John Arthur Johnson (March 31, 1878 – June 10, 1946), nicknamed the "Galveston Giant", was an American boxer who, at the height of the Jim Crow era, became the first black world heavyweight boxing champion (1908–1915). His 1910 fight against James J. Jeffries was dubbed the "fight of the century". Johnson defeated Jeffries, who was white, triggering dozens of race riots across the U.S. According to filmmaker Ken Burns, "for more than thirteen years, Jack Johnson was the most famous and the most notorious African American on Earth". He is widely regarded as one of the most influential boxers in history.
In 1912, Johnson opened a successful and luxurious "black and tan" (desegregated) restaurant and nightclub in Chicago, which in part was run by his wife, a white woman. Major newspapers of the time soon claimed that Johnson was attacked by the federal government only after he became famous as a black man married to a white woman, and was linked to other white women. Johnson was arrested on charges of violating the federal Mann Act—forbidding one to transport a woman across state lines for "immoral purposes"—a racially motivated charge that embroiled him in controversy for his relationships, including marriages. Sentenced to a year in prison, Johnson fled the country and fought boxing matches abroad for seven years until 1920, when he served his sentence at the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth.
Johnson continued taking paying fights for many years, and operated several other businesses, including lucrative endorsement deals. He died in a car crash in 1946 at the age of 68. In 2018, Johnson was posthumously pardoned by U.S. President Donald Trump.
Early life
Born on March 31, 1878, Johnson grew up in Galveston, Texas. He was the third child and eldest son among nine children born to Henry and Tina ("Tiny") Johnson, both formerly enslaved. Henry, who was disabled while serving in the Union's 38th Colored Infantry as a civilian teamster, worked as a janitor while Tiny took in washing.
As a youth, Johnson associated with the racially integrated 11th Street and Avenue K gang, though he later wrote in his 1927 autobiography that he did not engage in fights before the age of 12. Remembering his childhood, Johnson said: "As I grew up, the white boys were my friends and my pals. I ate with them, played with them and slept at their homes. Their mothers gave me cookies, and I ate at their tables. No one ever taught me that white men were superior to me." Although a segregated high school for Black students was available to him, Johnson did not enroll. Instead, he entered the workforce to contribute to his family's income. He held a series of jobs, including cleaning a barbershop, working as a porter in a gambling parlor, and assisting a baker. For a time, he traveled to Dallas in search of employment and apprenticed with a carriage painter. It was there that the shop's owner, Walter Lewis, first introduced him to the sport of boxing.
Johnson later said that he left home again at age 16. According to his account, he traveled to Manhattan to meet Steve Brodie, the Irish immigrant who claimed to have survived a jump from the newly completed Brooklyn Bridge in 1886. He reportedly then went on to Boston to see another of his heroes, Barbados Joe Walcott, a welterweight fighter from the West Indies. Afterward, Johnson returned to the Texas Gulf Coast and worked as a janitor, a stableboy, a hotel porter and a longshoreman. At one point, he got a job cleaning a gym and saved up enough money to buy a pair of boxing gloves. In the summer of 1895, he took part in his first significant bout, facing fellow dockworker John Lee on the beach. Johnson won both the match and the $1.50 prize. Later that summer, when professional boxer Bob Thompson offered $25 to anyone who could last four rounds with him in Galveston, Johnson accepted the challenge. He completed the four rounds but later described the prize money as "the hardest earned money of my life."
Boxing career
Johnson made his debut as a professional boxer on November 1, 1898, in Galveston, when he knocked out Charley Brooks in the second round of a 15-round bout. This victory gave him the Texas state middleweight title.
In 1899, Johnson traveled to Chicago and began winning "battle royals", in which a half dozen or more young black men were gloved, blindfolded, and pushed into a ring where they were forced to flail at each other until only one remained standing. Johnson was the last man standing, and won $1.50, which he had to turn over to the white "manager" who had gotten him the fight. His performance attracted the attention of promoter Jack Curley and P.J. "Paddy" Carroll, who arranged for him to face Black heavyweight John "Klondike" Haynes. Johnson lost that bout in May 1899 after retiring in the fifth round. In January 1901, Carroll organized a rematch between Johnson and Klondike in Memphis. Johnson battered Klondike badly enough that he quit in the 14th round.
Johnson vs. Choynski
On February 25, 1901, Johnson fought Joe Choynski at Harmony Hall in Galveston, Texas. Choynski, a popular and experienced heavyweight, knocked out Johnson in the third round. As Johnson lay dazed on the canvas, authorities, including the Texas Rangers, intervened, and both fighters were arrested for participating in an illegal prizefight. They spent 23 days in jail, during which Sheriff Henry Thomas permitted spectators to gather outside and observe the men sparring. A grand jury declined to issue indictments, and the sheriff released both men on the condition that they leave town.
