Jack Johnson, Rebel Sojourner Read online

  In the years just before Johnson's rise to fame, another black heavyweight named Peter Jackson garnered international recognition. Born on 3 July 1861 in Frederiksted, St. Croix, of the Danish Virgin Islands, Jackson, also known as “The Black Prince,” had moved to Sydney, Australia, as a teenager. He started sparring as a deckhand and quickly emerged as a bona fide contender in the early 1880s. After winning the Australian heavyweight title in 1886, Jackson had difficulty coaxing white Australians into the ring with him. Intent on continuing his boxing career, he traveled to the United States and later to Britain, where he became a prominent prizefighter and performer. Despite his widespread success and genteel manner, Jackson was never able to vie for the world title since the reigning white American champion, John L. Sullivan, refused to fight him.27 For early black sportsmen, from Molineaux to Jackson, their confrontations with the color line were never neatly contained within national borders.

  They formed an integral part of a much broader history of black working-class travel and resistance, a kind of “vagabond internationalism.”28 Despite their low social position, people of African descent had long struggled to make their mark on the moral and political economy of the world. From the revolutionary period to the age of emancipation, maritime work had offered enslaved and free blacks a route to greater mobility and autonomy. Black seamen experienced a level of racial fluidity as yet unimaginable on land. They also helped to spread subversive information and ideas throughout the African diaspora. They were not simply a rebellious vanguard, for they built on an already robust network of underground connections across plantation, colonial, national, and even regional boundaries.29

  FIGURE 1. In the late nineteenth century Peter Jackson gained international recognition as he moved from country to country in search of white opponents who would fight him. He won the heavyweight championship of Australia (1886) and of England and Australia (1892), but he never got the chance to fight John L. Sullivan for the world heavyweight championship. National Library of Australia.

  This black global vision was borne out of the shared experiences of the enslaved, the dispossessed, the displaced, and the disfranchised—those who had virtually no claims to citizenship rights, no cause for loyalty to the nation-state, and very little stake in the capitalist system.30 By the late nineteenth century the growing ranks of roving laborers such as black sailors, athletes, and performers proved difficult for white authorities to control. They often had very little to lose. They were no longer yoked to the plantation. Kept out of the economic sphere, most were not tied down by property ownership or lucrative businesses. Many were already separated from their families. Black seafarers continued to be key figures in the black transnational literature of the early twentieth century. Most famously, the meandering maritime narratives of the Jamaican-American leftist Claude McKay underscored the importance of black working-class travel in the development of radical global imaginaries, and the anticolonial and anticapitalist activism they inspired.31 The hard-drinking, fist-fighting black mariners featured in works like McKay's novel Banjo: A Story without a Plot (1929) were more than just metaphorical. Their fictional experiences on the margins of Western modernity resembled many of the real-life challenges facing Johnson and other rebel sojourners.32 Even McKay himself noted that black boxers usually came out of “a milieu of the very poor proletariat” and were hailed as heroes in all the “Negro billiard halls, barbershops, and nightclubs of American cities.”33 Drifting in the undercurrents of late imperialism and industrial capitalism, they were part of a disposable and highly mobile workforce that moved in and out of the underground economy. Much like McKay's wandering seamen in Banjo, they were “nationality doubtful…with no place to go.”34

  Long before the Harlem Renaissance intellectual Alain Locke declared that “Uncle Tom and Sambo have passed on,” Johnson and other black pugilists were already articulating their own masculine image of a proud, independent, and assertive New Negro.35 However, unlike Locke's vision, their vision of the New Negro emerged from the subaltern, homosocial spaces of the diaspora, where anarchistic, ever-shifting communities of black men defied the gendered and sexual conventions of bourgeois domesticity. Theirs was a subversive camaraderie that cut against the normative grain of the white imperial order.36 They refused to play by society's economic and social rules.

