I know that he fought during a time when America was a really racist country toward blacks. I heard that he avoided all black fighters. Is this because he feared riots, or because he simply wanted nothing to do with African Americans? :verysad
I dont know for sure, but im guessing because of the times. Some people on here are well educated on the subject and will no doubt shed some light shortly.
I read somewhere that organizations mainly seperated black and white fighters because they didnt want the white fighters to be embarrassed by the generaly fitter colored fighters. I could be wrong.
Dempsey was not racists. In fact, he had some Jewish and Native American blood in him. I have seen Dempsey on air and heard testimonials of those who had meet him. The man had a heart of gold. Dempsey did fight blacks before the title, but did not while he had the title. We all know Wills deserved a shot, but Wills himself never blamed Dempsey, rather he blamed the boxing promoters and politcs of the times. Aside from Wills, the top-level heavyweight talent of the late teens and 1920s was mostly white.
Dempsey did sign to fight Wills late in their careers. When the fight was called off, Wills got a nice bonus .
Was willing to fight Willis contrary to popular belief, but still staged a "white hope" search to beat Louis and was eager to trump up Schmeling's victory. I lean toward racist...still a legend in the ring though.
Didn't Dempsey consider Joe Louis losing to Max to be one of the greatest things that ever happened? And considered it to be because Louis was black?
He probably was, but everyone was back then.... He didn't fight many black men, though. As far as i know, his last fight with a colored man was against John Lester Johnson which went to a gruesome, rib breaking 10 round draw. That was 1916. Langford and Jeannette were widely available (even jumped in the ring with him once as replacement), before the title, but he didn't fight them. Wills was available when he had the title (and somewhat before), but he never got his shot either. So, yeah, there is a pattern of him not fighting black men when he was climbing to or at the top.
his promoter tex rickard never wanted jack to fight any black fighters, maybe the reason was because due to what happened to jeffries against johnson, he was 'devastated' when jeffries lost so he wanted no black-white fights.
Thanks for your answers, guys. I'm glad we can discuss this in a mature manner. I've never heard Dempsey say anything about African Americans, so I had no idea where he stood as far as racism went. On the other hand, I feel that Rocky Marciano was not one bit racist. He fought many black challengers, and even idolized Joe Louis. He was even considered the "Great White Hope," but Rocky never spoke about this publicly or bragged about it. I've never heard The Rock badmouthing black people; it shows a lot about his character that he wasn't brainwashed by the bigoted society that he lived in. But as far as Jack Dempsey went, I haven't heard anything about how he stood racially until I started this thread. Thanks for your answers!!
