Jim Jefferies is regarded as one of the greatest prizefighters of all time and rightfully so. Born in 1875, just 10 years after the American Civil War, he was known as the Boilermaker.
Jefferies stood about 6’1 and weighed about 225 pounds. In the ring,
Jefferies was known for two things; being able to absorb an inordinate amount of punishment, and having one punch knock out power with his left hand. He was an opponent’s worst nightmare, guaranteed he could take anything you could dish out, and he was strong enough to knock out a horse.
While Jefferies was making a name for himself, he fought some black fighters, and he had made short work of them. One black fighter, Peter Jackson, Jefferies knocked out in just three rounds. The world heavyweight champion at the time, John L. Sullivan, was refusing to fight Jackson. Jefferies gave Jackson only the second defeat of his career and Jackson ended up retiring soon after his loss to Jefferies.
Jefferies finally won the World Heavyweight title in 1899 by a knockout victory over Bob Fitzsimmons. In Jefferies’ second title defense, he ended up setting the world record (which still stands to this day) for the fastest heavyweight title fight ever, knocking his opponent out in just 55 seconds.
Like most fighters of the time, Jefferies was willing to fight black fighters while making a name for himself, but all of that changed once he won the world title. Jefferies took the same stance as every other white heavyweight champion did before him, refusing to allow black fighters a shot at the heavyweight championship of the world. In fact, he said, there will never be a black heavyweight champion on his watch. A statement like that I could respect if he said that while taking on all challengers, but it sounds whack as hell if you say that and then refuse to fight any black fighters.
Jefferies retired because there were no worthy white opponents for him to smash. He walked away from boxing never having tasted the bitterness of defeat.
During Jefferies retirement, a young black fighter named Jack Johnson had emerged on the scene. Jack Johnson was known in the ring as the Galveston Giant. He too stood 6’1. Jack Johnson had his first professional fight in Galveston, Texas in 1898, the year before Jefferies defeated Bob Fitzsimmons for the heavyweight title. He soon knocked out a man named John W. Haynes who was known as the Black Hercules who had been calling himself the “Black Heavyweight Champ”.
Jack Johnson hadn’t had much formal training yet in boxing and it would soon come back to bite him. He had a fight in 1901 against a man named Joe Choynski, also known as the California Terror. Choynski knocked Jack Johnson out in three rounds. Funny thing is, prizefighting was illegal in Texas at the time and the two of them were arrested immediately after the fight.
Now this is where it gets really weird.
Bail was set for both men at $5,000 which nether one of them could afford to pay. So the Sherriff worked out a deal with the men. He agreed to let them both go home if they would agree to spar each other in one of his jail cells. Both men agreed, and for a month, the two of them sparred each other while spectators paid to watch. After a month, the Sheriff had earned enough money to reduce their fines to something that they could afford and the grand jury refused to bring charges against either one of them. Jack Johnson always said that it was during this month of boxing Choynski in a jail cell that he learned all of his boxing skills. Joe Choynski was a popular fighter who was so good defensively that some people said that he could go an entire fight and never get hit. The two of them would remain good friends for the rest of their lives.
After Jack learned some much-needed boxing skills, Johnson began winning fights and gaining a reputation for trash talking that was every bit as big as his reputation in the ring. Without a doubt, in that category, he was a Muhammad Ali 60 years before Muhammad Ali.
If you were a black fighter it didn’t matter how good you were, no white fighters would agree to fight a black prizefighter for a title.
In fact, Joe Gans had just become the first black prize-fighter to win any title in 1902 when he won the lightweight title.
But that was the lightweight title. Not all titles were created equal. The heavyweight title was different.
No white fighter was willing to risk losing such a coveted, high profile title like the Heavyweight to a black man.
Ironically, it wasn’t Jack Johnson’s skills in the ring that eventually got him a title shot. There had been plenty of black prizefighters that were knocking people out. What got Jack Johnson his shot at the title was his mouth. Jack’s “trash talking” rubbed a lot of white people in his day the wrong way, much like Muhammad Ali’s trash talking rubbed people wrong. People forget, because Muhammad is such a beloved figure today, that during his prime just as many people bought tickets to hopefully see him lose as they did to see him win, if not more. Jack Johnson was no different.
Jack Johnson ended up getting his chance at the heavyweight title on December 26, 1908 after incisively taunting the then reigning heavyweight champion Tommy Burns in every post-match interview with the press for almost two years. Tommy was a Canadian, not an American, which might’ve been why he was ever so slightly more open to the idea of giving a black man a shot at the title. Although Canada was not immune from the taint of white supremacy, in America it was as if the very identity of the country was built on it. No matter how much money you threw at an American white prizefighter it was never enough to take the risk.
Tommy only agreed to fight him after promoters agreed to pay him $30,000 and only then if they move the fight all the way to Sydney, Australia.
Johnson pummeled him.
Johnson beat Burns so bad, but the fight wasn’t stopped by the referee, no referee on the planet was going to risk being lynched by a crowd of 20,000 angry whites who paid good money to see Tommy put this “uppity nigger” in his place.
