Will Jack Johnson ever be pardoned ?

His 100th anniversary of defeating the great white hope is coming up, and Obama still hasn't pardoned him. Why is it taking so long ? You'd figure Obama would pardon the first black heavyweight champion.

symbolic shit doesnt help johnson now unfortunetly..nor the BS of taking away jesse owens and jim thorpes stuff.

He isn't as innocent as the bleeding heart media is trying to make him out to be. He made some poor choices.

What did Jack do, from what I read it was transporting a woman across state lines for sex ?

Yeah it was being talked about recently. A couple months back some conservative congresswomen called someone the great white hope against Obama and she got in some hot water.

Ali_1748 wrote:

What did Jack do, from what I read it was transporting a woman across state lines for sex ?

He was arrogant in flaunting his disregard for laws, he was a wife beater, and he openly ran around with prostitutes. I think the reason he got in trouble was the woman he took across statelines was a known prostitute, which broke some archaic law. Yes he was the victim of racism which was the norm for the time, but he wasn't smart about how he conducted himself.

Canvas wrote:

Ali_1748 wrote:

What did Jack do, from what I read it was transporting a woman across state lines for sex ?

He was arrogant in flaunting his disregard for laws, he was a wife beater, and he openly ran around with prostitutes. I think the reason he got in trouble was the woman he took across statelines was a known prostitute, which broke some archaic law. Yes he was the victim of racism which was the norm for the time, but he wasn't smart about how he conducted himself.

Well said Canvas, i'm not so sure Johnson deserves a presidential pardon, in any event, Obama hasn't said yea or nae on this issue since a resolution sponsored by U.S. Sen. John McCain and U.S. Rep. Peter King urging President Obama to grant a posthumous pardon was approved by Congress on July 29, 2009.

Organizers of a tribute to the Jack Johnson-Jim Jeffries fight will gather Sunday in Reno, Nev., to ring the same bell used in 1910 at the site of the bout, now a metals salvage yard.

They also plan to make renewed calls for a posthumous presidential pardon for Johnson on grounds his conviction for transporting a woman across state lines for immoral purposes was steeped in the racism of the time.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who sponsored a pardon resolution along with Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said he welcomed renewed support for the cause in Reno. He told The Associated Press last month that he remains hopeful President Barack Obama will sign the pardon.

“I know the president, once he looks carefully at this issue, would want to correct a grave injustice done,” McCain said.

Jeffries’ great-great nephew Gary Wurst said he supports the pardon.

“I think it’s time for it,” the 72-year-old Wurst said Friday night at a gala in Reno, Nev. “It would rectify the wrongs of the past. Times have changed so much.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., a former boxer and avid fight fan, helped spearhead passage last year of the resolution urging Obama to grant Johnson a pardon. Johnson, who died in a car crash in 1946, served nine months of a one-year and one-day prison sentence in 1920 after returning from exile overseas.

Asked whether Reid would press Obama to issue the pardon, Reid spokesman Jon Summers replied, “That is a decision for President Obama to make.”

http://sports.yahoo.com/box/news;_ylt=ApMypLNvAD_qwJa9W8pIVTeUxLYF?slug=ap-fightofthecentury-pardon

ok heres a full breakdown Ali, I have given several college speeches on this

The Mann Act was designed to stop inner state transportation of minors by chinese immigrants who were using minor runaways as prostitutes. Much propoganda was built around the chinese as being opium smoking obsessed girl stealers.

The law was however very poorly worded (as is most american law/constitution/etc etc.) It was worded and deemed, " against the law for transporting a minor across state lines or woman for immoral purposes"

when it became clear Johnson wasnt gonna get beat they decided and found out Johnson crossed state lines with his white wife and a hooker, they deemed that immmoral enough even though he wasnt forcing the hooker into prostitution

a governor in i believe it was Mississippi tried to enter a bill to get Johnson lynched, just so you know how nutty and hated he was

Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis (Black Sox judge and 1st baseball Commiss) found Johnson guilty. (they basically gt the prostitute to testify for drugs and money.

know McCain entered this pardon know why? because he nows Obama cant use his first presidential pardon on a black athlete from 100 years ago it will feed the nutty right wing belief that Obama hates white people and only cares about blacks.

