PBS’ upcoming Ken Burns documentary about Jack Johnson should deliver a built-in audience of history buffs, boxing fans and jazz enthusiasts. With its hold-no-punches depiction of the legendary and controversial black boxer and a gripping soundtrack by Wynton Marsalis, the film also is likely to attract a new generation of young people. In it, they will find haunting similarities to struggles and realities faced by many of today’s black athletes.
Burns’ “Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson” is scheduled to air Monday, Jan. 17 and Tuesday, Jan. 18. Viewers will learn about the enigmatic Johnson (1878-1946), who became the first black heavyweight champion after winning the crown from Tommy Burns in Sydney, Australia on Dec. 26, 1908. Following his victory, a bitter racial controversy followed. America wanted a white champion, and rallied for Jim Jeffries — “The Great White Hope” — to come out of retirement to fight Johnson. Two years later, Jeffries did fight Johnson. As with Burns in Australia, Johnson kicked Jeffries’ butt, too.
Results of that fight sparked widespread racial violence against blacks throughout the country. It also led to government investigations against Johnson, who ultimately was convicted of violating the Mann Act, which prohibited interstate slave trafficking. Johnson was accused of transporting women across state lines for prostitution, but was actually traveling with white girlfriends, some of whom were prostitutes, according to Burns’ documentary. After a 1913 conviction, Johnson fled the country for seven years, but eventually returned to serve his one-year sentence.
Mark Anthony Neal, an associate professor in the Black Popular Culture program in African and African-American Studies at Duke University, sees striking similarities in Johnson’s early-century experiences and those of today’s black athletes.
“I think with the current focus on "don't give a [damn]" black athletes like Kobe Bryant, Ron Artest, Barry Bonds and Terrell Owens, it’s very useful to look back at a figure like Jack Johnson, who is really the template for the contemporary black athlete,” Neal told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “But I don't want to suggest that Artest, Owens, Bonds and the like are in any ways facing the kinds of challenges that Johnson did.
“Today's black athletes have a freedom to be arrogant and dismissive that Johnson could have never have imagined -- or Jackie Robinson, Curt Flood or Althea Gibson, for that matter,” Neal continued. “When Johnson flaunted his athletic prowess and his affinity for white women, there were real threats of violence against him and real attempts to criminalize his actions.”
Bill Wiggins, professor emeritus of African-American and African Diaspora and Folklore and Ethnomusicology at Indiana University, described Johnson as “an iconoclast” who refused to bend or bow to the demands of a racially segregated society.
“He said, ‘This is who I am. You can like it or love it, but it’s who I am. I’m not altering or bending my personality for you,’ ” said Wiggins, adding that such attitudes among black athletes and celebrities still tend to stir resentment today.
Wiggins, who received a Guggenheim Fellowship to write a book about legendary boxer Joe Louis, said Johnson also was a victim of the American ethos that likes to tear down heroes and cast them as villains. Today, Johnson is recognized as a victim of his times who was treated unfairly, he said.
Based on Burns’ past body of work, Wiggins predicts that, while “Unforgivably Black” may not necessarily inspire viewers, it will enlighten them.
“This presentation will certainly broaden audiences to his life and contributions,” he said. “Even though we are black, we are still Americans, and there is a need to reflect on the past to see if it still influences the present. It will be a chance for the cinema verite to look at the first quarter of the century, when everybody was not Malcolm X.”
In a recent Detroit Free Press article, Burns offered this reason for the Johnson documentary:
"The Jack Johnson that I became interested in was much more intelligent, much more thoughtful, much more articulate, a man who owns three patents in the United States government ... this was a different story," Burns said. "The persecution seemed all the more venal and reprehensible and unconstitutional. Finally, there was a point where I had to do it."
Burns was further quoted in the paper saying that race is a part of all of his films because black people are the heart of American history. Other Burns’ screen epics include “The Civil War,” “Jazz” and “Baseball.”
"The questions raised in American history often involve race and speak to the soul of who we are," Burns said in the article. "I don't see how I could ignore it and say I was interested in how my country works."
