Who were the last top boxers to draw the color line?

Mike Tyson never fought in a title fight or ever defended his many titles in his entire career against a white fighter!

 

Ironically, A white guy retired him from boxing.

 

It is very meaningful.

A champion who drew the color line, denied any qualified black challenger a shot at the title.

A contender who drew the color line, denied them nothing.

 

Corrie Sanders.

 

I gotcha!
Again i'm looking specifically at the promoter's words. And I do agree white writers tried to spin the story as if in 1900 black fans were anywhere near the match, let alone decided to go to white parts of towns.
perfect example: “Charles Williams, a negro fight enthusiast, had his throat slashed from ear to ear on a streetcar by a white man, having announced too vociferously his appreciation of Jack Johnson’s victory in Reno.”

surely that was way too much celebrating in the most *****rdliness if ways!! LOL!

From Timeline, to documentaries they capped it right- too many people died for Rickard the promoter to involve any of (his) fighters in interracial fights is how i draw my "exclusion" theory:

The day after, newspapers set on the difficult task of tallying the aftermath. “One man was shot in Arkansas, two negroes were killed at Lake Providence, La.; one negro was killed at Mounds, Ill., and a negro fatally wounded in Roundeye, Va.,” "


In Manhattan’s San Juan Hill neighborhood, a mob set fire to a black tenement, while blocking the doorway to prevent the occupants’ escape. In St. Louis, a black crowd marched the streets, pushing whites off the sidewalk and harassing them, before being clubbed and dispersed by police.

In Washington, two white men were fatally stabbed by black men, with 236 people arrested in that city alone.((was this self defense? I dunno) And in Omaha, a black man was to death in a barber’s chair, while in Wheeling, West Virginia, a black man driving an expensive car — just as the playboyish Jack Johnson was famous for — was beset by a mob and hanged.


Dempsey may have been a racist, I dunno, but I do know Rickard call tghe shots and there is ample info on his views -he didn't want to be a part of anything like what he witnessed the day a black man won the HW title.

 

Dempsey had plenty of black sparring partners. He paid their wages. He also helped Sam Langford out. If he was truly racially biased, in the sense that he hated black people I don’t think he would have had black sparring partners, played cards with them, or paid them money.

The bottom line is, although he fought black men before he became champion, He never defend his title to Harry Wills. He did sign to fight him though.

 

Cool stuff, didn't know he had black sparring partners. Seems those who called him racist or drew a line should have been quoted.

I still stand on the same principle: Dempsey didn't fight Johnson because of Rickard. Not because he was racist or drew a line on not fighting minorities.

 

Dempsey fought an exhibition benefit for Sam Langford.

http://www.champsuk.com/i-3487/jack...3-fight-vs-tommy-gibbons-signed-by-burke.html

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It's a fallacy to say you can't be white racist and at the same time have some black friends or a close working relationships with black persons.
I'm not making any judgement there on Jack Dempsey or whoever, and don't wish to open up some lengthy discussion on racism, but it's a fallacy.

 

A crazier thing is that I've seen some people on this forum talk as if newspaper accounts of those times are reliable sources of what actually happened.

 

Not really, because they could always find a roughly equivalent contender willing to fight them.

Again, they still had to fight somebody of caliber to establish a credible bid.

A fighter who want to take an easy road to a title shot, will have no trouble doing it with or without the color line in place.

We talked about Tommy Loughran's stance on the color line in a previous thread, and he must surely be the man who gained the lest tactical benefit from it!

 

Most champions draw the money line. The side of the line that makes them the most money.

 

Often this is the case that or they opted for easier fights i.e Zale at middleweight when the black murders row were around.