Some folks now say they were bad, but for me it was that or pickin’ cotton. Back then the money from Battle Royals bought me clothes, shoes and food. So if that’s what you call bad, well, keep it comin’.
—Sidney “Beau Jack” Walker
Although racial tensions and segregation prevailed throughout the country during the early 1920s, times were good for many people in the United States. World War I had ended a couple of years earlier. Women had obtained the right to vote through the 19th Amendment. Americans were moving into the cities, and personal wealth was dramatically increasing. It was the “Roaring Twenties.”
The American consumer was born. Families were buying electric washing machines and refrigerators. With rising wages, the automobile, such as Ford’s Model T, became more accessible. Telephones were connecting people across the country. The radio industry was growing, bringing with it a fresh source of entertainment and the transmission of information. The film industry was booming as Americans flocked to movie theaters. The first Miss America pageant was held in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
It was also an emergent time for the African American community. Jazz and blues music became prominent and cardinal elements of black culture. It was the time of the Harlem Renaissance as African American art, literature, and music flourished. The famed Cotton Club in Harlem was in full swing with musicians such as Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong performing in front of the soulful sounds of their jazz orchestras. In sports, the Negro National Baseball League was established, incorporating eight teams.
Social conflicts and unrest, however, accompanied prosperity. With the 18th Amendment becoming effective on January 16, 1920, the U.S. entered the prohibition period. Manufacturing, transporting, and the sale of intoxicating liquors was prohibited. Coinciding with prohibition came the increasing impact of Organized Crime or the Mafia. Its network was infamous for running illegal alcohol. It was also the time of Chicago gangster, Al Capone.
Segregation
With the progress of the black American came a sinister counter movement. The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was in resurgence, using intimidation and violence to assert white supremacy. In 1921, approximately 300 people died in the Tulsa Race Riot, as 35 city blocks lay in ruin after being blazed by white rioters. Lynching of blacks by white posses were regular occurrences. In Georgia alone, there were over 450 lynching fatalities between 1882 and 1930. Blacks were incessantly subject to hatred and racial slurs.
Jim Crow laws and segregation prevailed in the South. The “separate but equal” doctrine declared by the U.S. Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson reinforced segregation as a way of life. Debuting in 1915, the racist film, The Birth of a Nation, directed and co-produced by D.W. Griffith, portrayed black men as dimwitted and physically bellicose towards white women. It glorified the KKK and abetted its second formation at Stone Mountain, Georgia, during the same year.
Incredibly, it was the first film screened at the White House during Woodrow Wilson’s presidency. The 28th president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924), served from 1913 to 1921. Only recently have Wilson’s racial undertones been openly discussed. Quotes from Wilson’s book, A History of the American People, were actually utilized in The Birth of a Nation. For instance, the following “toned-down” language from Wilson’s book served as one of the silent film’s quote cards. “The white men of the South were roused by the mere instinct of self-preservation … until at last there had sprung into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, a veritable empire of the South, to protect the Southern country.”1 After screening the movie, President Wilson reportedly said to D.W. Griffith that the film could “teach history with lightning.”
It is very arduous to understand contradictions between Woodrow Wilson’s words and actions. He was extraordinarily progressive and led the fight for idealism in international relations during and after World War I. Although instrumental in the formation of the League of Nations, when it came to race issues in the U.S., his Southern upbringing clouded his judgment. The son of a Presbyterian minister, Wilson spent time as a child in Augusta, Georgia, and Columbia, South Carolina, where racism was prevalent.
Soon after his inauguration on March 4, 1913, Wilson allowed Jim Crow laws to be enacted and carried out in Washington, D.C. When his postmaster general, Albert S. Burleson, argued that the railway mail service should be re-segregated, he did not object but permitted its segregation. He did the same when William G. McAdoo, secretary of the treasury, requested to segregate his department. Reportedly, during World War I, he was appalled that the French Army allowed black men to serve next to whites.
“Colored” sign outside of Greyhound bus station in Rome, Georgia, c. 1943 (Library of Congress).
Schools were segregated, as were passenger trains and busses. Miscegenation was a felony in many states including Georgia. There were separate parks and even separate eating and sleeping accommodations for white and black prisoners. Blacks and whites drank from different water fountains, ate at separate restaurants, worshipped in separate churches, and lived in separate neighborhoods. Lillian Smith, in her book Killers of the Dream, describes segregation as a dance.
