Why did Jack Johnson draw the color line?

You done gone opened a can o worms

 

Mista' Johnson wuz some prizefighta' if de prize wuz big-ass enough he would uh fought dem all even lil sam

 

Jack Johnson is one of the baddest dudes of all time

 

Because he was racist, duh.

 

Probably better off doing a search, reading the past responses of years gone by, and sparing the rest of us the grief...

 

Money. The white boxing public who paid to see Johnson fight paid to see a white man beat him. I remember him spelling it out explicitly in some newspaper interview. He said that Jeannette, Mcvey, or Langford hadn't been able to raise the purse he demanded and some white boy had.

 

Because Jack Johnson was like the typical black male. He hated being black and spent his life running to white females white men didn't want. Kind of like all black sports stars of today right.

 

In his partial defence, the purses that he was offered to fight the top black contenders were derisory, at least until his legal troubles overtook him.

Ironically his prosecution under the Mann Act, might have prevented him from fighting Sam Langford and Sam McVea in Australia.

It also has to be weighed into the argument that he declined rather rapidly after the Jeffries fight, while his contenders were still at their peaks.

 

Not really my area this but didn't Johnson have a two year period of inactivity after the Jeffries fight and after returning to the ring surely age and inactivity would help most fighters rapidly decline

 

That's about it in a nutshell. The racist mores of the time put Johnson in that position. And,under the circumstances,who can blame him ?

 

First off let's state the facts .. prior to winning the title Johnson fought McVey multiple time and soundly thrashed him .. McVey was young but not the novice he is sometimes projected as. Johnson fought Jeannette many times .. they were often competitive but again Johnson had a pretty clear edge .. knocking Jeannette down more than a few times along the way . Johnson did fight and soundly defeat Langford .. the weight gap is always blown out of proportion .. it was likely no more that twenty five pounds which is considerable but Jack in shape would always have twenty pounds on Sam in shape .. Sam also had more fights than Jack did at the time they fought ..

That being said when Johnson won the title he was all about money .. he chased Burns al over the world to get the match .. when it was over he wanted time to make some money as it had eluded him for the most part .. soon after the roar of a Jeffries bout started and there was no way Johnson was going to risk that payday ...

Up until the Jeffries fight Jack Johnson was still the best fighter in the world. After Jeffries is another story .. the psychological repercussions of the fight drained the hell out of the man .. the legal issues did not help .. he was not the same man, did not show the same fire and clearly began to realize his best days were either behind him or starting to look that way .. he was 33 plus and likely simply not willing to put his body through the necessary training to fight the very hungry and motivated Langford or Jeannette ... not when he could make near equal money fighting lesser white fighters ..

Short answer, my thoughts, post Jeffries, he sure did.