Does History do John L Sullivan a disservice?

I saw JOHNNY CASH play him in the North and South miniseries!

 

Did he play him as a nutcase?:rofl

 

I wouldn´t say the risk of loosing to a black challenger but of the consequences of such a loss.

This is where I strongly disagree. It should be named that they did and they should be known for it. But that´s it. Fighters who didn´t do so should be celebrated for their courage. Fighters who did it shouldn´t be damned.
Know what I mean?
I think that getting "slapped around by history" is disrespectful towards those fighters and their achievements.

Okay. Extremists are bad rolemodels though. And two wrongs don´t make a right. From what I read about him (which isnt much I have to admit) he is as bad if not worse than slave owners. The path to hell is paved with good intentions.

I´m not an expert on this. I´m German. The history of the US was never that attractive to me. I know some key events but that´s it. So, I´m a bit on thin ice here but I think they were still in minority.

No, it´s not relativism. I´m a bit of a history geek. And when you dwell in different times and cultures one thing becomes evident very fast: you can´t judge them by our standards. Our ethics and morality developed over more than 2 thousand years. You can´t punish others who lived during this developement for not beeing as far as we are now. And that´s only our culture. It´s even harder when looking into other cultures where , for example, the individual person is not the focus but instead the nation alltogether - like China.

Just an example. There is an animal rights movement. Small but growing. Imagine in 100 years it´s forbidden to keep certain animals as pets and to keep them in zoos. We would be all seen the same by the people of the future as we do now the racists of 130 years ago.
But are we wrong? Do we something bad by accepting the exisctence of zoos and going there? By having pets?

Ethics, moral, right and wrong is no absolute. It´s relativ. History delivers the proof for that.

I´m no expert on American history, like I wrote before. If this is as you wrote than you are right.

That´s easy. Throughout history there were always rulebreakers. People ahead of their time who changed the rules instead of living by them. Sullivan wasn´t one. Brown was. We owe those people. They are the ones who are responsible of developing mankind. But those people are the exception.

Definitly.

Same here, I´m just not able to put it as elegant.

 

On a side note Sullivan seems to have formed a friendship with Slade after they fought.

 

What a great and interesting thread. I, although I obviously don't agree understand Sullivan and others stances at the time re. the colour line. We can't sit here 100 years later and judge the actions of a one man living in a culture that we haven't experienced first hand.

 

I'm gonna go put a message in a bottle and instruct my great great grandson to read it, and publicize it. It'll say "mcvey was a nutcase." That'll learn yah.

 

I was speaking with a bit of hyperbole, though I stand by the principle. Sullivan's refusal to meet Jackson is pretty minor in the scheme of things, though it most assuredly does effect my admiration for his achievements. Here is a consequence of his color line: whenever I hear someone bring up how tough he was or how willing he was to fight any man in the house, Peter Jackson will have his say.

Beware of history books. I have yet to read a textbook that refrains from writing off Brown a fanatic or a monomaniac or some such. Hell, if me and my family were in chains down in Georgia, I hope someone would be FANATICAL about getting my [bleep] out of there.

Interestingly, I've yet to come across a black historian who calls Brown by such labels. Not one.

You say that he was an "extremist." What's more extreme, a free country keeping millions of men, women, and children in slavery or a man getting fed it with the hypocrisy of it all and trying to break those chains?

"Two wrongs don't make a right"? If you were condemned to slavery would you think it "wrong" that someone tried to free you by violence after every other means failed over a hundred years?

Americans like me have no monopoly on this stuff. Culturally, we are the children of Europeans.

When you are talking about animal rights or dietary practices or even child-rearing, I'd agree. I'm talking about things that we have a duty to at least practice moral certainty about. Things like stealing, racism, slavery, murder, ****, etc.

Was Oskar Schindler an extremist? Or was he one industrialist (that we know about) who tried to do what any decent human being has an obligation to do? Was he the only German who tried to save Jews? Hell no he wasn't. Were they extremists? Hell no they weren't.

I'm not so sure that their thinking was exceptional. Their actions show exceptional courage, but what their conscience told them was not exceptional. There are silent majorities throughout history who knew that what was happening was wrong, but also knew that standing up could cost them too much. But let's not reduce morality to marshmallow because of some silly politically correct prohibition against "judging."

Bull. You argue very well.

 

Sure we can, and you just did. By disagreeing with Sullivan's upholding the color line, you judged the color line as unjust.

The ghost of Peter Jackson thanks you.

 

Are you a lawyer? I disagree with the color line, just read Papa Jack, the Johnson biography, don't know if you've read it but I know you know the story. It was a real insight into those times and Sullivan was from before then. Like I said I can't condone the actions and attitudes of some fighters from that time specially when it came to the possibility of a black man being the heavyweight champion of the world but I think think they were victims of there own time and peer pressure. I find it hard to villify Sullivan for his stance wrong as it was.

 

touche!

 

Villify is too strong a word.

But we all have more respect for a man who does the right thing because of fairness than we do the man who succumbs to peer pressure. Especially if the latter had a reputation that in now way suggested that he was a man who bowed down to any form of pressure.

 

It's something else. The biggest transcendence in sports with blacks was and still is historically Jackie Robinson playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1940's. Previously, Joe Louis really did an honor for blacks in sports. But Robinson was playing American's sport, in front of America, with many American teammates (White teammates). You don't have teammates in boxing.