From the time little southern children take their first step they learn their ritual, for Southern Tradition leads them through its intricate movements. And some, if their faces are dark, learn to bend, hat in hand; and some, if their faces are white, learn to hold their heads up high. Some step off the sidewalk while others pass by in arrogance. Bending, shoving, genuflecting, ignoring, stepping off, demanding, giving in, avoiding…. So we learned the dance that cripples the human spirit, step by step by step, we who were white and we who were colored, day by day, hour by hour, year by year until the movements were reflexes and made for the rest of our lives without thinking.2
Racial separation was a pervasive rule of life. The color of a person’s skin was judged on a racial hierarchy with blacks being thrown to the bottom. The lighter your skin, the better. Mulattos were perceived better than dark black. White was the preferred color.
Racism in Sports
Racism and segregation permeated the sports world. The top three spectator sports at the time were baseball, college football, and boxing. Baseball, of course, reigned as the favorite national pastime. Blacks, however, were not allowed to play Major League baseball. They were relegated to play in their own leagues, known as the Negro Leagues. Only in 1947, when the Brooklyn Dodgers signed Jackie Robinson (1919–1972), did baseball’s racial barrier break. Schools in the South were segregated; therefore, there were no black football players at white schools. Blacks were not even allowed in college stadiums. Only where colleges were integrated up North and out West, were blacks allowed to play football. It would not be until 1970, when Bear Bryant, the legendary head coach of the University of Alabama, invited the University of Southern California Trojans, which had black running backs and a black quarterback, to play in Tuscaloosa, that the route to desegregation in college football was paved. In the fledgling National Football League, blacks were secretly banned in 1933. Thirteen years later, Kenny Washington (1918–1971), a football teammate of Jackie Robinson at UCLA, finally became the first black football player in the modern era of the NFL when the Los Angeles Rams signed him in March of 1946.
Unlike baseball and college football, boxing integrated much earlier. At the turn of the century, however, blacks were not allowed to compete in the same circuits as white boxers. When they did, they were only permitted to fight other black fighters, leading to the development of a “Negro League,” as in baseball. For example, the legendary black heavyweight boxer Sam “Bone Crusher” Langford (1883–1956) was almost exclusively relegated to fight other black fighters. Therefore, many of his fights were against the same opponents. For instance, Langford fought Harry Wills 17 times, Sam McVey 16 times, Joe Jeannette 14 times, “Battling” Jim Johnson 12 times, Jeff Clark 10 times, Jack Thompson 9 times, and Bill Tate 9 times. Although Langford retired with an exceptional record of 180–29–39, he never received a title bout. At last, a year before his death, he was honored with induction into The Ring’s Boxing Hall of Fame and Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame.
Gradually, black fighters were permitted to fight against their white counterparts in title matches. In 1902, Joe Gans (1874–1910) won the world lightweight title, defeating Frank Erne (1875–1954) of Switzerland, to become the first native-born black American to win a title. Gans finished his outstanding career with a record of 145–10–16 and was posthumously honored in 1990 by induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
The esteemed heavyweight division was the last to integrate. It evolved through the prowess of the Galveston Giant. John Arthur “Jack” Johnson (1878–1946), standing 6'1" tall and weighing 200 pounds, won the world colored heavyweight title in 1903. His sights were set on James J. “Boilermaker” Jeffries (1875–1953), who wore the world heavyweight title crown. Jeffries, however, refused to fight Jack during his undefeated reign. Irrespective, after Jeffries retired, Johnson finally received a chance at the undisputed title in 1908, when he faced off against Tommy Burns.
Tommy Burns (1881–1955), the only Canadian-born world heavyweight champion, held the title. Persistently an underdog, the 5'7", 175-pound Burns won the title in 1906, defeating Marvin Hart in Los Angeles. Unlike other boxers, Tommy didn’t mind crossing the “color line.” The fight took place in Sydney, Australia, on December 25, 1908. Johnson destroyed Burns, to finally seize the world heavyweight title. Mocking him the whole way, Johnson insulted Burns calling him “little boy” and comparing him to a woman, saying, “Who taught you to fight? Your mother? You hit like a woman.” Johnson even let Burns survive the 13th round so he could dish out more punishment. Police ultimately called a halt to the fight in the 14th round. Typical for black boxers at the time, Burns earned $30,000 for the bout, while Johnson only received $5,000.
