“We Needed a Booker T. Washington  …  and Certainly a Jack Johnson”: The Black Press, Johnson, and Issues of Representation, 1909–1915

Abstract

Examination of the coverage of boxer Jack Johnson's championship reign in black newspapers helps understand the intersections between the symbolic value of achievement in sport, the role of celebrity culture, and the fight for civil rights under Jim Crow oppression. This article examines coverage of Johnson in black newspapers at the peak of his fame to determine how his status as a celebrity was connected to the press's mission of civil rights activism and racial uplift. Though Johnson has emerged in popular culture as a complicated but ultimately laudatory figure, this study suggests that his symbolic value within his community became complicated as his personal transgressions increasingly overshadowed his professional achievements.

Notes

New York Amsterdam News, July 16, 1910, 4.

C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974); John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss Jr., From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans, 7th ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994); Charles M. Payne and Adam Green, Time Longer Than Rope: A Century of African American Activism, 1850–1950 (New York: New York University Press, 2003); Gregory Michael Dorr, Segregation's Science: Eugenics and Society in Virginia (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2008).

Geoffrey Ward, Unforgivable Blackness (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), 40.

Ibid., 298. According to Ward, the language of the act was loosely drawn, so that the Bureau of Investigation could feasibly extend it to include relationships between consenting adults deemed “immoral” or “debauch.” Johnson was convicted on charges of bringing prostitute Belle Schrieber across state lines for immoral purposes, but the investigation itself was the result of an inquiry made by Cameron's mother after her daughter had run off with the champion.

Roland E. Wolseley, The Black Press, U.S.A. (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1990), 38; Audrey T. McCluskey, “Representing the Race: Mary McLeod and the Press in the Jim Crow Era,” Western Journal of Black Studies 23, no. 4 (1999): 238.

Armistead S. Pride and Clint C. Wilson II, A History of the Black Press (Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1997); Patrick S. Washburn, The African-American Newspaper: Voice of Freedom (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2006); Hayward Farrar, The Baltimore Afro-American, 1892–1950 (Westport: Greenwood, 1998).

Farrar, Baltimore Afro-American, xii.

Harvey Young, Embodying Black Experience: Stillness, Critical Memory, and the Black Body (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010), 94.

The exact dates examined for the purposes of this analysis are November 30, 1909 (the day the fight was announced) and April 12, 1915. Johnson lost the title on April 5, 1915, but because most black newspapers of the time were weeklies, the latter date was extended by one week to encompass publication of the news.

Ward, Unforgivable Blackness, 133.

Ward, Unforgivable Blackness, 292.

Randy Roberts, Papa Jack: Jack Johnson and the Era of White Hopes (New York: The Free Press, 1983), 144.

Ward, Unforgivable Blackness, 298.

Michael Schudson, The Sociology of News, 2nd ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 2011); James W. Carey, “A Cultural Approach to Communication,” in Communication as Culture: Essays on Media and Society (New York: Routledge, 1999).

Young, Embodying Black Experience, 118.

Ibid.

Ibid., 98.

Population figures were used instead of circulation figures to select the sample of newspapers that were included in this study. Circulation figures for these periodicals are difficult to pin down and often are not representative of the actual readership of the newspaper. It was typical for newspaper copies to be shared among several members of the community or read aloud informally in public places, such as church gatherings or other social events. As a result, actual readership numbers may be triple or even quadruple the circulation figures recorded. Population statistics offer a clearer picture of the influence of these newspapers—the larger the population of black citizens, the more likely the newspapers were shared and discussed widely.

Ward, Unforgivable Blackness, xi: “No one who spends any time with the white newspapers of the twentieth century can fail to be startled by the racist contempt with which black Americans in general and Jack Johnson in particular were routinely portrayed.”

David K. Wiggins and Patrick B. Miller, Sport and the Color Line: Black Athletes and Race Relations in Twentieth Century America (New York: Routledge, 2004), ix.

David K. Wiggins and Patrick B. Miller, The Unlevel Playing Field (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003), 3.

“To You, Mr. Jack Johnson,” Savannah Tribune, July 9, 1910, 4.

“The Fight,” Washington Bee, July 9, 1910, 4.

Janice Hume, “Changing Characteristics of Heroic Women in Midcentury Mainstream Media,” Journal of Popular Culture 34, no. 1 (Summer 2000): 10.

Jack Lule, Daily News, Eternal Stories: The Mythological Role of Journalism (New York: Guilford, 2001), 15, 19–22, 82.

Andrew Mendelson, “The Construction of Photographic Meaning,” in Handbook of Research on Teaching Literacy through the Communicative and Visual Arts, ed. James Flood, Shirley Brice Heath, and Diane Lapp, vol. 2 (New York: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2004), 33.

See, for example, “Jack Johnson and James Jeffries,” Chicago Defender, July 2, 1910, 1.

“Jack Johnson a Hero,” Chicago Defender, April 23, 1910, 1.

