Throughout
history, heroic figures have been worshiped
for their inspirational passion, great courage,
self-sacrifice, and resolve in the face
of danger and adversity. Additionally, we
all like to believe that the inspiration
for such level of courage is often caused
by the need to fight some moral injustice,
to make the success even more glorious or
the failure worthwhile.
Many of these heroic figures (often myths
and folk heroes from the ancient times)
remain in our consciousness and give us
hope and strength at times when we find
ourselves in need of inspiration to rise
to the challenges we face each day in our
lives.
In
almost every case, these fictional
heroes are based on some vague historic
event with little or no proven evidence
or reliable information. Even more, almost
all these heroes are the embodiment of some
kind of physical strength that has been
transformed into fairy tales, e.g. Achilles,
Hercules, Leonidas, Perseus, among others.
For instance, not one historian anywhere
in the world would validate the accuracy,
or associate any historic value, to the
movie ‘300’ which depicts the
heroism (or as some suggest, psychotic)
acts of Leonidas of Sparta. In fact, most
historians believe this movie was based
on a gross misrepresentation of known
facts and regard the false depiction as
harmful to historic accuracy of events for
the sake of Hollywood box office success.
However, movie audiences enjoyed this fairy
tale fictional Hollywood story about a group
of 300 men that stood up to an army of (apparently)
1,000,000 battle-hardened warriors and died
as a sign of their courage. Except historians
accustomed to rationality and those that
seek factual evidence based on reliable
data, very few people chose to believe otherwise,
no matter how nonsense the inaccurate depiction.
Thankfully, modern heroes are not often
based on juiced-up, spiced-up, grossly exaggerated
and falsely depicted history driven by financial
greed to create an artificial emotional
roller coaster that rakes in the money by
disingenuous storytellers.
As Hollywood fails to bring us real heroes
because most filmmakers believe that the
truth is not commercially viable and often
non-entertaining, where do we turn to in
order to find real modern day heroes that
understand our challenges based on real
circumstances of our era?
The answer is: Sports.
Sports has brought us many heroes and in
every case, courageous, genuine, and on
display in real time. And the audience simply
adds the morale justice or injustice depending
on which side they support.
These sports heroes are often simple ordinary
persons in extraordinary circumstances,
beyond their control. Despite all the obstacles
stacked against them, they typically prevail
in the end.
The greatest American Sports story
is both heroic and the result of injustice
in the face of great adversity. It has determination,
glory, and heartbreak – a real roller
coaster of emotion for any hero seeker that
understands the plight of one man that found
himself in a position of weakness but rose
up to display almost a non-human level of
courage that belongs to fictional myths
of the ancient times.
This hero won “The Fight of the Century”,
and fought with determination against odds
insurmountable by any other and was regarded
as the most famous, and the most notorious,
African-American on Earth, for thirteen
years.
His name: Arthur John Johnson, nickname
“Galveston Giant”.
This patient boxer, known by many as simply
Jack Johnson, was praised by the press as
“the cleverest man in boxing”,
whose unorthodox ed technique was simplicity
itself: to wait patiently for his opponent
to make a mistake and punishing him endlessly.
Having won at least 50 fights against both
white and black opponents, Johnson won his
first title in 1903, beating "Denver"
Ed Martin over 20 rounds for the World Black
Heavyweight Championship. His efforts to
win the full title were thwarted as world
heavyweight champion James J. Jeffries (white)
refused to face him since blacks could box
whites in other arenas, but not for the
world heavyweight championship, as blacks
were not deemed worthy to compete at this
level.
However, in order to pursue the title with
his usual patience, he first fought the
former champion Bob Fitzsimmons in 1907
and won after a second round knock out.
After fighting a series of other champions
and winning convincingly, Johnson could
no longer be ignored by Jeffries, who agreed
to fight him. But Jefferies was less interested
in the spirit of the sport, or being the
undisputed world champion, than he was on
superiority of his race and said, "I
am going into this fight with Johnson for
the sole purpose of proving that a white
man is better than a Negro”. Jefferies
had never been knocked down, ever.
On 4th of July (on a truly befitting historic
day), 1910 in front of more than 20,000
people (all white except Johnson), the two
sportsmen fought at a ring built just for
the occasion in this hotbed of racial tension
as the ringside band played, "All coons
look alike to me".
While the promoters incited the all-white
crowd to chant "kill the nigger",
Johnson proved stronger and cleverer than
Jeffries. In the 15th round, after Jeffries
had been knocked down twice, his people
called it quits to prevent Johnson from
knocking him out.
The
outcome of the fight triggered race riots
that evening in twenty five states and 50
cities all across the United States. Johnson's
victory over Jeffries was regarded by many
whites as a humiliation. At least 23 blacks
and 2 whites died in the riots, and hundreds
more were injured. There were many occurrences
of white crowds beatings of black men. Police
interrupted many attempts of lynching.
Jack
Johnson earned an army of enemies for simply
being himself, a wonderful boxer and an
independent man who happened to live in
an intolerant time. Yet most of those that
remembered him, spoke of his smiles and
soft heart. He never
spoke badly of his country, of his profession,
or of his countrymen and women. He was a
very accepting man of his circumstances.
But Johnson was not allowed to insult the
white, win the prize that had always belonged
to white people, and get away with his treacherous
act of becoming the world undisputed heavy
weight champion.
In
1920, Federal agents arrested Johnson for
allegedly violating the Mann Act in 1913
against "transporting women across
state lines for immoral purposes" He
was sent to prison to serve his sentence
of one year.
The
Senate is now waiting to vote for a companion
bill for a presidential pardon for Johnson’s
conviction on trumped up charges of violating
the Mann Act in 1913. This would right a
legal and moral wrong.
While Hollywood
filmmakers dressed-up Leonidas
and his band of 300 suicidal thugs as entertaining
and fake heroic figures of their imagination
in order to charge $10 admissions tickets,
we are all deprived of the real American
heroes who have been ignored for a century
ago.
Johnson was
an true and glorious American Hero.
http://www.thegrio.com/top-stories/congress-urges-pardon-for-first-black-boxing-champ.php
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