But if somebody didn’t step in and do something soon Tommy Burns was going to be killed.
Isn’t that funny? White supremacy was so strong in 1908 that no one wanted to be responsible for awarding a victory to a black man and Tommy Burns almost paid with his life.
Since the referee wouldn’t stop the fight and Tommy’s own corner men wouldn’t stop it the fight had to be stopped by the police. That’s right. Armed police had to crawl into the ring and stop the fight. Johnson was awarded the heavyweight title and just like that, the notion of white supremacy had a huge big fat red, pulpy zit on the end of its nose.
Here is another time where we have to recognize white supremacy for what it is. And while we’re at it, recognize how deeply it runs in American culture. Whites absolutely lost their mind when Jack Johnson won the title. It’s a wonder that they didn’t kill him.
The reason that they didn’t was because in order for white supremacy to regain its honor, a white man would have to defeat Jack Johnson to win the title back. Had the KKK in Galveston, Texas for example strung Johnson in a tree and Johnson had died holding the title then it could be said that no one white could defeat Johnson. That would be worse, infinitely worse. No, white supremacy would have to be given the chance to save face. There would be plenty of time to kill Johnson.
But where were they going to find such a white man? What they needed was a Great White Hope. Ever heard that term before? Well this is where it came from. Jim Jefferies, the great, undefeated Hall of Fame heavyweight champion who had made light work of black fighters before. Members of the press and promoters the world over began immediately trying to lure Jefferies out of retirement to not just defeat Jack Johnson, but to fight for the white race.
But it had been six years since Jefferies last fight. Jefferies had bought a farm in California, hung up his gloves and hadn’t looked back. Eventually it took promoters offering Jefferies $101,000, which would be 3 million dollars today, to get him to agree to come out of retirement to fight Jack Johnson.
Jefferies also signed a contract for movie rights and a $10,000 cash bonus.
Adjusted to today’s dollars, Jefferies was going to make altogether $2,630,400.00 to fight Johnson.
No matter the cost, America had finally gotten their Great White Hope.
But there was a problem. Jefferies had no intention on ever returning to the ring. In the six years since his retirement, he had ballooned from 225 pounds to over 330 pounds. Johnson on the other hand was in his prime. Still, none of this deterred the white supremacists all over America who had hung all of their hopes on Jim Jefferies. They were sure that he would kill Johnson.
Make no mistake about it, people knew what was at stake.
The NY Times wrote, “if the black man wins, thousands and thousands of his ignorant brothers will misinterpret his victory as justifying claims to much more than mere physical equality with their white neighbors.”
This fight was hands down the biggest fight of the 20th century and possibly still the biggest fight of all time to this day.
The night of the fight firearms were banned from the arena for fear that someone might shoot Johnson dead in the ring if it ever became clear that Jefferies was going to lose.
On Independence Day, July 4, 1910, the fight took place in Reno, Nevada in an arena especially built for this fight. Twenty thousand people showed up. Ringside seats were being scalped at $125 apiece, which adjusted to today’s dollars was $3,164 a ticket.
When Jefferies got into the ring, he refused to shake Johnson’s hand.
The crowd roared.
It was on!
Then Johnson proceeded to beat Jefferies into obscurity.
The fight was scheduled for 45, 3-minute rounds. Yes, 45 ROUNDS!
It would only last 15.
Johnson beat Jefferies so badly that when Jefferies wife Frieda saw his beaten face and body, she fainted.
Former champion John L. Sullivan said after the fight that NEVER had there been a championship contest that was so one-sided.
For Jefferies to be beaten so badly, in such a high profile fight, in front of 20,000 paying ticket holders and the many thousands listening to the fight at home in front of their radios was truly intolerable for many whites.
It wasn’t just that Jack Johnson beat Jim Jefferies. It was how he beat him. People in attendance, especially near ringside, almost unanimously said that it was as if Johnson was playing with Jefferies. That there were many times when he could’ve easily put Jefferies out of his misery but would instead let up and allow Jefferies to regain his composure, get his faculties back, and then return to administer more punishment.
Race riots broke out in many American cities the next day, when whites took offense at the glee expressed by overjoyed black Americans who took to the streets to celebrate Johnson’s victory.
In two days, 10 blacks were murdered by angry mobs of whites in six states, hundreds more were injured.
Overall, there were race riots in 25 states in 50 cities over blacks celebrating Johnson’s victory over the Great White Hope.
Historians call the Johnson Jefferies fight the fight of the 20th century because no fight before or since, arguably no sporting event period, was more eagerly anticipated than this fight and no sporting event before or since ever sparked the kind of race riots that this fight did.
Ken Burns would say that after this fight, “for more than thirteen years, Jack Johnson was the most famous and the most notorious African-American on Earth”.
After Johnson won this fight, sadly he continued the tradition of not fighting black fighters for the heavyweight title.
Johnson wouldn’t give another black fighter the opportunity to fight for the heavyweight title for five years.
