Joe Jeannette on Langford and Johnson

Johnson broke rules but he was hardly the worst criminal boxing has ever seen, and the law he broke had only been set recently. For the most part he did whatever the hell he wanted within the rules and there is nothing wrong with that. Johnson had the right to pick his challengers (and he did fight a black man) as you have the right to pick whoever you want to share your film collection with. :good

Johnson for sure enjoyed attention, but he wouldn't have gotten the attention he sought without having the courage to pull off what he did in his time, much like Muhammad Ali later. In fact had Johnson been born 60 years later, we would likely be calling him the Greatest. As Ali once said, he had to be great but Jack Johnson was crazy.

Johnson's problems with Louis go deeper than just attention-seeking, he was turned down by Louis's camp because he was too controversial a figure, for both black and white folk alike. Jack Blackburn for example never had respect for Johnson's actions despite thinking highly of him as a fighter. Strangely there seemed to be an under-lying respect for what Johnson did and his ability despite the knowledge that what he did was also going to have bad effects for black people at the time.

 

Me too ,but I have no illusions about him being some kind of fore runner for the advancement of coloured people, if he did achieve anything in this field, it was entirely inadvertently ,imo.

Johnson could have been the poster boy for an old English slang expression meaning selfishness ;" I'm allright Jack".

 

Guess I was too quick coming out of my corner,I ran straight into your left jab .Peace

 

No problem, man .

BTW, I admired your apology to Klompton a few posts back. That was some serious spine on display there and I wish I saw it more often on internet boards.

Keep postin'....:smoke

 

thread hijack complete

 

When you are wrong ,you are wrong ,and I have had a lot of practice at it.

As Papa said " grace under pressure".