Johnson attested that his success in boxing came from the coaching he received from Choynski. The aging Choynski saw natural talent and determination in Johnson and taught him the nuances of defense, stating: "A man who can move like you should never have to take a punch".
World colored heavyweight champion
On February 5, 1903, at Hazard's Pavilion in Los Angeles, Johnson won a 20-round decision over Denver Ed Martin for the World Colored Heavyweight Championship, which he defended four times in the next two years. By the end of 1903, the Los Angeles Times declared that "Jack Johnson is now the logical opponent for Champion Jeffries.... The color line gag does not go now."
Johnson vs. Jeanette & Langford
Johnson and Joe Jeanette fought frequently between 1905 and 1908, with Johnson dominating their official matchups before winning the world heavyweight title. Often referred to as part of the "Black Heavyweight" era, they fought 7–10 times (sources vary on exact number of "no-decision" matches). After winning the heavyweight title in 1908, Johnson refused to fight Jeanette again, despite numerous challenges.
Johnson fought Sam Langford once, on April 26, 1906, at the Lincoln Athletic Club in Chelsea, Massachusetts. Johnson, who outweighed Langford by 35 pounds, won easily, breaking Langford's nose and cutting his lip. Johnson said later that he had prolonged the match to 15 rounds at the request of the ring's management. Once Johnson won the heavyweight championship, he refused to give Langford a chance at the title.
World heavyweight champion
At the time, the heavyweight boxing champion was widely regarded as an embodiment of ideal masculinity. The prospect of an African American holding the title challenged prevailing beliefs in white superiority. Because boxing was one of the most popular sports of the era—alongside baseball and horse racing—the champion attracted significant public attention. Many white Americans opposed the idea of a Black champion receiving such prominence after defeating white opponents. As a result, Johnson encountered substantial obstacles in securing a bout with the reigning heavyweight champion.
In 1904, Johnson issued a challenge to James J. Jeffries, who held the world heavyweight title at the time. However, Jeffries refused to fight an African American and retired instead. Johnson later fought former champion Bob Fitzsimmons in July 1907 and knocked him out in two rounds.
Johnson finally won the world heavyweight title on December 26, 1908, a full six years after lightweight champion Joe Gans became the first African American boxing champion. Johnson's victory over the reigning world champion, Canadian Tommy Burns, at the Sydney Stadium in Australia, came after following Burns around the world for two years and taunting him in the press for a match. Burns agreed to fight Johnson only after promoters guaranteed him $30,000. Burns, who was 24 pounds lighter than the 192-pound Johnson, was practically out on his feet in the 14th round when the police jumped into the ring and stopped the fight in front of over 20,000 spectators. Referee Hugh McIntosh awarded the championship to Johnson.
After Johnson's victory over Burns, racial animosity among whites ran so deep that some, including renowned American author Jack London, called for a "Great White Hope" to take the title away from Johnson. While Johnson was heavyweight champion, he was covered more in the press than all other notable black men combined. The lead-up to the bout was peppered with racist press against Johnson. An editorial in the New York Times ("Pugilists as Race Champions") expressed a concern that the fight would "have the deplorable effect of intensifying racial antagonisms and of making race problems more difficult of solution": If the black man wins, thousands and thousands of his ignorant brothers will misinterpret his victory as justifying claims to much more than mere physical equality with their white neighbors. If the negro loses, the members of his race will be taunted and irritated [provoked] because of their champion's downfall.
Johnson refused to keep a low profile in the face of criticism of his color and character, and instead took on an excessively flamboyant lifestyle. He drove flashy yellow sports cars, reputedly walked his pet leopard while sipping champagne, flaunted gold teeth that went with his gold-handled walking stick, and engaged in numerous, overlapping romances with women–all of them white.
As title holder, Johnson thus had to face a series of fighters each billed by boxing promoters as a "great white hope". He fought two exhibitions and three no-decisions before meeting middleweight champ Stanley Ketchel on October 16, 1909. The 205+1⁄2-pound Johnson knocked out the 170+1⁄4-pound Ketchel in the 12th round with a devastating right to the jaw, one of the hardest blows ever delivered. Five of the challenger's teeth were ripped off at the roots; Johnson can be seen on film removing them from his glove, where they had been embedded.
"Fight of the Century"
In 1910, former undefeated heavyweight champion James J. Jeffries came out of retirement to challenge Johnson, saying "I am going into this fight for the sole purpose of proving that a white man is better than a Negro". He had not fought in six years and he also had to lose well over 100 pounds to get back to his championship fighting weight. Efforts to persuade Jeffries to "retrieve the honor of the white race" began immediately after the Burns–Johnson fight. Initially Jeffries had no interest in the fight, being quite happy as an alfalfa farmer. On October 29, 1909, Johnson and Jeffries signed an agreement to "box for the heavyweight championship of the world" and called promoters to bid for the right to orchestrate the event.
