Jack Johnson Pardoned

Jack and Etta Johnson, his first wife.

Not that it will do him any good. He passed away in 1946.

Johnson was the larger and life boxing champion who was loved and hated in the early 20th Century.  He was flamboyant, athletic and impossible to ignore.

Johnson was convicted in 1913 of violating the Mann Act, that statute which was passed in 1912 prohibiting taking a woman across state lines for immoral purposes.  He was arrested originally for taking Lucille Cameron across state lines for such a purpose, with the added allegation being that Cameron was a prostitute (whose mother claimed she was insane.  Johnson married Cameron shortly thereafter and she wouldn't cooperate in the prosectution and the case fell apart.  Soon thereafter Johnson was arrested again on the same charge but with a Belle Schreiber.  In an odd twist of fate the court that presided over the trial was that of Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who in a few years would resign from the bench to become the Commissioner of Baseball in the wake of the Black Sox Scandal.  It has long been maintained that the charges against him were trumped up as a strike against him, as he was a famous black athlete who, additionally associated with white women. The Mann Act, under which he was convicted, was actually passed after the dates of his alleged violation of it.

Johnson was sentenced to a year and a day in prison but skipped bail and fled to Canada, joining Lucille there.  He lived a life in exile, traveling the globe, until he returned to the United States in 1920 and served his sentence.

Johnson and the second of his wives, Lucille.

Johnson was a fantastic boxer by any measure.  Even during the time of his exile he was the heavy weight boxing world champion, a title that he lost in 1915 in a 45 round fight against Jess Willard.  Perhaps more significantly to this story, he'd also lost his first wife by that time, Etta Terry Duryea. She had committed suicide after battling depression, a condition worsened by her stormy marriage to Johnson and his marital infidelity.  Johnson married Cameron just three months later.  They divorced in 1924 due to infidelity.  He married Irene Pineau in 1925.  According to Johnson's autobiography, he latter married Mary Austin in his home town of Galveston in 1927, which if correct would have been the only one of his wives who shared his ethnicity, although no record of the marriage has been located.  Having said that, there'd be no real reason to doubt his account of the marriage.

Johnson continued to fight professionally until age 60, an impossibly old age in a sport in which very few ever fight beyond their 30s.  For that reason, there have been suggestions that Johnson's fights that came after 40 years of age should not be counted in his record as they were fought due to economic need.  His final appearance in the ring was at age 67 in a benefit exhibition for U.S. War Bonds in November , 1945.  He died that following June in a car accident after leaving a diner in anger that had refused to serve him in North Carolina.  He died in a black hospital in Raleigh at age 68.  He was buried next to his first wife Etta in Chicago and his third wife, Irene, was subsequently buried next to him.  All three graves are marked by a single headstone that bears the name Johnson.