Jack Johnson Refries Research Paper

The Johnson-Jeffries fight was significant in many ways. Johnson and other African Americans helped prove that blacks could be dominate at sports. The knowledge that blacks can be good at sports changed, but the acceptance did not. Jack Johnson was the world heavyweight champion and was the first black heavyweight champion. White people couldn’t stand having a black athlete on top especially with their social darwinstic view point that whites are better at everything. This is summarized by “ Johnson now ruled the boxing world, much to the chagrin and horror of whites.” The events before and after the fight tell us that whites thought they were of higher stature in every way than people of color in every way. In this context masculinity and

For the most part this doesn’t sound like a fight or match. It sounds like domination. This of course for many was not the expectation. As stated in Nashville Tenessea “The ring carer of Jack Johnson while not nearly as brilliant as his opponent, James J. Jeffries is nevertheless a very creditbale one.” The white community looked for great white hope again and again but to no avail as Johnson was better than all of them to this point. Jeffries was undefeated before he retired. Johnson knew he was better ( insert quote) and it showed in 15 rounds beating Jeffries to the point of surrendering. (go in depth of all round). Before and after the fight was called a child, coward, and bum (quote) but no one could deny greatness. Johnson was celebrated in the city of Chicago. Black people were given hope and reasons to feel superior. Whites were angry and lynchings, not showing tape, and boycotting boxing all became things. Whites weren’t suppose to be inferior. They still looked for other ways to chop Johnson down with his personal life, brains. Almost to the point of villianization. The fight was held in Nevada because California wouldn’t host