Frederic J. Frommer, AP, October 17, 2009
Sen. John McCain on Friday pressed President Barack Obama to give a posthumous pardon to Jack Johnson, the black heavyweight boxing champion who was imprisoned nearly a century ago because of his romantic ties with a white woman.
McCain, R-Ariz., and Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., noted in a letter to Obama that both houses of Congress this summer passed their resolution urging a pardon. After the vote, the lawmakers wrote to Obama in August asking him to issue the pardon.
{snip}
Johnson became the first black heavyweight champion on Dec. 26, 1908—100 years before Obama was elected the first black president. Johnson won the title after police in Australia stopped his 14-round match against the severely battered Canadian world champion, Tommy Burns.
{snip}
Johnson was convicted in 1913 of violating the Mann Act, which made it illegal to transport women across state lines for immoral purposes. He fled the country after his conviction, but agreed years later to return and serve a 10-month jail sentence.
Original article
(Posted on October 19, 2009)
Comments
It’s a shame when white republicans have to stir up the white guilt pot. I voted for white conservatives because I’m not full of guilt and tired of it being perpetuated on us all. This is another reason why I stopped voting for both parties.
I’ve seen PBS specials on Jack Johnson. He no doubt was a champion boxer. But here I have to comment on John,”Americans wouldn’t pick lettuce for fifty dollars an hour”, McCain again. It is sufficiently evident that McCain is one of the most useless “representatives” of the American people, of all the Senators that now “represent” us. Here he is, bothered by something that happened 80-90 years ago, and that couldn’t matter less, in any substantial way to Americans today. The fact that this guy is voted in over and over, is at least one testiment, to the failure of the system. I understand that he has a large “loyal” following. Who in the U.S. are these people, where are they, and what could possibly be motivating them to support him?
“Sen. John McCain on Friday pressed President Barack Obama to give a posthumous pardon to Jack Johnson, the black heavyweight boxing champion who was imprisoned nearly a century ago because of his romantic ties with a white woman.”
I hate to say it, but that paragraph above describes exactly why this country is better off with the “magic” mulatto, Comrade BO, as its USSA General Secretary and not this vile old degenerate and wretchedly feckless race-traitor. At least with Comrade BO you get exactly what is expected, an incompetent charlatan that for all his glaring inadequacies and inanity, still has the decency to remain loyal to his race. This cannot be said of Comrade McCretin; he is as both clumsy and treacherous, and he seems to obnoxiously delight in his disgusting anti-white wantonness.
This so-called pardon is a prime example!
What can the filthy old swine possibly hope to gain from this?
The answer is nothing, nothing at all. He simply does it to flaunt his mentally incontinent contempt for his own people, as if it were some peculiar ointment that can rehabilitate him from his own debased legacy of corruption and stupidity.
Enough said!
He was convicted of a crime. There’s no evidence saying he never commited it.
And as far as his throwing the Jess Willard fight, are the revisionists really trying to tell us that they couldn’t get him to do ANYTHING, but they were successful in getting him to take a dive? Preposterous.
His arm supposedly shielding his eyes was a reflexive action. Closing his eyes if he were conscious would also shieled his eyes. His arm wouldn’t have to come up to do that.
Take a look at the fight on youtube and decide for yourself if Willard didn’t give him a pretty hard blow.
Dempsy annihilated Willard. He would have done the same to Johnson.
Does McCain imagine that this will gain him more popularity among blacks or whites? If this does not reveal the utter irrelevance of McCain to the burning issues of our times, I guess nothing ever will. The leadership of the Republican party is about as out of touch with this nation’s average white voter as you can get. It’s yet another reason why we should be thankful that this white liberal fool is not president.
When it comes to whites doing evil, no stone is left unturned in trying to get ‘justice’. This case reminds me of the blacks who got a pardon, and an apology, for being reprimanded for lynching Italian POW’s during WWII. Whether or not the boxer was guilty or innocent, it might be interesting to note how, what were once words spoken in defense of Jack Johnson, by special interests who also hated America or this or that administration, are now printed as unassailable fact and are considered history.
A fine example of just how worthless John McCain is. Why would any Republican support this guy?
What a piece of work. McCain gets blown out in the election and is still trying to kiss black ass. Our country is fighting two unecessary wars, in a depression, being invaded by Mexico, and all McCain can think to do is get a pardon for a guy who has been dead for over 60 years. Now you know why 43% of Whites voted for Obama. Could he really be any worse than a republican?
Why should he be pardoned? He broke the laws of the day. Are we going to go back and pardon all the bootleggers, too?
