From the New York Times
Jack Johnson Wins;
Police Stop FightNegro’s Punishment of Champion
Burns Causes Authorities
To End Bout
News of Saturday Morning’s Battle in
Australia Received Last Night
In New YorkSydney, Saturday Noon, Jack Johnson, the big Negro from Galveston, Texas, is the world’s champion, heavyweight pugilist. He won the title in the big arena at Ruschutters Bay, from Tommy Burns, the French Canadian, who had held it since James J. Jefferies relinquished it, and after a chase of Burns that led half way round the world.
The end came in the fourteenth round when the police, seeing Burns tottering and unable to defend himself from the savage blows of his opponent, mercifully stopped the fight.
From PBS.org
Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion, whose reign lasted from 1908 to 1915, was also the first African American pop culture icon. He was photographed more than any other black man of his day and, indeed, more than most white men. He was written about more as well. Black people during the early 20th century were hardly the subject of news in the white press unless they were the perpetrators of crime or had been lynched (usually for a crime, real or imaginary). Johnson was different—not only was he written about in black newspapers but he was, during his heyday, not infrequently the subject of front pages of white papers. Read More
From ESPN.com
Easy question: Who was the man named Jack who broke a color barrier in sports?
Harder question: Name another.Harder because it happened so long ago. But in 1908, 39 years before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in major league baseball, there was Jack Johnson — the first black man to hold the world heavyweight championship. Read More