  For them, boxing was not just a better way to make money; it was a route to freedom and independence. Although still managed by white promoters, black men often used the boxing industry as a means to escape from the discipline and degradation of menial low-wage work. The competitive and performative elements of boxing also provided them with opportunities to express themselves in bold new ways. Given the sport's widespread popularity, Johnson and other African American boxers were able to experience life beyond the borders of the United States. Transnational in their travels and resistant to the racial and imperial status quo, black boxers became some of Western modernity's best-known discontents. Yet they have more or less been written out of standard histories of the black renaissance and treated as little more than an amusing sideshow in histories of black transnationalism.

  Born on 31 March 1878 in Galveston, Texas, John Arthur “Jack” Johnson became the most famous discontent of his time. The third child and first son of former slaves Henry and Tina (also known as “Tiny”), Johnson arrived in the wake of the U.S. Civil War and Reconstruction as new racial regimes emerged to reassert white control over the recently freed African slaves.37 In the first decades of his life, the color line became increasingly rigid in the United States, reinforced by the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson doctrine of “separate but equal.” The late nineteenth century was also marked by widespread change and upheaval. Johnson came of age at a moment of unprecedented demographic and economic expansion, as societies around the globe not only shifted from rural to urban and from agricultural to industrial but also became increasingly interlinked through more rapid modes of transportation and communication. Despite the period's retrogressive racial politics, these sweeping shifts helped to instill an optimistic sense of possibility among many African Americans.

  In search of greater fortune, Johnson's own parents had made the trek out of the plantation economy of the Deep South to the maritime hub of Galveston.38 Even though they continued to struggle against racial discrimination and financial hardship, their decision to move to the Gulf Coast had undoubtedly opened up new prospects for their children. Young Jack's early experiences in the port city helped to shape both his cosmopolitan outlook and his utter contempt for the color line, two characteristics that pushed him along the path to a high-profile career in boxing.

  Galveston's importance as a southern center of maritime trade made it much more demographically varied than other Texan towns further inland. Diverse groups of people passed through the busy seaport, including European immigrants and black sailors from across the Atlantic world.39 These foreign visitors often mingled with the locals, developing a sense of camaraderie as they shared exciting tales of their journeys. Johnson likely gained his first glimpse of life abroad through such chance encounters.

  Galveston was also comparatively lax in its policing of racial divisions. Its waterfront and rail yard were especially vibrant centers of interracial activity for the city's working-class youth. Johnson was a prominent member of the 11th Street and Avenue K gang, a motley group of white and black boys that roamed the docks. He even became best friends with the gang's leader, a white youngster named Leo Posner. “So you see, as I grew up, white boys were my friends and my pals,” Johnson later reminisced. “I ate with them, played with them and slept at their homes. Their mothers gave me cookies, and I ate at their tables.”40 His boyhood experiences had raised his expectations for racial equality.

  As Johnson grew up, life became far more complicated. Like many of his black classmates, Johnson abandoned school as an adolescent, taking a job as a stevedore. Despite the steady paycheck, he hated the monotonous, backbreaking work and left to try
his luck at a series of odd jobs, riding the rails between Galveston and other south Texas cities. Johnson was a porter at a gambling parlor, a baker's assistant, and even a horse trainer.41 Believing that mobility afforded him greater control over his life, he continued to travel as a stowaway, eventually reaching the international hubs of New York City and Chicago.

  Far from provincial in his outlook, young Jack relished the opportunity to journey in search of new adventures and experiences. In his 1927 autobiography Johnson claimed that he had left home at the age of twelve in search of Steve Brodie, an Irish immigrant who became famous in 1886 after claiming to have survived a leap from the newly built Brooklyn Bridge.42 While Johnson's tale of his quest for Brodie was likely more fiction than fact, the sheer scope of this childhood narrative reveals much about the beginnings of his expansive geographic imagination. “From the Texas town to New York was a long way, especially for a youngster without funds,” Johnson recalled. Nevertheless, he was resolved to meet Brodie, the hero that he and his friends had read so much about in the newspaper.

