McCain Seeks Justice For Deceased Boxer Jack Johnson (Photos)

Posted on April 1, 2009

Sen. John McCain will offer a Congressional resolution today asking for a presidential pardon for Jack Johnson, who became the nation’s first black heavyweight boxing champion 100 years ago. Read more on the McCain Jack Johnson pardon below.

McCain says Jack Johnson was done a “grave injustice” by a 1913 conviction for violating the Mann Act by having a consensual relationship with a white woman.

McCain, a big boxing fan himself, has repeatedly said that he was wrong in 1983 when he voted against a federal holiday in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., filmmaker Ken Burns and Johnson’s great niece, Linda Haywood, will join McCain at a news conference in Washington to unveil the resolution.

Jack Johnson won the world heavyweight title in 1908 after beating Canadian world champion, Tommy Burns. That win led to a search for a “Great White Hope” who could beat Johnson. Then years later, Johnson beat Jim Jeffries, the one-time American titleholder who had come out of retirement for a match billed as “The Battle of the Century.” But Johnson’s victory triggered deadly riots.

Johnson lost the heavyweight title to Jess Willard in 1915.

The Mann Act, which outlaws transporting women across state lines for immoral purposes, has since been heavily amended, but not repealed.

Jack Johnson fled the country after his conviction, but agreed years later to return and serve a 10-month jail sentence. Johnson died in a car crash in 1946 at age 68.

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