First: It happened 100 years ago. Second: What does McCain care? What’s his point? Third: McCain is nothing but a liberal busybody still trying to feel like he’s somebody’s hero. He’s never lived down the feeling of self gratification that he had when he returned from VietNam feeling like he was a big hero! He’s a bag of hot air! Thank God he never became president. We couldn’t stand it! (Even though I doubt that we’ll be able to survive what we now have in the White House!)
Johnson was arrested for driving a white prostitute across state lines one month after his white wife -who Johnson once beat so badly she was hospitalized- had committed suicide; I guess he was still in mourning when he married this same hooker two months later.
Johnson was a vile human being who often taunted his outclassed opponents. When he lost the title to the mediocre Jess Willard he then spent the rest of his life lying that he’d taken a dive and was still the real champ. A lifelong reckless driver, he died in a car crash due to speeding.
Does John McCain really believe this pardon will attract black voters to the GOP?
Why on earth would McCain care about what happened to a black boxer nearly 100 years ago? This is political posturing, nothing more, nothing less. Both the right and the left are trying to outdo each other in burnishing their “anti-racist” credentials. McCain is even more of a loser than I originally thought he was. Until the American people wake up they will deserve nothing more than losers like Obama and McCain.
I think Bonnie and Clyde need a pardon too..what about it McCain?
To John PM:
Please, no insults. Calling John McCain a “filthy old swine” is demeaning to pigs. At least the four legged kind don’t go around praising free speech on the one hand and authoring the infamous McCain-Feingold Act on the other.
“I think Bonnie and Clyde need a pardon too..what about it McCain”?
If Bonnie and Clyde turned out to be avowed communists, there’s a good chance with that.
Another non-constituitionalist neo-con, semi-demo-rat, licking the feet of our racist, bigoted enemies; sickening to say the least.
Just because jack Johnson invented the adjustable wrench doesn’t mean he deserves a pardon. The man had a record of beating white women.
A 100 years ago this Black boxer was judged by the then laws of the land as being a thug and a violent (white) womaniser and was thus undeserving of freedom.
Oh my, how our standards have changed over the last 100 yrs, these days Johnson would probably be a celebrated multi-millionaire with a cult following.
Jack Johnson must have given the impressionable young John McCain a personalised signed engraving to merit this much commitment to Johnson’s cause.
McCain is a mental cripple.
But how do you explain the cerebral qualities of those that continue to support him?
The racial issues related to boxing are very important. The anti White forces of the world understand this, we need to understand it.
Jack Johnson was used as propaganda that he was bigger and stronger than any White man and could beat down any White man and he could also have sex with any White woman he wanted.
The idea is that all White women are supposed to go for the bigger stronger, better Black man.
In reality, Jack Johnson could not get any White woman, instead he chose to sleep with, marry White prostitutes and eventually he lost his ability to be stronger and defeat any White man in physical combat - he lost to a White man who was bigger and stronger and better than him in fighting. The anti White forces spread lies that it must have been a conspiracy because White boys, White men are not supposed to be able to fight, White men are supposed to always back down and submit to more powerful Black men - then and now, in public schools, on school busses, in politics, at award shows where Black rap “singers” jump on the stage to dispute awards, or horrors in prison, homosexual domination of the supposedly stronger Black men.
Folks here should understand that Whites now DOMINATE boxing, hold virtually all the boxing titles about the lowest weight divisions - the anti White forces hate this fact and thus don’t want boxing covered in the media. We need to promote boxing and give your youth hope and inspiration.
White men can fight and White women, except the lowest, most corrupt prostitutes/whores can resist Black, non White men.
Please support this great web site devoted to promoting White athletes:
http://www.castefootball.us/
Please contact John McCain’s staff - in a polite, concise matter express your strong opposition to this pandering.
Follow up with a “thank you for listening to my concerns” e-mail/fax and include links to stories about the real, destructive White hating figure of Jack Johnson.
Washington, DC StaffMark Buse
McCain is a prime example of military elite. He got into and through the naval academy because of his father and grandfathers influence. After an unflattering stint at the Naval Academy he still lands one of the most coveted positions for a navy officer, he gets to become a naval aviator.
John McCain is no conservative and he has proven it over and over. Why the GOP put him up last year as the Republican presidential candidate leaves a lot of unanswered questions, when there were younger and certainly more conservative candidates that might have stood a better chance against Obama.
My question is why just Jack Johnson and why are McCain and King pushing for this pardon. What is the agenda here? And there certainly is an agenda that we know nothing about. I could Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson doing this but McCain - there’s something else at play here.
But how do you explain the cerebral qualities of those that continue to support him?
M O N E Y!!! he provides it to them in some form or another, probably illegally or at the very least, unethically. Unethical to most if not all politicians, means LEGAL.
