Pardon sought for first black heavyweight champ

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

Source: AP

WASHINGTON – Sen. John McCain wants a presidential pardon for Jack Johnson, who became the nation's first black heavyweight boxing champion 100 years before Barack Obama became its first black president.

McCain feels Johnson was wronged by a 1913 conviction of violating the Mann Act by having a consensual relationship with a white woman — a conviction widely seen as racially motivated.

"I've been a very big fight fan, I was a mediocre boxer myself," McCain, R-Ariz., said in a telephone interview. "I had admired Jack Johnson's prowess in the ring. And the more I found out about him, the more I thought a grave injustice was done."

On Wednesday, McCain will join Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., filmmaker Ken Burns and Johnson's great niece, Linda Haywood, at a Capitol Hill news conference to unveil a resolution urging a presidential pardon for Johnson. Similar legislation offered in 2004 and last year failed to pass both chambers of Congress.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090401/ap_on_go_co/boxing_pardon

[MikeNearMcChord]

1. Sometimes even a broken clock is right twice a day.

I'd support it.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

7. Right. nt

[toopers]

21. What do you mean sometimes?

:-)

[Posteritatis]

24. Well, sometimes the hands fall off (nt)

[CBR]

2. Good for McCain. nt

[atreides1]

8. Right

Where has Johnny been for the last 8 years? Just another ploy to make himself into something he's not and will never be!

[CBR]

11. Well I don't like McCain but as one half of an interracial

couple, the symbolism is important to me. The outcome is positive.

[Rebubula]

12. Throw stones all you like...

...but where have our reps been on this issue??

This is symbolism for sure, but a needed sign that we are getting past the past.

[FailureToCommunicate]

3. Oh, NOW McCain sticks up for black folks. Or maybe only dead ones. But Jack

Johnson does deserve the correction. Remember, also, he was denied passage, because of his color, on a certain luxury ocean liner that hit an iceberg and sank...

[Nebulous Abstraction]

4. I don't think "The Base" would approve. n/t

[Hissyspit]

5. James Earl Jones:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065797/

Plot summary for
The Great White Hope (1970)

Jack Jefferson (James Earl Jones) as a boxer, dealing with the racism and hatred of early-20th century white America. He is not only the first black heavyweight contender; he is also in love with a white woman. Jefferson must not only deal with the hatred of whites, he must also deal with the ostracism of some members of the black community who feel he has sold out.

8 out of 10 people found the following comment useful:-
and we're still dealing with it today..., 12 June 2005

Author: Lee Eisenberg ([e-mail]) from Portland, Oregon, USA
Recently, Ken Burns wrote an editorial calling on Americans to make amends for what they as a society did to Jack Johnson. "The Great White Hope" shows what American society did to him.

James Earl Jones plays Johnson, called Jack Jefferson here (the movie is fictionalized). He was everything that a black man in the early 20th century was not supposed to be: assertive, proud, and married to a white woman. His wife Eleanor (Jane Alexander) accepted him for who he was. Naturally, white people didn't like their marriage one bit; the black population believed that Johnson was "...gainin' an attraction to the white man's poon tang." Ostracized from society, Jack and Eleanor tried to live privately, but they were constantly hounded. Jack became increasingly abusive towards Eleanor, until she took her own life. Distraught, Jack went in for one last showdown in Cuba.

Regardless of what you think of the movie overall, it's important because it shows a part of our history that we may never be able to get over, and in fact are still addressing today. Director Martin Ritt espouses the same kind of social awareness that he discussed in "Hud", "Sounder", "Conrack" and "The Front". A masterpiece.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

6. I just watched James Earl Jones in "The Comedians", very good movie. nt

[FailureToCommunicate]

14. Just saw James Earl Jones in his first screen role as the bombardier in Dr. Strangelove

Awesome movie, along with "Fail Safe" on the same subject.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

15. That's right I forgot about that. Haven't seen Fail Safe though. Who else is in it? nt

[FailureToCommunicate]

17. Henry Fonda,Walter Matthau, Larry Hagman... Kubrick tried to have it squashed

or delayed (which he did) to push his Dr Strangelove, but it is a straight-eyed look at what we were all so close to - ending up as crispy critters.
(So glad the world has changed since the Bay of Pigs and Cuban Missile Crisis days...)
Great film. Check it out.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

20. I'm probably going to get it in my next round of Netflix. Thanks. I assume you also watched

"7 Days In May".

[FailureToCommunicate]

28. I just got it at the library. Thanks.

[amb123]

19. Henry Fonda as the President

and Larry Hagman as the Russian interpreter on the Moscow-Washington Hotline.

[classysassy]

25. "The man"

The story of the first black president,starring James Earl Jones,filmed in the mid seventy.

[dipsydoodle]

9. All such issues deserve to be rectified

and good on McCain for making this move.

[pmorlan1]

10. Good for McCain & King

Good for McCain and King. The conviction of Jack Johnson was a travesty of justice and it's about time that our government recognizes that fact.

[bertman]

13. FINALLY!! I have a reason to think well of McCain.

[No Elephants]

16. McCain has noted that the Republican Party will become a permanent political minority unless it woos

racial and ethnic minorities.

A man who voted against Martin Luther King Day every change he got for decades, suddenly genuinely concerned about Johnson for reasons that are not wholly cynical?

Not buying it.

[BumRushDaShow]

22. I'm not buying it either

So then IF Obama even considered such, nutjobs from McLame's party would have a field day... immediately jumping up and down and pointing a finger at the President for "playing the race card" through the pardoning of a particular black sports figure.

How about pardoning every single civil rights activist ever arrested for demanding their basic, inalienable rights? But I'm sure that won't fly.

[Vidar]

18. Good for McCain.

[ecstatic]

23. Not buying McCain's "concern" nt

[classysassy]

26. "The man"

starring James Earl Jones,the story of our first black president.

[LanternWaste]

27. odd. It was only two weeks ago I watched a PBS documentary on him....

odd. It was only two weeks ago I watched a PBS documentary on him. Didn't know jack about the guy before that, but the guy seems to have had a rather intriguing and colorful life.


Why would a post-facto pardon for him have failed to pass *either* chamber let alone both...?