On February 25 1901, Jack Johnson fought Joe Choynski in Galveston. This was in the early days of Johnson’s career and Choynski, a popular and experienced heavyweight, knocked him out in the third round. Because prizefighting was illegal in Texas at the time, they were both arrested. Bail was set at $5,000 which neither could afford.…
Early 20th century America was a dangerous place to be black. The legacy of slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction had left the old social order in tatters. Ideas about white superiority, once thought of as natural and right, were being challenged. And those people whose way of life was being challenged didn’t always like it. The Ku Klux Klan boasted one million members…
“He whored and partied, seduced white women, drove fancy cars with reckless abandon, ran nightclubs, spoke a mangled version of French and mixed with gangsters, poets and princes. There was not a public figure of the age who could compare with Johnson for audacity and style – or white-baiting blackness.” Kevin Mitchell writing in The…