The anti White forces spread lies that it must have been a conspiracy because White boys, White men are not supposed to be able to fight, White men are supposed to always back down and submit to more powerful Black men - then and now, in public schools, on school busses, in politics, at award shows where Black rap “singers” jump on the stage to dispute awards
I think it would be a mistake to imply that all whites must be “fighters” in the physical sense, although we all should be in the figurative sense. If we set the bar for race realism too high, even fewer whites will be willing to join our cause than already are.
The simple fact is, whites as a race wouldn’t need to use their fists if they simply used their brains, something they increasingly seem to refuse to do these days.
Let’s re-write history if we don’t like it.
“My question is why just Jack Johnson and why are McCain and King pushing for this pardon. What is the agenda here? And there certainly is an agenda that we know nothing about. I could Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson doing this but McCain - there’s something else at play here.”
Why, to get those blacks and hispanics, who we keep hearing are natural Republicans, to vote for him next year. Kudos to Michael Steele who’s doing a bang up job of recruiting with that hip hop thing. The local news this morning reported the number of people calling themselves Republicans is at 20 percent, the lowest number in 26 years.
McCain is part of the neocon trilogy along with John Kyle and Pansy Graham. Not sure about Kyle but McCain is the only one up for reelection. If you live in Arizona, I implore you to vote this bum out of office. I don’t care what political party you belong to. Even if you don’t vote out of protest please go to the polls and write in your dog’s name on the ballot, anything for this guy to lose his seat.
McCain is a political opportunist to the core.
His goal in all this is to assure him praise in the history books yet to be written.
Since he believes that the anti-racism (i.e., white racism) philosophy has decisively won the battle for all time to come, he wants only to be on the “right” side of the issue in the eyes of the future.
In beating Obama to the punch in selecting this ridiculous “righting of the wrongs of past white racism,” McCain succeeds only in showing his true colors as a man worried only about his place in what he believes will be the history of a great nation.
Because McCain has always lacked genuine commitment to established political principle and prefers to ride the tides of change, he had made it impossible for the American electorate to see in him a meaningful alternative to the optimistic and hope-engendering Obama.
“At least the four legged kind don’t go around praising free speech on the one hand and authoring the infamous McCain-Feingold Act on the other.”
—Soprano Fan
And at least, pigs don’t betray their genes!
To flyingtiger:
I wasn’t aware Johnson invented the adjustable wrench.Or are you just being sarcastic?
To Soprano Fan, regarding:
“Please, no insults. Calling John McCain a “filthy old swine” is demeaning to pigs.”
Yes, you are correct and I do apologize to both you and all the other good people here at AR, and also to the pigs. In my overzealous anger at Comrade McCretin and this frivolously abominable action of his, I was quite insensitive and impertinent to the global swine community. The pigs after all are useful in so many ways to humanity and even the excrement they make can be fertilizer. Unlike Comrade McCretin, who is so indescribably worthless and relentlessly despicable, that not even the wastes of a Calcutta sewer should be compared to him.
Again, I apologize for my transgression.
All the best Soprano Fan and all,
John PM!
*KRONOS*
Miss Piggy forgives you, John PM.
Johnson is the only heavyweight champ who came within a hair of being KOed by a middleweight.
160 pound Stanley Ketchel gave Johnson hell in their fight and hurt him in the middle rounds before dropping him. Johnson recovered and KOed Ketchel but was so humiliated by the hard fight he had with an opponent he outweighed, he lied and said he and Ketchel had an agreement not to really fight and Ketchel double crossed him.
Further reading
http://www.eastsideboxing.com/news/bearden2006.php
Even many black women at the time thought Johnson was disgusting and a traitor to his race.
Remember that John McCain is the same man who teamed up with the late Ted Kennedy for an illegal alien amnesty. (BTW, Chris Simcox, of Minuteman fame, is running against him in the Arizona Republican primary. At last, a Republican who acts like one.)
When the Republicans picked John McCain as the presidential nominee I knew the party has a suicide wish.
— WR the elder wrote;
I have it from my dear friend, Porca, that she wishes to make it abundantly clear she most definitely does NOT forgive the other John — McCAIN!
She is gracious, but not THAT gracious. She cannot forgive his forfeiting the election. Nor I.
Jack Johnson was a great heavyweight, but was utterly lacking in sportsmanship. His taunting of overmatched opponents such as Tommy Burns and Jim Jeffries (himself a great fighter years earlier) was nothing short of disgraceful. I suspect if the Klitschkos behaved in a similar manner against their overmatched black opposition, the media would be far less forgiving.
As previous posters have pointed out, Johnson lost the title fair and square to Jess Willard in the 26th round. Even ultra-bleeding-heart Ken Burns admitted as much in his documentary on Johnson.
