographs and drawing on a wealth of new material–including Johnson’s never-before-published prison memoir–it restores Jack Johnson to his rightful place in the pantheon of American individualists.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 15 more reviews...
 Darkness overcome November 8, 2008
Rose Keefe (Canada)
Jack Johnson was one of the early twentieth century's most controversial figures. He was the first black man to attain the world heavyweight championship title, an honor that had been the exclusive domain of white boxers since the sport began. His flashy personality, considerable wealth, and refusal to let his race limit his career and marital prospects belied the traditional concept of the servile, grovelling black. When Johnson beat up white men in the ring and consorted with white women in public, Caucasian America reacted violently. Blacks like Booker T. Washington worried that the hostile attention he attracted would reflect badly on them. "Just who do you think you are?" he was often asked- by both races. "Jack Johnson," he invariably replied.
The first half of `Unforgivable Blackness' traces Johnson's rise from Galveston street fighter to heavyweight champion of the world. It was hard going for years: white title holders refused to fight him, worried at the battering their legends would take if they lost to a black man. In what must be the epitome of persistence, Johnson chased the Canadian heavyweight champion Tommy Burns across the world, showing up in European cafes and Australian hotel lobbies to issue challenges. He finally defeated Burns in Sydney, Australia, in 1908, but hostile whites refused to acknowledge him as the new champion until 1910, when he beat the legendary Jim Jeffries, who had retired undefeated six years previously and only agreed to fight so he could show that "a white man is better than a negro."
In the second half of this fast-paced volume, white America crucifies Johnson for his boxing success and affinity for white women (all three of his wives were Caucasian). Congress banned prizefight films from being taken across state lines, sparing thousands of whites the demoralizing sight of Stanley Ketchel and Jim Jeffries being defeated by a Negro. Policemen wrote Johnson tickets for driving a car that they felt no black should be able to afford. He was accused of violating the Mann Act, which made it illegal to take a woman from state to state for immoral purposes. Found guilty of `transporting' Chicago prostitute Belle Schreiber, Johnson fled to Europe with his wife Lucille and wandered the globe for years. He lost the heavyweight championship to Jess Willard in Havana in 1915 and hoped that he might finally go home now that the title had been reclaimed by a white fighter. But when he did, Johnson was arrested and spent 10 months in Leavenworth prison for the Mann Act conviction. Upon his release, he was considered too old to box professionally again and therefore reduced to minor film roles and speaking engagements. He was killed in a car crash outside Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1946, after speeding furiously away from a restaurant that refused to serve him.
Geoffrey Ward has written Johnson's story in an highly readable style, combining sports history with popular biography. You don't have to be a boxing aficionado to enjoy `Unforgivable Blackness'. The entire book has an high-velocity undercurrent that keeps the reader turning the pages. Perhaps that's because Jack Johnson himself was an energetic, fascinating individual who only let himself be beaten in the ring.
 JACK JOHNSON July 7, 2008
Michael J. Lawson (BARTLESVILLE OK)
THIS BOOK PAINTS A REAL PICTURE OF THE LIFE OF A MAN IN A RACIALLY CHARGED TIME IN OUR HISTORY. THE BOOK REMINDS THE READER THAT jACK jOHNSON IS A HERO TO SOME BUT ALSO WAS A VERY REAL HUMAN BEING AND HE HAD VERY REAL PROMBLEMS, AS MANY BOXERS DO.
Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson March 25, 2008
Jonathan Harding
I first read this book a number of years ago, pursuant to the Ken Burns production on PBS. I purchased a paperback addition, the spine of which broke during a second read; hence, the purchase of the hardback at hand.
Needless to say, I consider Ward's book excellent. I say this both as a piece of general history and as a fascinating view of boxing in its infancy in this country. Johnson was polarizing, but no less interesting and influential. Consider his impact on Joe Lewis, Ali, and Miles Davis.
Thoroughly recommend both the book and Burns documentary on DVD.
Brilliant piece of work September 14, 2007
Peter (Melbourne Australia)
I thoroughly enjoyed this book on Jack Johnson. The man was the best boxer of his generation and lived his life to the fullest extent outside the ring.
The author has produced a tremendous work that completely looks at the life of the champion and gives a look at the USA in that time. Johnson had to deal with numerous issues in his day and he handled it in a manner that few could.
Well worth reading.
The Baddest of the BAD! See it for yourself, could Clay do this?? February 3, 2007
Rick "Fourstrings" Lauzon (Lehigh Acres,FL.)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I have made a study of this man and he fought at a time when a referee was basically the guy with the best seat in the house, as there were no such things as "standing eight counts", as a knockdown was the end of the round and this is why Jack Johnson, who started as a much lighter man, and he seriously had an I.Q. of a 4 year old, but, when he hit, the canvas shook!~!~! He was the first...the "VERY first BLACK MAN to be the 'International Heavyweight Champeen of the World' ". He respected no white man, and he showed his disdain by always having beauteous white women on his arms (plural) and he knew that he whipped up a frenzy where ever he went and esp. when he fought. He waited..a long time as NO WHITE man would show his face to get into the ring. The man "James Jeffries", dared to be the man to 'wipe Jack out'..he was called "The Great White Hope", and the whole world wanted the death of Jack Johnson by any white hands..he was that HATED!~!~! But, this man, worked out, not in a gym, like a "ROCKY" movie, He stood all day in the middle of barns as his best accomadations would be for Jack. He had barrells full of rocks (where do you think "Stallone's Barn scene in Russia" came from???) That was Jack Johnson for real, heaving as much as he could heaving and heaving those barrells as much as he could until all he was spent... he was a muscular man who could take your head off as Floyd Patterson did when he was the first "Heavyweight" (at 180 lbs)to regain the world's Heavyweight Crown before Muhammad Ali did it three (3) times!...Back to Jack Johnson...I cannot say much more except that when James Jeffries went down, he had NO HEART to get up..not one more time would he stand before what Jack Johnson called: "Da Hevywate Champeen of da world"! As he kept taunting his manager with that question time and again..."WHEN do I get a try"? So, the day 's temperature was over 100 degrees , if I recollect, and no wind blew, but, Jack entered into the ring first...then the "GREAT White- Hope", James jeffries, with thousands standing in that heat for what seemed as scores of years...and he was the first to leave, heaving the "spit bucket" at the newspress people, as he ran under the ring and on a waiting train...heading for "HIS FORM of GLORY": You shall read it, I know, and you will understand prejudice, hatred, violence in boxing, for it is gone as we see the sport today...this was a day of gladiators...standing, swinging, falling, the opponent standing above his opponent, waiting for a knee to leave the mat, them, again...POW!..before the "ref" even said "get back"!Jack would stalk the dizzy, man falling on the ropes, the mat, almost left the ring a few times..never a count to ten...it was down and out ...that was boxing in the "Glory Days" of the baddest Men in the world, not, greatest, or the hardest left hook, or the fastest jab..that all meant nothing.
What was the value here was round 20, round 30, round 50...and the band beat on! As did Jack Johnson...in HIS lifetime~!~!~!..this must be read by sports heros of today who are covered with padded armor for protection and for millions and millions of US Dollars. Jack walked proudly everywhere, with a pocket of change and died a poor man... Yes, these were the true Boxers of the past..this was the ONE!~!~! The ONE that you'll remember...for a long, long time!~!~!
Rick, "Strings"
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