“The boxing film that was banned around the world” — Vox, 2021, 9:31 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmiBASu41-A

Contributed by Mary Scafidi, Cabrini University

Jack Johnson became the first Black man to win the heavyweight title in 1908. He defeated his white opponent, Tommy Burns, in front of a mostly white crowd of 20,000 people with new motion cameras that captured the event on film. The advent of filming these “prizefights” caused champions to be seen as heroes, and such fights were interpreted as ways for communities to show their strength. When it was an interracial fight, they were seen as a Darwinian struggle between the races. If a white man won, the fight reinforced ideas of white supremacy. If a Black man won, the fight could upend ideas of white supremacy, which is why Black men were not allowed to fight for the heavyweight title. This created something of a color line between Black boxers and white boxers. At the time, Jim Crow laws and overt racism were rampant. Johnson had held the title of “World Colored Heavyweight Champion” from 1903-1908 until Tommy Burns accepted his challenge for the World Heavyweight Champion.

White people were not happy about Jack Johnson’s victory as it challenged the prevailing idea of white supremacy. They wanted Johnson to fight against a previous world champion, James Jeffries, who had retired and gained some weight. When the fight was happening, people flocked to theaters to see who would win, and in the 15th round of the fight, Johnson knocked Jeffries down and out of the ring. Jeffries was put back into the ring where Johnson once again threw him down onto the mat. Though Johnson had defended his title, the powerful image of the victory caused white people to riot.

After violent riots broke out following the fight, the film was banned because of what we now call white fragility, a concept describing how white people feel discomfort when their racialized worldview is called into question. But by the time the film was banned, it had already been sent all around the world, cementing the legacy of Jack Johnson as a heavyweight champion and as someone who crushed the color line. He even inspired one of the most well-known boxers in American culture, Muhammed Ali.  

This video demonstrates how sports can serve as a proxy for societal issues, primarily the belief in a racial hierarchy that was rampant at this time (as well as racial tension and violence). Segregating boxers allowed this belief to go untested, thus allowing it to live on. White boxers at this time did not want to fight Black boxers because losing would make them appear weak as individuals in addition to falsifying the collective view of white supremacy.

How important is this video to the conversation of race today? Are the issues shown in the video still relevant to issues today that involve race? Do sports still serve as proxies for social issues related to race or other categories of inequality?

From the video’s description: On December 26, 1908, American boxer Jack Johnson became the first Black heavyweight champion of the world, after defeating defending champion Tommy Burns in a title fight in Sydney, Australia. Black fighters were typically denied the chance to win the heavyweight title, a de-facto line of segregation that was known as “the color line.” So when Burns accepted Johnson’s challenge and lost, the film that was distributed around the fight proved controversial. The white boxing world set out to find a white heavyweight to beat Johnson and take back the title. That white fighter ended up being James Jeffries, a former heavyweight champion who had retired undefeated. Their fight, hyped as the “Battle of the Century,” took place in Reno, Nevada, on July 4, 1910, in front of 20,000 mostly-white spectators and nine motion picture cameras. Throughout the nation, many thousands more listened to live telegram bulletins of each round. Johnson beat Jeffries easily, and, as a result, racist mob violence broke out across the country, and Black Americans celebrating Johnson’s win were attacked, and some were killed. The film of the fight became notorious worldwide and was the most talked-about motion picture of its time. Johnson lost the heavyweight title in 1915 after successfully defending it eight times, but remained an inspiration for many fighters to come.