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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 African American world heavyweight boxing champion (1908–1915).
Among the period’s most dominant champions, Johnson remains a boxing legend, with his 1910 fight against James J. Jeffries dubbed the “fight of the century.”
In 1912, Johnson was arrested on charges of violating the 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, with white women.
According to filmmaker Ken Burns, “for more than thirteen years, Jack Johnson was the most famous and the most notorious African-American on Earth”.
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Jack Johnson marries Lucille Cameron 1912
Although the #MannAct was created to stop forced sexual slavery of women, the most common use of the Mann Act was to prosecute men for having sex with underage females.
The phrase “immoral purpose” in the statute allowed an extremely broad application of the law following the United States Supreme Court ruling in Caminetti v. United States (1917), which held that “illicit fornication”, even when consensual, constituted an “immoral purpose.”
In addition to its stated purpose of preventing human trafficking, the law was used to prosecute unlawful premarital, extramarital, and interracial relationships.
The penalties would be applied to men whether or not the woman involved consented and, if she had consented, the woman could be considered an accessory to the offense. Some attribute enactment of the law to the case of world champion heavyweight boxer Jack Johnson.
Johnson was known to be intimate with white women, some of whom he met at the fighting venue after his fights. The year the Mann Act of 1912 was enacted he was prosecuted, and later convicted, for “transporting women across state lines for immoral purposes” as a result of his relationship with a white prostitute named Belle Schreiber; the month prior to the prosecution, Johnson had been charged with violating the Mann Act due to traveling with his white girlfriend, Lucille Cameron, who refused to cooperate with the prosecution and whom he married soon thereafter.
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While the Mann Act was meant to combat forced prostitution, it had repercussions that extended into consensual sexual activity. Because it lacked specificity, it criminalized many who were not participating in prostitution. It became a way to persecute large numbers of unmarried couples participating in premarital or extramarital activities, especially when it involved crossing state lines such as in the cases for Chuck Berry and Jack Johnson. The Mann Act also became a form of blackmail, by wives who were suspicious of cheating husbands or other women.
On December 23, 1959, Chuck Berry is arrested in St. Louis, Missouri, on charges relating to his transportation of a 14-year-old girl across state lines for allegedly “immoral purposes.”
In October and November 1912, Johnson was arrested twice under the Mann Act. It was generally acknowledged that the arrests were racially motivated. A presidential pardon was granted on May 24, 2018, by the 45th U.S. President, Donald John Trump.
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President Trump on Thursday pardoned Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion, who was convicted in 1913 of transporting a white woman across state lines.
Mr. Trump signed the pardon for Johnson during an Oval Office ceremony, sitting at the Resolute Desk and flanked by Sylvester Stallone, Lennox Lewis and other fighters.
The president called Johnson “a truly great fighter, had a tough life,” but served 10 months in federal prison “for what many view as a racially-motivated injustice.” Mr. Trump said the conviction took place during a “period of tremendous racial tension in the United States.”
Decades after Johnson was convicted under the Mann Act, his case drew significant attention as a gross miscarriage of justice and a symbol of the depths of racism in the American justice system.
Johnson was convicted in 1913 of violating the Mann Act on charges that he transported a white woman across state lines “for immoral purposes.” The woman Johnson transported, Belle Schreiber, worked as a prostitute and had been in a steady relationship with the heavyweight champion.
Johnson was sentenced to a year in prison, but he fled the country for several years, returning in 1920 to serve his sentence.
“He was treated very rough, very tough,” Mr. Trump said Thursday as he signed what he called an “executive grant of clemency, a full pardon” to Johnson.
The World Boxing Council, one of boxing’s sanctioning bodies, invited the current and former champions, including the American Deontay Wilder and Lewis of Britain, to the ceremony, according to Tim Smith, the vice president of communications for Haymon Boxing.
Not only was Johnson the first black man to win the heavyweight world championship, but he also was the rare black man of his era who was brash, ostentatious and unapologetic about his wealth and success. He taunted his opponents in the ring and dated white women, which was taboo at the time.
Johnson’s persona and race led to harsh coverage from newspapers over the years, which only served to further a negative image of the fighter.
“Jack Johnson lived in the lap of luxury, abused the fame and fortune that came to him, and died bereft of riches,” read an Associated Press article that ran in The New York Times after he died in 1946.
But in the decades after Johnson died, as society became more enlightened, his conviction came to be seen as a miscarriage of justice. Politicians and celebrities including John McCain, Stallone and the filmmaker Ken Burns advocated for his pardon.
The Obama administration passed on pardoning Johnson, citing in part allegations of domestic violence against women.
But last month, President Trump tweeted that he was considering pardoning Johnson after Stallone had told him about the boxer’s story.
Johnson’s 1910 fight against James J. Jeffries inspired the 1967 play and 1970 movie “The Great White Hope.”
After Johnson had won the heavyweight title in 1908, many in white society advocated for a white fighter to step up and win the title back. Jeffries, a former champion who had been in retirement, took up that challenge. But Johnson decimated Jeffries, a victory that sparked violent white backlash in the form of riots across the country.