In early December 1909, Johnson and Jeffries selected a bid from the nation's top boxing promoters—Tex Rickard and John Gleason. The bid guaranteed a purse of $101,000 (equivalent to $3,619,000 in 2025) to be divided 75 percent to the winner and 25 percent to the loser, as well as two-thirds of the revenues collected from the sales of the right to film the fight (each boxer received one third of the equity rights). Although it was well understood that a victory for Jeffries was likely to be more profitable than a victory for Johnson, there were no doubts that either way the event would produce record profits. Legal historian Barak Orbach argues that in "an industry that promoted events through the dramatization of rivalries, a championship contest between an iconic representative of the white race and the most notorious [black fighter] was a gold mine".
Jeffries mostly remained hidden from media attention until the day of the fight, while Johnson soaked up the spotlight. John L. Sullivan, who made boxing championships a popular and esteemed spectacle, stated that Johnson was in such good physical shape compared to Jeffries that he would only lose if he had a lack of skill on the day of the fight. Before the fight, Jeffries remarked, "It is my intention to go right after my opponent and knock him out as soon as possible." While his wife added, "I'm not interested in prizefighting but I am interested in my husband's welfare, I do hope this will be his last fight." Johnson's words were "May the best man win."
Racial tension was brewing in the lead up to the fight and to prevent any harm from coming to either boxer, guns were prohibited within the arena along with the sale of alcohol and anyone who was under the effects of alcohol. Apples and all other potential weapons were barred. Behind the racial attitudes which were being instigated by the media was a major investment in gambling for the fight, with 10–7 odds in favor of Jeffries.
The fight took place on July 4, 1910, in front of 20,000 people, at a ring which was built just for the occasion in downtown Reno, Nevada. Jeffries proved unable to impose his will on the younger champion and Johnson dominated the fight. By the 15th round, after Jeffries had been knocked down twice for the first time in his career, Jeffries' corner threw in the towel to end the fight and prevent Jeffries from having a knockout on his record.
Johnson later remarked he knew the fight was over in the 4th round when he landed an uppercut and saw the look on Jeffries face, stating, "I knew what that look meant. The old ship was sinking." Afterwards, Jeffries was humbled by the loss and what he had seen of Johnson in their match. "I could never have whipped Johnson at my best," Jeffries said. "I couldn't have hit him. No, I couldn't have reached him in 1,000 years."
The "Fight of the Century" earned Johnson $65,000 (over $2.2 million in 2025 dollars) and silenced the critics, who had belittled Johnson's previous victory over Tommy Burns as "empty", claiming that Burns was a false champion since Jeffries had retired undefeated. John L. Sullivan commented after the fight that Johnson won deservedly, fairly and convincingly,
The fight of the century is over and a black man is the undisputed champion of the world. It was a poor fight as fights go, this less than 15-round affair between James J. Jeffries and Jack Johnson. Scarcely has there ever been a championship contest that was so one-sided. All of Jeffries much-vaunted condition amounted to nothing. He wasn't in it from the first bell tap to the last ... The negro had few friends, but there was little demonstration against him. (Spectators) could not help but admire Johnson because he is the type of prizefighter that is admired by sportsmen. He played fairly at all times and fought fairly. ... What a crafty, powerful, cunning left hand (Johnson) has. He is one of the craftiest, cunningest boxers that ever stepped into the ring. ... They both fought closely all during the 15 rounds. It was just the sort of fight that Jeffries wanted. There was no running or ducking like Corbett did with me in New Orleans (1892). Jeffries did not miss so many blows, because he hardly started any. Johnson was on top of him all the time.... (Johnson) didn't get gay at all with Jeffries in the beginning, and it was always the white man who clinched, but Johnson was very careful, and he backed away and took no chances, and was good-natured with it all ... The best man won, and I was one of the first to congratulate him, and also one of the first to extend my heartfelt sympathy to the beaten man.
Riots and aftermath
The outcome of the fight triggered race riots that evening—the Fourth of July—all across the United States, from Texas and Colorado to New York and Washington, D.C. Johnson's victory over Jeffries had dashed white dreams of finding a "great white hope" to defeat him. Many whites felt humiliated by the defeat of Jeffries.
Black Americans, on the other hand, were jubilant and celebrated Johnson's great victory as a victory for racial advancement. Black poet William Waring Cuney later highlighted the black reaction to the fight in his poem "My Lord, What a Morning".