  As the story went, the determined yet naïve Johnson set out in pursuit of Brodie. “I spent more than a week trying to find a train out of the railroad yards,” he recalled. “There were strings of box cars at my disposal and many times, seeing a train of cars moving in the direction which I believed would take me to New York, I hid myself in one of them and settled down for my long journey.”43 Unfortunately, he discovered that he was just circling the rail yards. Still, young Jack refused to be discouraged.

  Rather than give up on his dream, he quietly stowed away on a steamship bound for New York City. His presence did not remain a secret for long. The ship's captain soon discovered Johnson and put him to work shoveling coal and peeling potatoes.44 Although bruised from the many beatings he endured at the hands of ship's cook, young Jack arrived in New York brimming with optimism. As he explored the city he asked around for Brodie's whereabouts. The Irish daredevil apparently ran a local saloon, so Johnson made his way to the Bowery District. Although he never actually met Brodie, as Johnson later recalled, “I found a new entrance into life, and spent many happy, if not prosperous days in New York during which time I met many historic Bowery personages, [and] became more or less absorbed by Bowery life.”45

  Johnson considered himself to be in the midst of a new “career as a worldly young man.”46 Instead of returning home he journeyed from New York to Boston in search of another one of his idols, the Afro-Caribbean prizefighter Joe Walcott, also known as “The Barbados Demon.” While Jim Crow segregation had pushed its way into the sporting realm ever since the 1880s, black athletes like Walcott had persevered, touring all across the United States to practice their fighting trade. When Johnson arrived in Boston he took a job in the stables of the city's society folk and later tracked down his hero. Enamored with the Barbadian welterweight, young Jack sometimes carried Walcott's gear to and from the boxing gym. Regardless of the exact dates and details of Johnson's northeast jaunt, he was clearly captivated by the adventuresome lives of Brodie and Walcott. Indeed, Johnson tried to emulate them. Throughout his teenage years he continued with his “roaming instincts and hectic experiences,” splitting his time between Galveston and other U.S. cities.47

  Much to the chagrin of his parents, Johnson had not chosen a conventional route to racial uplift. “My father would have had me take more interest in the church, and sought determinedly to have me extend my schooling,” Johnson claimed.48 Instead of working toward a respectable trade, young Jack gravitated to the seedy life of Galveston's dockyards, where he developed a reputation as a skillful fighter. Even when he took on an apprenticeship in carriage painting in Dallas at the age of fifteen, his experiences still pushed him further down the road to becoming a professional boxer. Walter Lewis, the white owner of the carriage shop where Johnson worked, trained him in the art of pugilism and encouraged him to pursue a career in prizefighting.

  Johnson began to “think of the boxing ring as a profession.”49 A rising star, he quickly outgrew the local fight scene. As he recollected, “The purses offered me were truly minimal—10, 15 or 20 dollars at most.” He could hardly make enough money to cover his expenses, and he soon found himself in debt, “so I decided to travel the world,” Johnson later wrote, “to try to box from one coast to the other, and to attach myself to the training camp of a famous boxer.”50

  Such ambitions were not for the faint of heart. The young prizefighter's experiences tramping to Chicago, Kansas City, and other U.S. destinations had hardened him. “Fellow travelers…initiated me into the secrets of obtaining, here and there, scraps of food sufficient to keep me alive,” Johnson claimed.51 Hunger was just one of the many challenges he faced. “Hard-boiled train crews did not seem enthusiastic over having me as a passenger, and on countless occasions I was chased from boxcars, gondolas and blinds,” Johnson recounted. “Brakemen impressed me with their earnestness by brandishing clubs with which they threatened to break numerous bones.”