“Jack Johnson Not Getting Fair Deal,” Baltimore Afro-American, November 23, 1912, 6.

Ward, Unforgivable Blackness, 307.

“Roddenbery [sic],” Washington Bee, December 14, 1912, 4.

“Intermarriage,” Washington Bee, December 21, 1912, 4.

“Jack Johnson Not Getting Fair Deal,” Baltimore Afro-American, November 23, 1912, 6.

Roberts, Papa Jack, 139.

Ibid.

Ward, Unforgivable Blackness, 320.

“L’Accuse!,” Chicago Defender, October 26, 1912, 3.

“Cherished Hope of Enemies Realized in the Conviction of Jack Johnson,” Chicago Defender, May 17, 1913, 1.

“Jack Johnson Is Crucified for His Race,” Chicago Defender, July 5, 1913, 1.

Roberts, Papa Jack, 91.

Stuart Ewen and Elizabeth Ewen, Typecasting: On the Arts and Sciences of Human Inequality (New York: Seven Stories, 2006), 52.

Donald Bogle, Toms, Coons, Mulattos, Mammies, & Bucks, 4th ed. (New York: Continuum, 2004).

“Jack Johnson an Honor to His Race,” Baltimore Afro-American, December 4, 1909, 3.

“Great Moral Victory,” Cleveland Gazette, July 9, 1910, 1.

“Johnson the Real Victor,” Baltimore Afro-American, July 16, 1910, 6.

“Views of the Afro American Press on the Johnson-Jeffries Fight,” Baltimore Afro-American, July 16, 1910, 4.

W. E. B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk (Chicago: A.C. McClurg, 1903), 3.

Harvard Sitkoff, A New Deal for Blacks: The Emergence of Civil Rights as a National Issue—The Depression Decade (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 5.

Dorr, Segregation's Science, 63.

Ward, Unforgivable Blackness, 322.

Kim Gallon, “How Much Can You Read about Interracial Love and Sex without Getting Sore?,” Journalism History 39, no. 2 (2013): 108.

Al-Tony Gilmore, Bad Nigger! The National Impact of Johnson (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat, 1975), 99, 103.

However, the context of how these photographs ended up in the paper is unclear. Often, noteworthy individuals would pay a few dollars to have their photograph featured in a black press newspaper; therefore, it is possible that Johnson, seeking approval for his new wife, paid to have her photograph run in a few different papers.

“Jack's Secret Marriage,” Cleveland Gazette, February 17, 1912, 2.

“Jack Johnson and Wife at Elks Ball,” Chicago Defender, April 29, 1911, 1.

“Mrs. Etta Duryea Johnson,” Cleveland Gazette, October 12, 1912, 1.

“Mrs. John Arthur Johnson,” Cleveland Gazette, September 21, 1912, 3.

Cleveland Gazette, September 21, 1912, 2.

“Jack Johnson Takes Much Needed Rest,” Chicago Defender, September 28, 1912, 1.

“Mrs. John Arthur Johnson,” Cleveland Gazette, September 21, 1912, 3.

“Jack Johnson's Wife Commits Suicide,” Savannah Tribune, September 14, 1912, 1.

“Roddenbery [sic],” Washington Bee, December 14, 1912, 4.

“Punishment for the Crime,” Washington Bee, January 18, 1913, 4.

Chicago Defender, November 23, 1912, 8.

Chas R. Douglass, “Jack Johnson,” Washington Bee, October 12, 1912, 1.

“Intermarriage,” Washington Bee, December 21, 1912, 4.

“Southern Editor Has Amazing Brain Storm,” Chicago Defender, September 21, 1912, 3.

“Slavery—Black and White,” Chicago Defender, December 14, 1912, 3.

“Miscegenation,” Chicago Defender, May 24, 1913, 4.

Johnson's doings and whereabouts during this period most often came up in “news in brief” columns, most notably during this period in the Washington Bee's “Paragraphic News” section. For example, a December 27, 1913 Washington Bee “Paragraphic News” column noted that “Jack Johnson and his white wife have become citizens of Paris.” An August 22, 1914 “Paragraphic News” column announced that Johnson has enlisted in the French army.

Cleveland Gazette, July 5, 1913, 2.

“Jack Johnson Loses World's Championship,” Savannah Tribune, April 10, 1915, 1.

Unforgiveable Blackness, “About the Film,” accessed http://www.pbs.org/unforgivableblackness/about/.

P. David Marshall, “Intimately Intertwined in the Most Public Way,” in The Celebrity Culture Reader, ed. P. David Marshall (New York: Routledge, 2006), 323.

W. Fitzhugh Brundage, “Working in the ‘Kingdom of Culture’: African Americans and American Popular Culture, 1890–1930,” in Beyond Blackface: African Americans and the Creation of American Popular Culture, 1890–1930, ed. W. Fitzhugh Brundage (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011), 3.