Race riots erupted in New York, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Atlanta, St. Louis, Little Rock and Houston. In all, riots occurred in more than 25 states and 50 cities. At least twenty people were killed in the riots and hundreds more were injured.
Film of the bout
The Johnson–Jeffries Fight film received more public attention in the United States than any other film to date and for the next five years, until the release of The Birth of a Nation. In the United States, many states and cities banned the exhibition of the Johnson–Jeffries film. The movement to censor Johnson's victory took over the country within three days after the fight.
Two weeks after the match former President Theodore Roosevelt, an avid boxer and fan, wrote an article for The Outlook in which he supported banning not just moving pictures of boxing matches, but a complete ban on all prize fights in the US. He cited the "crookedness" and gambling that surrounded such contests and that moving pictures have "introduced a new method of money getting and of demoralization".
In 2005, the film of the Jeffries–Johnson "Fight of the Century" was entered into the United States National Film Registry as being worthy of preservation.
The six fights for which the major films were made, starring Johnson, were
Johnson–Burns, released in 1908
Johnson–Ketchel, released in 1909
Johnson–Jeffries, released in 1910
Johnson–Flynn, released in 1912
Johnson–Moran, released in 1914
Johnson–Willard, released in 1915
Maintaining the Color Bar
The color bar remained in effect even under Johnson. Once he was the world's heavyweight champ, Johnson did not fight a black opponent for the first five years of his reign. He denied matches to black heavyweights Joe Jeanette, one of his successors as colored heavyweight champ, Sam Langford, who beat Jeanette for the colored title and the young Harry Wills, who was colored heavyweight champ during the last year of Johnson's reign as world's heavyweight champ.
Black fighters were not given a chance at the title because Johnson maintained that he could make more money fighting White boxers. In August 1913, as Johnson neared the end of his reign as world heavyweight champ, there were rumors that he had agreed to fight Langford in Paris for the title, but it did not happen. Johnson alleged that Langford was unable to raise the $30,000 for his guarantee.
Because Black boxers, with the exception of Johnson, had been barred from fighting for the heavyweight championship, Johnson's refusal to fight African-Americans offended the African-American community, since the opportunity to fight top white boxers was rare. Jeanette criticized Johnson, saying, "Jack forgot about his old friends after he became champion and drew the color line against his own people."
Johnson v. Johnson
When Johnson finally agreed to take on a Black opponent in late 1913, it was not Sam Langford the current colored heavyweight champion that he gave the title shot to. Instead, Johnson chose to take on Battling Jim Johnson, a lesser-known boxer who in 1910 had lost to Langford and had a draw and loss via KO to Sam McVey, the former colored champ. Battling Jim fought former colored champ Joe Jeanette four times between July 19, 1912, and January 21, 1913, and lost all four fights. The only fighter of note who he did beat during that period was the future Colored champ Big Bill Tate, whom he KO-ed in the second round of a scheduled 10-round bout. It was Tate's third pro fight.
In November 1913, the International Boxing Union had declared the world heavyweight title held by Jack Johnson to be vacant. The fight, scheduled for 10 rounds, was held on December 19, 1913, in Paris. It was the first time in history that two black people had fought for the world heavyweight championship
Jack Johnson, the heavyweight champion, and Battling Jim Johnson, another colored pugilist, of Galveston, Texas, met in a 10-round contest here tonight, which ended in a draw. The spectators loudly protested throughout that the men were not fighting, and demanded their money back. Many of them left the hall. The organizers of the fight explained the fiasco by asserting that Jack Johnson's left arm was broken in the third round. There is no confirmation of a report that Jack Johnson had been stabbed and no evidence at the ringside of such an accident. During the first three rounds he was obviously playing with his opponent. After that it was observed that he was only using his right hand. When the fight was over, he complained that his arm had been injured. Doctors who made an examination, certified to a slight fracture of the radius of the left arm. The general opinion is that his arm was injured in a wrestling match early in the week, and that a blow tonight caused the fracture of the bone.
Because of the draw, Jack Johnson kept his championship. After the fight, he explained that his left arm was injured in the third round and he could not use it.
Title loss
In late 1914, two ambitious promoters—Jack Curley and Harry Frazee—began working to arrange a title fight between Johnson and 6-foot, 61⁄4-inch, 230-pound Jess Willard. The fight was set at the Oriental Park Racetrack in Havana, Cuba, on April 5, 1915, before a crowd of 25,000. At age 37, Johnson had a noticeable paunch and looked anything but ready for the scheduled 45-round bout. Nevertheless, he dominated the fight until the 20th round. In the 26th round, Willard penetrated Johnson's withering defense with a hard right to the head. Johnson was knocked out, and Willard became the new heavyweight champion.