Esteemed
Committee Spearheads Boxer Jack Johnson Presidential Pardon Effort; Praises
Senate Resolution
15Rounds.com,
October 7, 2004
http://15rounds.com/press/johnson_100704.htm
Filmmaker Ken Burns, Senators John McCain, Edward
Kennedy, Orrin Hatch, Reps. Charles Rangel and Jesse Jackson, Jr., Sugar Ray
Leonard, Bernard Hopkins, John Ruiz, Bert Sugar, David Dinkins, Pete Hamill,
Chuck D and Wynton Marsalis Among Committee Members Urging Overturn of
Discriminatory 1913 Conviction
Washington, D.C.—A committee of
political and civil rights leaders, boxing experts and artists, including
documentary filmmaker Ken Burns ( The Civil War, Baseball, Jazz ) are
collectively cheering this week’s Senate Resolution regarding the efforts to
clear the name of Jack Johnson, the first African-American heavyweight boxing
champion. The knockout punch of a full posthumous presidential pardon may be
near.
The Johnson pardon movement was initiated this summer by
Burns, who pursued the cause on Capitol Hill after extensively researching the
life of Jack Johnson for his film, “ Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and
Fall of Jack Johnson ,” which airs on PBS in January. The committee’s
counsel, John Siegal of the law firm Proskauer Rose LLP, prepared the
petition, which was originally filed with the U.S Department of Justice on
July 13, 2004 .
“On behalf of the pardon committee and everyone
associated with this movement for justice, we praise Senator McCain and
applaud the unanimous support of the Senate,” said Burns after the
resolution passed. “Now, future generations will have a chance to learn
about and appreciate Johnson’s important contributions to human and racial
rights and recognize his place in history with no unjust labels attached.”
To raise awareness and help enact change, Burns teamed
with an esteemed committee of political and civil rights leaders, boxing
experts and artists including Senators John McCain, Edward Kennedy and Orrin
Hatch, Representatives Charlie Rangel (New York), Eddie Bernice Johnson
(Texas) and Jesse Jackson, Jr. (Illinois), former NYC Mayor David Dinkins,
boxers Sugar Ray Leonard, Bernard Hopkins, John Ruiz, and Vernon Forrest,
composer and musician Wynton Marsalis, historian and writer Henry Louis Gates,
Jr., boxing writer Bert Sugar, rap artist and radio personality Chuck D, actor
Samuel L. Jackson, authors and columnists Pete Hamill and Jack Newfield, Jack
Johnson biographers Geoff Ward and Randy Roberts, New York Law School
Professor Denise Morgan and boxing and sports experts Kelly Swanson, Norman
Horton, Len Elmore, and Louis DiBella.
Johnson’s conviction in 1913 of violating a vice law
was widely regarded, even by the prosecuting attorney, as a punishment for
Johnson’s romantic relationships with white women. The investigation and
prosecution followed Johnson’s defeat of Jim Jeffries, a former champion
dubbed “the great white hope,” in a July 4, 1910 championship fight that
was America ‘s first high-profile interracial athletic encounter.
The petition documents in detail how the decision to
indict Jack Johnson and the conviction itself were racially motivated. Among
the findings are:
-
The Mann Act, passed in 1910, outlawed the
transportation of women in interstate or foreign commerce “for the
purpose of prostitution, debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose.”
Johnson’s trial, however, marked the first time that the Mann Act was
invoked to invade the personal privacy of two consenting adults and
criminalize their consensual sexual behavior.
-
In 1912, after the U.S. government began an
investigation of Johnson, a Justice Department official sent a memo to the
Attorney General stating, “From the facts set forth in [a] telegram
[received from a Special Agent in Chicago], and those given in the current
newspapers, I do not believe that this is a proper case for the Federal
Authorities to undertake.”
-
After one failed attempt by the Bureau of
Investigation to bring charges against Johnson under the Mann Act, the
Department of Justice combed through Johnson’s past relationships until
they found a white woman who was willing to testify against him.
Government investigators received an anonymous letter that identified
Belle Schreiber, one of Johnson former white lovers, as a likely witness
to testify against him. The letter reads, “I sincerely trust that I have
made this effort as plain to you as I possibly could under the
circumstances, and that you shall be able to gather sufficient evidence
from the above named persons to enable you to send this nigger to jail for
the balance of his life.” In its opening statement at trial, the
Government promised to establish not only the payments to transport
Schreiber for the purpose of engaging in sexual intercourse, but also that
Johnson engaged in debauchery, including “crime against nature.”
-
After a guilty verdict was passed, District Attorney
Harry Parkin said, “This Negro, in the eyes of many, has been
persecuted. Perhaps as an individual he was. But it was his misfortune to
be the foremost example of the evil in permitting the intermarriage of
whites and blacks.”
-
Parkin and the sentencing judge admitted that Johnson
was convicted to “send a message” to African American men by
convicting “one of the best known men of his race.”
On the basis of these and other facts documented in the
petition, the Committee asks the President to pardon Johnson because “his
conviction was the result solely of contrived charges reflecting attitudes and
mores that America has long since outgrown.”
Johnson became a lightning rod for racial strife in
America when he became the first African-American to win the heavyweight
boxing title in 1908. His victories in the ring provoked nationwide race riots
and spurred the search for the “great white hope” who could beat him.
Johnson further enraged whites by traveling with, dating and marrying white
women, many of whom were prostitutes.
Burns explained that as he and his team dug deeper into
Johnson’s life and the events surrounding his 1913 conviction for violating
the Mann Act, the more it appeared that this case was, as Burns noted,
“racist from the beginning to the end and one of the greatest abuses of
justice involving an American athlete that this country has ever seen.”
Johnson fled the country following his conviction and
lived in Europe as a fugitive from justice for seven years. He returned to the
U.S. in 1920, surrendered to authorities and served a year in prison.
If granted, it would be only the second posthumous
presidential pardon in U.S. history, the first being President Clinton’s
1999 pardon of the former slave and first black army officer Henry O. Flipper.
A copy of the Petition and a fact sheet on the life and
career of Jack Johnson are available. Interviews with Burns and committee
members can be facilitated via the contacts listed above. Photographs and
video are also available.
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