Product Description

He was the first black heavyweight champion in history (1908-15) and the most celebrated - and most reviled - African American of his age. In Unforgivable Blackness, prize-winning biographer Geoffrey C. Ward brings to vivid life the real Jack Johnson, a figure far more complex than the newspaper headlines could ever convey. Johnson battled his way from obscurity to the top of the heavyweight ranks and in 1908 won the greatest prize in American sports - one that had always been the preserve of white boxers. At a time when whites ran everything in America, he took orders from no one and resolved to live as if colour did not exist. Because of this, the federal government set out to destroy him and he was forced to endure a year of prison and seven years of exile. As Ward shows, Johnson was seen as a perpetual threat to white and African Americans alike - profligate, arrogant, amoral, a dark menace and a danger to the natural order of things. Unforgivable Blackness is the first full-scale biography of Johnson in more than twenty years. Accompanied by more than fifty photographs and drawing on a wealth of new material - including Johnson's never-before-published prison memoir - it restores Jack Johnson to his rightful place in the pantheon of sporting and social warriors.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13322 in Books
• Published on: 2006-01-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 512 pages

Review
'This remarkable book is at one and the same time a rousing story, a terrific biography, and first-rate history.With immense skill, Geoffrey Ward has not only brought Jack Johnson back to life but has provided a telling window onto what it was like to be a great black athlete in early-twentieth-century America.' - Doris Kearns Goodwin. 'Geoffrey Ward's Unforgivable Blackness is a stunning exploration of the unbelievable bigotry of whites in early-twentieth-century America.' - David Levering Lewis, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the two-volume biography of W. E. B. Du Bois. 'This compelling and exhaustively researched biography resurrects the story of a uniquely fascinating man...The authoritative biography of Johnson for sure, but also one of the best boxing books in recent memory.' - Booklist. 'A formidable accomplishment...Ward has successfully brought this deep and colourful personality, this insufficiently understood and altogether amazing man, back to life.' - David Margolick, New York Times Book Review. 'A significant achievement...An utterly convincing and frequently heartrending portrait of Jack Johnson for whom the ideal representation would be the Janus-face of simultaneous comedy and tragedy.' - Joyce Carol Oates, New York Review of Books. 'A portrait of a fascinating figure, whose oversized personality fills every page.' - Bruce Schoenfeld, Washington Post

The Daily Ireland, 15 December 2005
'Great subject, great book'.

Jon Hotten, Scotland on Sunday, 1 January 2006
'a delicious detail on almost every page...Research this powerful gives Unforgivable Blackness a richness that rewards contemplative reading'

Customer Reviews

A knockout
Jack Johnson was one of the most charismatic figures of twentieth century America. In 1909, at a time when the colour bar ran marrow-deep through every aspect of America's national identity, he achieved a feat that remains incredible to this day - he became the first black man to win the world heavyweight title. Clever, articulate and blessed with possibly the best boxing skills the division had ever seen, he lived his live the way he wanted to; and not within the parameters set for him by racist convention. He consorted with white women, drove fast cars and revelled in the fact that the title of world champion - preserve of white America (even our own Bob Fitsimmons - statistically Britain's first heavyweight champion had to become an American citizen before being allowed to relieve Jim Corbett of the crown) was worn around the waist of a black man. In doing so he inspired hatred and admiration in equal measure, even black America was divided; some rejoiced in his success, others felt his behaviour was detrimental to America's fragile race relations. Geoffrey Ward's book is an exhaustively researched portrait of Johnson. Eventually hounded into exile and later imprisoned on inflated charges, his rise and fall is covered with great detail and sensitivity. This is an excellent book for sports fans and social historians alike. Highly recommended

A meticulously researched, thrilling read
The finest sports books are those that venture beyond the sport or sportsmen that are being written about, and to say Geoffrey C Ward does that would be something of an understatement, exploring the racism that ran rampant throughout not just the US, but the rest of the world, at the turn of the last century.

When the great heavyweights are discussed, to this day Johnson's name tends to be omitted as people talk of Louis, Ali and Tyson. But while those three were undeniably incredible fighters, they didn't have to go through half of what Jack Johnson endured in his struggle to prove he was the best heavyweight of the early 20th century. The jaw-dropping racism both within the US and within the sport of boxing makes an uncomfortable setting, but as Graeme Kent says in his book along a similar theme - Great White Hopes (a very good follow-up read to this book) - in so far as letting black people compete, boxing was way ahead of most other sports, a thought to make the reader shudder.

Johnson's winning and retaining of the world title is detailed with such precision by Ward - attention to detail rivalled only by David Frith's excellent Bodyline Autopsy - that you can't help but feel you've actually watched his fights, particularly the famous Reno bout against Jim Jeffries, which is recreated blow by blow. As Johnson becomes more famous (not to mention richer) his behaviour becomes more and more offensive to those who wish to see a white man regain the heavyweight belt. It is in describing Johnson at this time where Ward excels. He never asks the reader to excuse Johnson's often unpleasant behavior, but he does put this behaviour into context, skilfully demonstrating that Johnson was more sinned against than sinner.

For one reason or another, boxing seems to be blessed with several excellent writers - from Nat Fleischer through AJ Leibling to Donald McRae - and I can pay Ward no greater compliment to say that he can more than hold his own in such exhalted company with this outstanding book.

Racism+prodigious spending = disaster
Before reading this I had never heard of Jack Johnson. As far as I was concerned the era of black heavyweights began with Joe Louis. Johnson was what might be called "a character"; in the modern era this would be endearing but in the 1910's this was dangerous for any black person. Any vaguely arrogant comment by Johnson was magnified and misrepresented whereas his white opponents and their managers could get away with using language even Goebells would have balked it. When push came to shove though, Johnson was head and shoulders above any other fighter at the time and was therefore avoided by his white opponents who argued the case that mixed race bouts should not be allowed (the real reason being that they would probably lose). Johnson sowed the seeds of his own destruction, however. A spendthrift (he famously spent the prize money from one of his bouts in under 48 hours) and a proclivity for white women of ill-repute unleashed a tidal-wave of racist victimisation which led to jail and his own impoverishment.
It is difficult to think of a modern day sports icon with a story like this, only the self-destructive Tyson and Gascoigne come close. Get this book and immerse yourself in the life of a true American legend.