A Revealing Glimpse Of Jeffries Manners & Attitude Towards Men Of Colour

"I did not care much whether a negro or a white man was champion, provided he lived cleanly and fought fair and straight." --Jim Jeffries

"Jeffries' gym was open to all-comers, gratis. Fighters of every race and ethnic group were welcome and the participants were a diverse group, coming from all over California."-- Jim Carney

(again, just for a bit of balance:good)

 

:rofl Good one!

 

Just don't forget to include post #20 in your overall assessment of Jeffries.

 

Jeffries was clearly a man of his time and not a progressive one at that ... my take is he was fine with blacks as long as they "knew and stayed in their place." Johnson was clearly not in that mold .... at the end of the day Jeffries paid for his ignorance and arrogance ... if he did not draw the color line and fought Johnson in 06 there is no way of telling for sure who would have won but he would have definitely put up a far, far more competitive fight than he did in Reno ...

 

When were the quotes from ? THe first is meaningless if a color line is drawn. The second must have been later in life and he possibly matured as many of us do ...

 

The first was from his autobiography. This attitude was confirmed (during his championship reign) by those who knew him. Despite things said in the press, those who knew Jeff scoffed at the notion that he was some crusader for white superiority during his life. That was Sullivan's pulpit, not Jeff's. He had more important concerns, like when his next hunting and fishng trip was. I'll have to find the nwsp interview, but one friend and camp mate of Jeff's stated that despite all the quotes in the press from Jeff about color lines and such that Jeffries was not really opposed to fighting black men and would do so if the money and interest were raised. Basically saying that the man hated training-- which is a matter of record-- and that there were no black fighters that would really draw.

Perhaps, like Jack Johnson when he was champ, Jeffries saw it as a maximum risk/minimal gain proposition.

The second quote was taken from "Ultimate Tough Guy".

 

My feeling is that if Jeffries had had a Peter Jackson to his John L. Sullivan or a Harry Wills to his Jack Dempsey, the fight gets made. Jack Johnson's claim for a title shot during Jeff's reign didn't have the weight, interest(other than from newspapermen who wanted to see the color line broken) or drawing potential that those two brought to the table.

 

It would make a great headline :

WHITE AMERICAN FARMBOY-TURNED-PRIZEFIGHTER , BORN 1875, HARBORS LESS THAN PROGRESSIVE THOUGHTS ON OTHER RACES !!!

:rofl

Yeah, but you never met the guy. We shouldn't believe everything we read in the newspapers.