Did Black Figters Hold Back from fighting their best against Whites in early 1900's?

Why would the threat have to be a mob rushing the ring or some such? Why would it have to be a boxing-related example?

Look at what was going on in society at that time -- lynchings as the like. Someone approaches a black fighter and says 'you better hold back, boy, or you could end up swinging from a tree like that n----r last month' wouldn't be just as scary? In those should would your mind say, 'Well, it's not like the guy they lynched was a boxer, these good ol' boys just funning with me'???

Seriously.

 

That's possible.

I'm just saying that I haven't seen anything in boxing history compelling enough for me to believe that this sort of thing was "rampant" in boxing. Black fighters were stretching white fighters on a regular basis. SAVAGELY in some cases, no holding back and no "layin' off" the white guy. Peter Jackson comes to mind. Sam Langford's butchery over Jim Flynn was a certified horror show according to newspapers.

Larry Temple. Jack Blackburn. Joe Gans. George Dixon. Joe Walcott. Dave Holly......I don't see them sparing too many white opponents.

 

Probably depended a lot on geography -- closer to the Mason-Dixon line, the more real the fear of reprisal if threats were made.

It seemed to me you were overlooking a lot of non-boxing history ... what was really going on with lynchings and such, and almost making light of the sort of impact that would make on any person of color's psyche. Those things were very real.

 

True.

Gene Hackman has a great line in "Mississippi Burning". He says he loves baseball because "it's the only time a black man can wave a stick at a white man and not cause a riot." It's the same with boxing. I still say it was a model for race relations and was light years ahead of society and other sports at the time.

In society blacks couldn't eat at the same tables, use the same restrooms or stay in the same hotels. But a black man could don gloves, enter the ring and beat the hell out of a white man and not only NOT suffer repercussions for it, but be paid thousands of dollars for it. He could win a world championship beating up white men, make a living that supported himself, his family and the rest of his loved ones.

I think boxing was a relative safe haven from society in a way. Boxing deserves more credit for being the great (though by no means perfect) equalizer that it was. Did anything else in America at that time give a black man as much of an even break or sense of fair and honorable play?

 

I see some lack of historical perspective. I'm a southerner and I can Gael you that this did not happen in the south. Mostly because there were rules.against blacks and whites mixing so fights were unlikely to take place, period. How gans fought something like 200 fights with maybe a few taking place in the American south; these fights were probably against fellow African Americans. Same I would imagine for Langford.

Edit: the exception to the rule appears to be Jack Johnson, but he was a southerner and again did not fight many fights against white guys in the south.

 

Jack Johnson did more to stereotype the negative image to the white world that did not know much about blacks up close, but Jack never did anything to help his own kind, even choosing white woman as a preference over black woman was not a moral builder for black woman. Johnson was a disaster and a selfish person that did not see the big picture for the struggling other blacks. Joe Louis was not a selfish man and was loved even by the most bigoted and ignorant white because he was an American first and conscious of his public image and the effect it took on blacks in general. Martin Luther King did the same as Louis in the political world and he closed and healed some very large gaps while the Muslims divided and segregated minds and body's.

There may have been some blacks as there were whites, Jews, Irish, Italians in particular geographic regions that had to wear the cuffs or took money not to fight to there full potential. You got to remember that European Immigrants or minority religions were also prejudiced against (had to change there names to a more American one) and were considered the NEW Negros and objects of hatred but this did not have the longevity of the color difference

 

Do you think Jack Johnson did not have the right to prefer white women?
Should he have put his preferences on the back burner to (possibly) further the lives of other blacks?

 

after jack johnson run blacks were blackballed for many years

 

That's a lot of conjecture on your part. Care to offer some concrete evidence or one particular incident of it occurring on a higher level of the sport?

Ginboat Smith also claimed the fix was in for the Johnson Jeffries fight but no one has ever taken tham claim seriously. Where there were fixes, on the higher levels of the sport, they were done neither primarily for white or black but for green... i.e... have a close first fight to drum up interest and betting in a second fight, then take off the handcuffs.

 

OK, but as far as the Johnson example goes, I'm not sure that you can say that race was a factor here. What I'm looking for is an example of "committed to defeat by obligation". Even holding back a bit, Johnson banged up Ketchel pretty good.

Thanks for digging up those examples for the thread though :good

 

True. But keep in mind that racial promotions were a regular (and smart) promotional tool back then and helped fatten the gate. In Pittsburgh during that time it was common to see the Southside "Polak" pitted against the Northside "Mick", the "Wop" from Bloomfield or the "Darkey" from the Hill District.

 

Well again, I have no doubt that some blacks had to fight with cuffs occasionally. But I'm still looking for proof of Nagler's and Early's hypothesis of "usually committed to defeat by obligation". I look at history and I just don't see it.

Ritchie may be right, or speculating or just repeating something he'd heard, I don't know. Maybe Gans' manager, Al Herford, took more than his fair share. Lots of managers (of both white and black fighters) have been accused of such skullduggery (see Primo Carnera, etc). But I look at Gans' career and it sparkles in any kind of light one wishes to shine upon it. McGovern fight aside, I don't see an armload of questionable losses or suspicious distance fights. I see a guy with around 100 knockouts who ruled a division for years and even slaughtered top ranking white welterweight contenders to boot. No holding back there. The guy was a terror. I don't see a guy who was starving to death.

If Al Herford was treating him so badly Joe could easily have jumped to the powerful Tom O'Rourke camp, couldn't he? The one that George Dixon and Joe Walcott both were part of? Wouldn't top level managers be climbing all over themselves to manage a dominant WORLD CHAMPION, irrespective of race??