Many viewed the bout as a fight for racial supremacy, but Burns was supposed to win. Famous journalist and novelist Jack London (1876–1916), commenting from Sydney on behalf of the New York Herald, wrote, “It had all the seeming of a playful Ethiopian at loggerheads with a small and futile white man.”3 Johnson’s gold capped teeth and smile annoyed London. “But one thing remains,” London wrote from Sydney, “Jeffries must emerge from his alfalfa farm and remove that smile from Johnson’s face. Jeff, it’s up to you.”4 After the fight, Jeffries was asked what he would do if Jack Johnson came to him looking for a fight. Jeffries retorted, “If that coon comes around here I will take him by the neck and throw him out.”5
Ultimately, Johnson got his chance at undefeated heavyweight James J. Jeffries. Jeffries, christened the “Great White Hope,” announced on April 19, 1909, that he would come out of his five-year retirement to fight Johnson for the heavyweight championship of the world. Initially set to take place in California, Governor James Gillett (1860–1937) refused to host the bout, so promoters Jack Gleason and Tex Rickard moved the fight to Reno, Nevada.
Jack Johnson knocks James Jeffries down in the “Fight of the Century,” c. 1910 (author’s collection).
Johnson battered a cut and bleeding Jeffries in the 15-round fight on July 4, 1910. After knocking Jeffries down for the first time in his career, Jeffries’ corner threw in the towel. The bout became known as the “Fight of the Century” and set the nation on fire. That evening a headline in the Reno Evening Gazette read, “Greatest Tragedy of Ring History Was Enacted in Roped Arena in Reno Today.”6 In the tone of the times, Frank Hall, a writer for the newspaper wrote, “It seems a terrible thing for a white man to go down to defeat at the hands of a black.”7
Johnson’s long-awaited victory over Jeffries set off a succession of racial instabilities. Race riots across the country immediately followed the announcement of Johnson’s victory. As many as 18 casualties were reported from riots, ranging in locations from Uvaldia, Georgia, to Tallulah, Louisiana. In the small town of Uvaldia in south Georgia, three black people were killed during rioting at a cross-tie camp on the Georgia & Florida Railroad. When black men from the cross-tie camp went into town drunk the day after Johnson’s victory, tensions heightened. Several white men marched to the encampment to arrest the ringleader but were met with gunfire. Posses led by bloodhounds were called in to seek out the remaining members of the camp. In New York, more than 100 people were wounded during riots. It was a horrible scene. In Fort Worth, Texas, it was reported that a desk sergeant asked a “dusky giant” held at the jail for drunkenness for his name and received the following reply, “My name’s Jack Johnson, and I can whip any white man living.” In the wake of the riots, many cities and states banned replay of the fight film. Jeffries, however, was humbled and praised Jack Johnson’s ability.
Ironically, Johnson was not the most suitable ambassador for integrating the heavyweight division. He verbally abused his white opponents, and outside the ring, he had a sexual attraction to white women. In 1913, Jack Johnson was arrested for violating the Mann Act on the grounds that he had transported a white woman, his girlfriend and future wife, Lucille Cameron, across state lines for immoral purposes. He was sentenced to a year in prison. Released on bond, Johnson fled to Canada where he began a seven-year period as a fugitive. In 1920, he surrendered to U.S. Marshalls on the Mexico–U.S. border and served ten months in prison before being released. Later that year, he opened a bar named the Club Deluxe at the corner of 142 Street and Lenox Avenue in Harlem. It subsequently became the famous Cotton Club. In 2018, Johnson received a posthumous presidential pardon from President Donald Trump citing the racial injustice suffered by Johnson.
1. Mark Karlin, “‘The Birth of a Nation’ 100 Years Later: Why Woodrow Wilson’s Embrace of the KKK Still Matters,” Buzzflash, last modified July 23, 2015, accessed August 13, 2018, http://buzzflash.com/commentary/white-supremacists-have-always-baptized-their-perverted-cause-in-christianity.
2. Lillian Smith, Killers of the Dream (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1978).
3. Jack London, “Jack London Describes the Fight and Jack Johnson’s Golden Smile,” San Francisco Call, December 27, 1908, 33.
4. Ibid.
5. “Comment on Big Battle,” Buffalo Commercial, December 28, 1908, 6.
6. “Greatest Tragedy of Ring History Was Enacted in Roped Arena in Reno Today,” Reno Gazette-Journal, July 5, 1910, 2.
7. Frank Hall, “Sullivan’s Manager Could See Nothing but Johnson from Sound of Gong,” Reno Gazette-Journal, July 4, 1910, 3.