The Patriot Post® · An Ugly Centennial

Exactly 100 years ago, on a July 4th afternoon under a blazing sun in the gaming town of Reno, what I believe to be the worst sporting event in history took place. So this week, as the centennial of what was billed as “The Fight of the Century” was celebrated in Nevada, I ask you to lend your ear – not so we might remember but in the hope we will never forget.

Jack Johnson, a black heavyweight boxer, had just earned the world title by brutally beating some out-muscled bloke named Tommy Burns in Australia. This was because, less than 50 years after the Civil War, blacks were unable to contend for the same title in the United States.

But times were getting better. Change was about and some crafty promoters somehow arranged a fight featuring Johnson, who historians now consider as “a good but not great” fighter, against an over-the-hill pugilist named Jim Jeffries. Johnson was black and Jeffries was white. Besides being boxers, both men, as history has also proven, were racists.

So in a titanic match of “bad guy versus bad guy,” the fight immediately got the more-sinister legs as being “black versus white” instead. It was originally set for San Francisco but the mayor there got too jumpy three weeks before it was to be held and, back then, Reno was a no-holds-barred kind of place.

The hate factor became huge and easy to sell. The flamboyant Johnson, you see, had a great penchant for snappy convertibles and fur coats and late-night honky-tonks but, hold on, that didn’t nearly enrage his angry detractors as much as did a far-better known fact.

Jonson, who loved every facet of the fast lane, blatantly and openly cavorted with “women of the evening” and every one of them he chose was white. As a matter of fact, his insatiable appetite was so great he would marry three of them, much to the consternation of both whites and blacks alike back in that time.

The records show that one wife committed suicide after he openly strayed on her and when Johnson once took up with a New York socialite, her daddy kept his vow of never laying eyes on her again. Oh, trust me, this was far more than just a boxing match and the whole nation was watching.

Jefferies, on the other hand, had quit the ring three years before after a career where he staunchly refused to box against a black man. Dozens of books and memoirs attest that he never wanted to leave his cattle and alfalfa farm in California (alfalfa is a high-protein grass) but he was goaded into it by the great writer Jack London, no less, who is said to have dubbed Jeffries as “The Great White Hope.”

Jeffries played the role to the hilt, saying, “I am going into this fight for the sole purpose of winning the title for whites.” He refused to speak to or even acknowledge Johnson’s presence when the two would see one another before the bout and Jim then further spewed his contempt by refusing to shake Jack’s outstretched hand at both the weigh-in and the opening bell.

Well, news of the impending carnival-like collision flew across the country. On the day of the event, it is said 10,000 whites gathered in downtown Chicago to be read round-by-round dispatches – as a similar crowd of blacks were in front of a theater about a mile away – and another huge throng, some 30,000, stood in Times Square to read minute-by-minute accounts on the New York Times’ brand new ticker.

Elsewhere across the nation people of both races were mesmerized and, very sadly as you will see, became horribly polarized. The writer London, who wrote the immortal books “Call of the Wild” and “White Fang,” sent a one dispatch that read, “If the black wins, it may be the last act of his life.”

The town of Reno was so besieged it ran out of food and – much worse – whiskey. So much tension was in the air all guns were banned around the ring. “Good Lord, you don’t think anyone would shoot me, do you?” the horrified Johnson asked the day of the fight, this the morning after Jeffries had stayed up half the night because he was so fearful of the whole thing.

In the newly-built arena the ring itself was a 22-foot square – huge by boxing standards – and the prize money was $110,000, the split 75-25 between the fighters. They also got $50,000 each for the movie rights and more thousands gathered outside of what is today a junkyard, listening to radios via loudspeakers.

Of course, the fight itself was a terrible mismatch. “Gentleman Jim” Corbett was urging Jeffries from his corner but by the fourth round, when Johnson began to maul Jeffries’ face, it became boxing at its gory worst.

Every time the white fighter would answer the bell Johnson would heckle him, “Mr. Jeff, it’s just gonna’ get worse,” and “Jim, I think I’ll just hit you harder!” as Corbett would hurl racial insults across the ring. Jackson, the son of a former slave in Galveston, Texas, relished the slurs and took his rage out on Jeffries, laughing at his opponents’ blows with the words, “Quit loving on me!”

By the 13th round Jeffries face was literally smashed, his nose broken and his eyes badly swollen. But he kept coming, finally going down in the 16th but then managing to drag himself upright at the nine-count, at which Johnson sent him sprawling and unconscious through the ropes. It was so bad the guys filming the fight turned off the camera before the end.

After he woke back up, Jeffries told his handlers, “I just couldn’t come back,” and the strutting Johnson was indeed the unanimous champ. But it was far from over. In New Orleans, some whites darn near killed a black man when the radio announced the outcome and, in Houston, another on a bus was fatally cut from ear-to-ear.

It has often been said that when “The Great White Hope” turned out to be anything but, it set race relations and eventual brotherhood back until after World War II when the Army did more to bond men than the laws ever could. But, in the aftermath of the spectacle, there was rioting and racial strife was rampant across America.

After the fight Johnson was immediately charged with violating the Mann Act, which was transporting women across state lines for immoral purposes, and he immediately fled to England. He appeared in minstrel shows and the like before returning in 1920 and serving a sentence of a year and a day. He was killed in a North Carolina car wreck in 1946.

President Barack Obama is now being urged to pardon the black fighter, with Johnson’s family and supporters loudly claiming the charges were due to the racial strife, but – let’s face it – he’s already served the time. John McCain and many others in Congress are also pressing for “justice” but what does it matter.

As far as I am concerned the “Fight of the Century” was the worst sporting event in history, its outcome barbaric and its aftermath terribly retarding the strides the nation is still trying to overcome in loving one other. I, for one, hope we never have another “Fight of the Century” again.

Not in another 100 years. Not ever.