Happy Birthday to Jack Johnson (b. March 31, 1878, in Galveston, TX), who in 1908 became the first Black world heavyweight boxing champion. Likely the most famous Black person in the world at this time, Johnson openly challenged racial boundaries around intimate relationships and capitalist consumption. Historian Theresa Runstedtler shows that “As Johnson continued to beat white men in the ring and flout racial etiquette outside the ring, he frequently found himself embroiled in public fights against this wider culture of white supremacy.” She adds that “Because of their audacity and success in and out of the boxing ring, Johnson and other black pugilists became some of the most notorious heretics of this new religion of whiteness. Even though they lived on the fringes of respectable society, their geographic mobility, their public visibility, and most of all their physical conquest of white men put them at the very center of a developing black counterculture.” Johnson’s global racial boundary pushing forced racial questions beyond local or national levels into international contexts.
Recommended reading to learn more:
Citations: Theresa Runstedtler, Jack Johnson, Rebel Sojourner: Boxing in the Shadow of the Global Color Line (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012), 6, 18, Kindle edition; “Photographic postcard with photos of Jack Johnson and James J. Jeffries,” postcard (location unknown, 1910), collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (Washington, D.C.), public domain, https://www.si.edu/object/photographic-postcard-photos-jack-johnson-and-james-j-jeffries:nmaahc_2010.36.1.4.
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