Rare photo of Langford at the Jeffries camp for Johnson

Sam would have been alright with them , because he knew his place.
BTW Langford said Jeffries was ,"in terrific shape,he never would have been able to take all those punches if he wasn't".

 

Because he probably acted subservient and how they expected him to. It ain't right. Langford deserved so much better throughout his career and life. But I believe that's why they were cool with him.

And as to Jim himself, I always have a hard time believing athletes are racists. When you make your living doing something so rough and intensive as boxing, making so much sacrifice, busting so much ass in training, I suspect you respect anyone who does the same and don't give much of a **** what they look like or what their background is. Even if back then you couldn't really say it.

And please, nobody bring up smack talk between fighters. That's all it is. Side note, one of my favorite pieces of sports smack talk was when Larry Bird found himself guarded by a white guy -- he started yelling about how insulted he was that they had a white guy guarding him. Lol. No, Larry Bird is not racist against other white people, it was just smack talk.

 

I doubt it was their intiative.

 

Sam “knew his place”?

 

Yes,he stepped off the pavement to give whites the road and walked in the C*** walk gutter,to racists that made him acceptable as a good N.

 

Just because they believed a white man should own the championship did not mean they didn't get along with black fighters like Langford who was a likeable guy and well-respected. Heck, even Sullivan shook Johnson's hand, picked him to beat Jeffries, and had black friends. There were shades of grey to this whole black-white thing, meaning, it wasn't entirely black and white.

 

Exactly Tommy Burns who called Johnson just about everything, had a great deal of respect for Langford too.

 

Makes you wonder doesn't it? Maybe they weren't racist even though thats what everyone wants to think. My view is they weren't, simply men of their time.

Thank you Mr. Pollack for bringing reason into a topic where almost none have ANY. They know who they are.

 

This, folks.

Sam would have whipped all their asses that day, too. Sad he didn't get the chance.

 

I'd find it hard to believe racist boxers couldn't respect the forces of nature like Ross, Olivares, Dempsey, Napoles or in this case Langford... they know the game, they know they're looking at something special whatever colour they are and I think that'd bud a lot of frienships between our gladiators of the past. I 100% agree with your post, Langford was a jolly guy and a Robinson type talent of his day.

 

Or maybe the Johnson race thing was to sell tickets. I find it highly unlikely that Langford would be in Jeff's camp had he been this super racist guy.

 

Correct.