If Obama were to pardon Johnson just watch Fox will go anti Johnson, they will say, he has a deficit , the BP problem, and these 2 wars we wanted, etc, etc. why is he worried about a dead black guy from 100 years ago

Obama will pardon Johnson eventually, at the end of his term IMO

the real question is why didnt John McCain care about this 4 years ago, he is just trying to put Obama in a tough spot and look like a good guy when he is really just doing political posturing

1910, Congress passed the Mann Act, which outlawed the transportation of women in interstate or foreign commerce "for the purpose of prostitution, debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose." While the law was intended to be used against commercialized vice, the U.S. government used it to make Jack Johnson pay for his success and his lifestyle.

In 1913, Johnson was convicted of violating the Mann Act. His former lover, Belle Schreiber, testified against him. Even at the time it was widely thought to be a sham trial, with the prosecutor himself saying after the verdict, "This Negro, in the eyes of many, has been persecuted. Perhaps as an individual he was. But it was his misfortune to be the foremost example of the evil in permitting the intermarriage of whites and blacks."

sadly the Man Act has been used to persecute many a decent american and huma

Johnson, Charie Chaplin, Chuck Berry, and

In 1944, Charlie Chaplin was prosecuted under the Mann Act in a case stemming from a paternity suit involving the actress Joan Barry. Some believe the case was motivated by Chaplin's left-of-center political views. He was ultimately acquitted, but his image in the U.S. never fully recovered

In 1959, singer Chuck Berry was convicted under the Mann Act of transporting across state lines an underage Apache girl who was arrested on a prostitution charge weeks later. He ended up serving 20 months in prison on a variety of charges

perhaps the saddest case of misjustice was the "Scottsboro Boys"

basically a pimp on a train had two underage prostitutes and got caught, knowing he was fucked, what does he do, says the 9 black teenagers on the train raped the girls, oh ok, no one cares about the Mann Act know ets get those gang rapers.

No crime in American history-- let alone a crime that never occurred-- produced as many trials, convictions, reversals, and retrials as did an alleged gang rape of two white girls by nine black teenagers on the Southern Railroad freight run from Chattanooga to Memphis on March 25, 1931. Over the course of the next two decades, the struggle for justice of the "Scottsboro Boys," as the black teens were called, made celebrities out of anonymities, launched and ended careers, wasted lives and produced heroes, opened southern juries to blacks, exacerbated sectional strife, and divided America's

nine young black men (Charlie Weems, Ozie Powell, Clarence Norris, Olen Montgomery, Willie Roberson, Haywood Patterson, Andy and Roy Wright, Eugene Williams), ages thirteen to twenty-one, were arrested on March 25, 1931, tried without adequate counsel, and hastily convicted on the basis of shallow evidence. All but Roy Wright were sentenced to death. Already in the midst of a mass anti-lynching campaign begun a year earlier, the ILD gained the confidence of the defendants and their parents, initiated a legal and political campaign for their freedom, and in the process waged a vicious battle for control over the case with the NAACP, who accused the Communists of using the young men for propaganda purposes.

http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/scottsboro.html

this was the case in america that led to people of color being allowed on jury's

On March 25, 1931, nine unemployed young black men, illegally riding the rails and looking for work, were taken off a freight train at Scottsboro, Alabama and held on a minor charge. The Scottsboro deputies found two white women, Ruby Bates and Victoria Price, and pressured them into accusing the nine youths of raping them on board the train. The charge of raping white women was an explosive accusation, and within two weeks the Scottsboro Boys were convicted and eight sentenced to death, the youngest, Leroy Wright at age 13, to life imprisonment.

bird very interesting stuff...the chuck berry thing i didnt know about...

ya I kinda went on an anti Mann Act rant haha

glad it was repealed