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The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson Episode 2
1:41:57  - 1 year ago
The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson Episode 2 Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson tells the story of the first African-American boxer to win the most coveted title in all of sports and his struggle, in and out of the ring, to live his life as a free man. By the end of 1910, as Part Two begins, Jack Johnson was on top of the world, the undisputed Heavyweight Champion of the World; the most famous — and the most notorious — African-American on earth. But forces were gathering in America to try to stop him. When no one could be found to beat the champion in the ring, the U.S. government set out to destroy him in the courts, using his sometimes-troubled relationships with white women as the excuse to prosecute him. Unfairly charged with violating the Mann Act, a progressive era piece of legislation designed to stop commercialized vice — not relationships between consenting adults — Jack Johnson was convicted and sentenced to jail. Skipping bail, Johnson fled to Europe, where he remained a fugitive for many years. In 1915 in Havana, Cuba, he defended his title in a still-controversial fight against Jess Willard, a fight that went on for 26 rounds in 105 degree heat. Determined to live his life regardless of the confines imposed by his color, Jack Johnson emerges as a central figure in America's ongoing struggle to deal with the question of race.
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