Now, though; we hear about criticism toward a bare-knuckle fighter that fought in the 19th century. It was still something for Russel entering the picture in the NBA in the 1950's. But 30 years after the Civil War we admonish prize-fighters for not fighting black fighters. To suggest these options were feasible, even without factoring the mindset of a man probably indoctrinate by his overly (Not subtly) racist time is totally another fair question we should be asking ourselves. I mean; why knock, and how can we truly knock? I can understand with Dempsey because there was precedence set with Jack Johnson, but when there's no precedence or transcendence how can expect something that's never happened? There has to be some sort of understanding of this perspective. There's almost a sort of arrogance to expect people of that time to truly understand what is right and wrong, as it is that simple when society and the people around (Your parents, friends, etc) are telling and influencing about what they don't understand (Blacks, Indians, whatever!). It's ignorance, but we talk these days about how media influences people. We talk about how we don't understand how people are deeply religious. But truly the answer is something as simple as "It's what I grew up with" or my "parents raised to be that." It's mind-boggling for the other-side, but wait another hundreds of years before future generations wrongly admonish previous figures. Yes, I know damn well there is a huge difference between religion and racism. When they're norms for the masses, though; the parallels make the comparisons easier to understand.

I think Sullivan is dismissed because he's a bit unknown. I admit I don't know much about him. He's also a bare-knuckle fighter that transitioned into the gloved era toward the end of his career. He's seen as a slugger, but as primitive or limited in his skills. We also have no footage of him. All these factors, especially the fact that he was fighting in a time where they didn't use gloves stereotype him with these types of labels.

 

However, there was no more powerful image in sports than the World Heavyweight Champion. And the idea that the face under that crown was black was controversial. The fact that the black face under that crown was more or less accepted by white America was more transcendant than Robinson in the opinion of many -particularly after Schmeling II.

Also, boxing was as big as baseball during that era.

This has become that platform argument for the opposing argument. I don't think it is very strong.

First of all, as stated, you have a giant problem with false positives. Quakers, ministers, common folk who interacted with free black neighbors, --Abigail Adams pointed out the hypocricy of slavery in a free country very early. Do you think she was "an exception"? She was not. There were many who knew it was wrong. The problem was powerful economic interest behind the cultural framework.

Second of all, even though most people did not speak out or stand up against racism during earlier eras, that does not mean that they were all true-believers in the nonsense proposed from the pro-slavery power that was running the government. Many knew in their hearts that black people were not some kind of sub-human species better off in chains. Southerners themselves knew they weren't, which is why they went to such extremes to keep rebellions down and keep a whole population illiterate. Did you know that many states had severe penalties attached to teaching a slave to read and write -including death? What I am proposing to you is that oppression is common throughout history. And underneath that oppression is economic interests. The agricultural economy in the south required field hands. Lots of them. They, the large landowners, first tried to enslave poor whites. That didn't work -too politically volatile. They then tried to enslave native Americans. That didn't work either -natives knew the land and had still powerful tribes behind them. So, they import Africans. Africans were politically isolated and far from home. They were powerless, easily identifiable, and used to the hot climate.

America's particularly rabid brand of racism has origins in economic needs. Racism was not uncommon, but let's not pretend that the 18th and 19th century colonist/citizen was a mere zombie who believed whatever was fed to him. Even a rudimentary knowledge of American history teaches you that this is a nation full of rebels, dissenters, and noncomformists.

There are too many exceptions even today that fly in the face of such assumptions. Hell, Obama himself had plenty of early-life variables that could have led him to prison. And there are young people today who had it far worse than their friends in prison who are at Harvard University. What you believe isn't spoon-fed. What you do isn't predetermined. Choice is THE major factor in all of this.

John L. chose not to fight Peter Jackson. And you know who called him on it? The press. Reading these posts, you'd think that only me and a few exceptions on the racially-advanced fringes thought that he should fight Jackson. Wrong. There were newspapers calling him on it. And guess what they labelled his color-line? A facade. They suggested something else behind his refusal -cowardice.

The fact is that those fighters who avoided fighting black contenders were not altother defended by the fight press outside of the American south who were the true extremists here. Fighters who held the color-line were questioned and often attacked! Many of their own contempories believed that they should fight these men!

"Why knock what we cannot truly knock?" The fact is, they were knocked by their own contempories.

 

That´s something we agree.

Well, he certainly was an extremist. This is never a good thing.
I´m used to not believing one source, don´t worry.

So, you do think that when somebody did something wrong you are allowed to do something worse to him? Really? What about moral certainty?

This role has reversed these days it seems.

Hm, so, here you say murder is wrong and above you excuse Brown for his actions. :think
We have moral certainty now that racism and slavery is wrong. The people back then had the same about it beeing right. And the people of 100 years in future may have the same moral certainty about having pets and zoos beeing wrong.
Moral certainty does only exist in a small frame of time and culture and it changes all the time. That´s my whole point.

See, personally I think slavery, racism and all those things are evil. My oppinion and if I would see something today I´d oppose it - in fact I did when my little brother joined a neo-nazi group for a brief time in his teenage years, insulting his ancestors by doing so. But when I look at the times where this was normal, I have a different oppinion. I don´t excuse those people, I just accept the facts.

No but that´s not comparable.
First, Schindler was not running aound killing people.
Second, the Nazis knew they were wrong. They knew what they did was a crime and wrong. That´s why they tried it even from their own people. The slave owners and racists back then on the other hand thought, "knew", they were right.
Big difference which makes it not comparable.

This has nothing to do with beeing political correct. I just don´t believe that there is something like "moral certainty" or an absolute good or bad. It´s always a matter of perception.
I agree with the rest though. Exceptional courage much more than thinking.

Hm, I have a hard time expressing what I think in English. I often miss the right words.

Definitly!

 

You could also question how much difference it would have made if Jackson had got to Sullivan instead of Corbett.

It was always going to be a dilapidated post Cardiff version of Sullivan that Jackson fought and would have left the bulk of his resume intact.