Jeffries discusses possible opponents after the Munro bout.

You can root for whom you like, thats the point of a forum surely?Whether Johnson was a viable contender at any period of time during Jeffries reign is academic given the undeniable fact that he was never going to get a title shot all the while Jeffries was champ.

 

You would think so.

 

I do believe that Jeffries claimed that the smell of Negroes made him nauseous and that provided an unfair advantage to his opponents should they be black.

I am not making this up. Pollack has the exact quote in his book.

 

He continually referred to Johnson as," that skunk".I didn't realise he was alluding to his smell. Lucky old Jeff was immune to the smell of bull****.

 

From John L. Sullivan to Jim Braddock, world heavyweight champions seemed to go out of their way to avoid black fighters with a few exceptions. Tommy Burns, Jack Johnson and Jim Braddock were the only exceptions. Burns lost his title to Johnson in Australia while Johnson was able retain his title in a bout with Battling Jim Johnson in France. Battling Jim was a capable fighter, but not in the class of Jack Johnson, Sam Langford or Sam McVey. During 1937, Braddock lost his title in a bout with Joe Louis in Chicago, the first time that a black challenger fought in a world heavyweight bout in the United States.

In other words, Jim Jeffries was far from being the only world heavyweight champion who didn't fight black fighters. While looking through many newspapers on micro-film, it became very clear to me that the period from 1880 to 1937 was a very different era. As a result, I understood why certain top black heavyweights weren't given a fair shake while some white fighters with far inferior resumes were getting chances with relative ease, especially in the United States.

- Chuck Johnston

 

I think most of us agree. The real question is how many Black potentially elite heavies were there in those times. Jackson, who was held to draw by a green Corbett, and Wills are the two that immediately come to mind. But after that it falls off rather precipitously. There were the middling Sam Mcvea and Joe Jeanette and then a bunch of Ed Martin types who were hit and miss, tough nights for anyone kind of guys. And yes, in a perfect world, they should have had a sniff at championship fighting, but there wasn't a huge underbelly of them, not so much more than from other ethnicities. At this time, boxing in the US was still more an urban occupation and the Great Migration from southern rural to northern urban (from which Louis was a product) had yet to occur.

I generally let historic figures rest in their own times regarding what they say. Jeffries, in particular, seems at best unrefined and at worst fairly reprehensible. **** that guy.

 

A man like Johnson who beats his wife to the point of near death, and uses his night club as a ***** house certainly has a stench.

Jeffries was fond of Bob Armstrong's and other black fighters company.

 

Jeffries did not eat with his black sparring partners.

There is film of Jeffries bouncing a medicine ball off of Armstrong's head. Jeffries thought it was funny.

"There is an article here about how the skunk, [his invariable term for Johnson] can beat me .All I want to do is get him into the ring and smash his black face.". Geoffrey C Ward. Unbelievable Blackness. Jeffries liked to gamble but when he lost he was not so keen to pay up ,Rickard had to square big gambling debts .[$25,000] that Jeffries had reneged on
Good old Jeff ,a lover of his black brethren and a square shooter who honoured his debts

 

In the United States over one hundred years ago, the social customs between white and black people were different in ways that it is hard for people living at the present time to imagine. At the time, one of the common social mores was that white and black people didn't eat at the same table. Even when white and black children were allowed to play together, they often ate meals at separate tables.

Can you believe that black sportswriters didn't mix with white sportswriters when an interview of a fighter was being conducted in certain American locales as late as the 1920s? It often meant that the black sportswriters had to get an interview from a fighter after the latter was interviewed by a group of white sportswriters. I was astounded by that fact when I read a Pittsburgh Courier (a black newspaper) sportswriter's description of his interview of a fighter. The Pittsburgh Courier on micro-film was available at my alma mater, the University of California, Santa Barbara (also known as UCSB).

- Chuck Johnston

 

I can believe it and also that Jeffries was no worse than many others on the race issue, he was certainly not as rabid as Corbett who could tolerate," a negro as long as he knew his place".

What pisses me off a bit is this revisionist rehabilitation of Jeffries as a guy who would have fought black challengers if there was enough $$$ on the table, it isn't true , no matter how many times Mendoza repeats it, and he many, many times said he would ,"not take a chance of losing his title to one of the coloured race".

Jeffries took fights with white challengers for less reward than he would have got against Johnson,Martin and McVey, the guarantees he was offered to face them and the purses he picked up against the likes of Munroe emphatically prove this to be the case.

Jeffries refused to speak to Johnson or shake his hand prior to their fight either outside or in the ring on the day,when Johnson went over to commiserate with him after their fight he was waved away

.In his pre and post fight comments of their fight Johnson demonstrated sportsmanship and courtesy, Jeffries acted like an arsehole FACT.

 

It is true that Jim Jeffries, like other world heavyweight champions of the era, didn't go out of his way to face black fighters. Jeffries could also be a prickly person, especially with many sportswriters or people who weren't from Los Angeles area. The impression I got was that interviewing Jeffries was like pulling teeth. It appeared that Jeffries simply wanted to be left alone much of the time.

In the United States during the period between 1880 and 1920, it was very difficult to stage a world heavyweight bout between two white fighters in certain locales much of the time because of the very strong anti-boxing groups and the laws prohibiting professional boxing. It was even more difficult to stage one involving a black fighter because of the racial climate in the United States. The great difficulty of staging the bout between Jack Johnson and Jeffries is a prime example. In other words, the apparent reluctance of white world heavyweight champions to fight blacks was far from being the only obstacle to having such a bout in the United States at the time.

Except for John L. Sullivan and Gene Tunney, every world heavyweight champion under the Marquis of Queensberry Rules fought a black fighter during his career. Yes, certain world heavyweight champions didn't fight black fighters while defending their titles, but they didn't have a blanket policy of not facing black fighters during their entire careers.

- Chuck Johnston

 

Fighting them when you are just another up and coming boxer and defending your title against them once you are champion are two entirely different things, as I am sure you will agree.

 

I agree.

- Chuck Johnston

 

It has been a long time since I read Nat Fleischer's Black Dynamite series, but I remember that Fleischer pointed out Jack Johnson, Sam Langford, Joe Jeannette and Sam McVey all fought for more than fifteen years, far longer than most of their white heavyweight contemporaries. Come to think of it, Harry Wills' career also lasted more than fifteen years.

I can't prove it, but I doubt that McVey had any bouts before 1902. Regardless, there isn't any doubt that McVey had comparatively little experience at the time he fought
Johnson three times.

I have read that "Billey" Roche lost a total of about $5,000. while managing McVey from 1902 to 1904. That is quite possible. I believe that the biggest purse that McVey received while fighting in California was about $1,800. from his second bout with Johnson. As I recall, the gate was about $7,800., a record for Los Angeles at the time.

Hank Griffin, a very capable black heavyweight, was hired to tutor McVey in Oxnard, California during late 1902. McVey's bout with Fred Russell, a well-known journeyman heavyweight, was the most important one that he had in Oxnard by a considerable margin. The first bout that McVey had in Los Angeles was a main event at Hazard's Pavilion with Toothpick Kelly, a tall white heavyweight from San Francisco who was managed by a well-known boxing man, Spider Kelly. Toothpick was stopped in the bout, apparently showing little in the way of gameness along the way. After the bout, Spider discarded Toothpick very quickly.

- Chuck Johnston