  Struggling to survive during one of his forays north, he had participated in a battle royal in Springfield, Illinois. White promoters often trolled the rail yards in search of itinerant black youths to participate in these bloody free-for-all fights. Usually three or more blindfolded African American boys were pitted against each other in the ring. A Springfield man had approached Johnson about trying his luck in such a fight. Still without a manager to underwrite his expenses and arrange his matches, the half-starved Johnson agreed to participate in a battle royal in exchange for food, housing, and a $1.50 purse.52

  Despite these difficulties, by his early twenties Johnson had distinguished himself as one of the premier African American boxers both in and out of the ring. As his winnings multiplied, he threw himself into the ostentatious, dandified lifestyle typical of the period's professional athletes. Much like he had during his boyhood days at the docks, Johnson continued to reject prevailing notions of respectability, choosing instead to run in the same circles as the motley collection of pimps, prostitutes, gamblers, and entertainers that frequented the saloons and flophouses of urban vice districts. In this way he retained a special appeal for poor and working-class African Americans, even as the black middle class remained somewhat ambivalent about his sporting success and audacious demeanor.

  Not only did he hail from humble origins, but he also embodied a bold vision of black masculinity that spoke to the hopes and dreams of the dark proletariat.53 Johnson openly publicized his enjoyment of luxurious clothing and jewels, sumptuous eating and drinking, and, perhaps most of all, beautiful white women. As a Los Angeles Times reporter described the black heavyweight in 1903, “The clothes that garmented the strolling colossus spoke emphatically.” He sported trousers with “orderly creases,” gleaming patent leather boots, a high-collared, “modish” dress shirt, “a scarf of ermine silk,” diamond jewelry, and even a regal walking stick.54 He was known for performing elaborate grooming rituals, usually with the help of white servants, and for openly exhibiting his well-muscled physique in front of curious journalists. While Johnson's dandyism undoubtedly mocked mainstream society's rigid divisions between masculine and feminine—the same divisions often deployed to mark black people as deviant—he was also notorious for perpetrating domestic violence against women.55

  Beyond his focus on bodily aesthetics and his lavish taste in up-to-the-minute fashion, Johnson maintained a particular fascination with the power of cars and the mobility they offered. As one sports-writer declared, “He has never been without an automobile since they became available.”56 Over the years Johnson acquired a sizable collection of autos, including many of the leading U.S. and European makes. Johnson also prided himself on his ability to drive fast, and he ran into trouble for speeding wherever he traveled. Since he enjoyed flaunting his wealth and also thought of himself as a thoroughly independent and modern man, it is hardly surprising that Johnson focused so much of his leisure time on automobiles.57 Conservative African American leaders like B
ooker T. Washington became some of Johnson's fiercest critics. The young prizefighter had not only eschewed the more predictable path of a tradesman, but he scoffed at the black bourgeoisie's standards of restraint.

  Faced with pervasive racial segregation in the U.S. boxing scene, Johnson eventually chose to go abroad in pursuit of new opponents. The more recognition he received as a top-flight competitor, the more difficult it became for him to convince prominent white American boxers to meet him in the ring. As early as 1903 Johnson had emerged as the most logical challenger for the reigning white American world heavyweight champion Jim Jeffries, yet Jeffries steadfastly refused to fight him. Frustrated but not defeated, Johnson fixed his sights beyond the borders of the United States.

  FIGURE 2. Jack Johnson sporting his signature style, 1908. National Archives of Australia.

  As Johnson ventured out on his first journey abroad in December 1906, he joined the transnational tradition of black working-class movement and resistance. Although Johnson's roving lifestyle failed to garner him the kind of respectability that his father had hoped for, it made him famous and gave him the freedom to express himself. Over the next thirteen years he became one of the period's most worldly and outspoken black American men.

  Johnson and other rebel sojourners emerged as important “organic intellectuals” of the diaspora.58 They often saw themselves as such. Through the rising black press they provided their African American fans with insights about their experiences abroad, and through telegraph reports about their triumphs and travails they gained ardent followers throughout the colonial world. As they publicly pushed the limits of possibility wherever they traveled, they pried open an imaginative space for utopian dreams of black freedom. Moreover, as great reservoirs of practical knowledge on the workings of the global color line, they laid the groundwork for the diasporic leaders and thinkers of the interwar years, from Marcus Garvey to Claude McKay, who endeavored to envision a more militant brand of New Negro politics through the prism of transnationalism. These rough-and-tumble men, whose education, for the most part, came from the school of hard knocks, simply refused to remain in their prescribed “place.”