American History Reform

Chapter Title: BLACK MEN AND THE BUSINESS OF BOXING Book Title: I Fight for a Living

Book Subtitle: Boxing and the Battle for Black Manhood, 1880-1915

Book Author(s): LOUIS MOORE

Published by: University of Illinois Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/j.ctt1vsk8nk.7

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3 BLack Men and the BuSIneSS

oF BoxIng

On September 25, 1894, Bobby Dobbs sat stewing inside a Boston jail. His crime? As a black man, Dobbs tried to assert his autonomy in the white- controlled business of boxing.1 Just a few months prior, in St. Paul, Minnesota, Dobbs signed a contract with the white sporting man, Ben Benton, who had promised Dobbs big-money fights. But things did not go as planned. Instead of getting a fight with a notable boxer like Billy Meyer, Austin Gibbons, Joe Walcott (black), or the lightweight champion Jack McAuliffe—matches that would have yielded Dobbs his highest career earnings—Benton had Dobbs sparring at the local fair in Eastport, Maine. Benton provided Dobbs with room, board, and travel expenses on the condition that Dobbs would pay him back out of future earnings. The longer Dobbs stayed in Maine, however, the more debt he would accrue. If Dobbs had to wait for big-money fights, then Benton would receive a bigger piece of Dobbs’s next fight purse. Dobbs had spent the first four years of his career managing his own affairs, keeping most of the money he had earned in the ring, and thus, he had grown impatient with Benton’s ineptness and exploitation. Dobbs maintained that the moment Benton had him “hustling for himself ” to survive in Maine, Benton broke their contract, so Dobbs emancipated himself and lined up a fight in Lynn, Massachusetts against John Butler (black).2 But Benton did not like Dobbs’s assertion of his freedom. In the business of boxing, no matter how skilled the fighter, white managers believed they had the right to control their black fighters. The day before Dobbs’s scheduled fight with Butler in Lynn, Benton had Dobbs arrested for breach of contract. The Boston court sided with the white manager. Dobbs signed a poor debtor’s oath—he owed $300—and left for the fight game in Philadelphia. He had money to make.3

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66 . chapter 3

Dobbs’s career coincided with a transitional period in prizefighting, as box- ing changed from a sport controlled by white financial backers to a business run by white managers and white-owned athletic clubs. Only a handful of black financial backers, managers, and athletic clubs existed. No matter the era, if a black man wanted to find work, he stood at the mercy of white men. Dobbs knew this racial reality all too well. While fighting in St. Paul in the spring of 1894—Dobbs moved to the city in 1893 after California momen- tarily banned boxing—Dobbs lined up a big-money fight against the English lightweight champion Stanton Abbott. The two fighters signed the customary articles of agreement and planned to battle for $800. But Dobbs was a black man, and in the business of boxing, black men always had an extra opponent to contend with: racism. After he learned of Dobbs’s skin color, Abbott with- drew from the fight. The English fighter would not risk his reputation—he had a potential $10,000 fight awaiting him in San Francisco—by losing to a black man. Although local white sporting men shamed Abbott for his cow- ardice, they understood that he had a racial right to draw the color line.4 What could Dobbs do about this situation? White men had all the power. Dobbs complained and waited for the next foe Benton lined up. With the promises of more lucrative fights, Benton eventually took Dobbs to Maine. To find work, black fighters like Dobbs constantly migrated.5 During the course of his career, Dobbs reportedly battled in more than one thousand contests across America and Europe. Four years into his career, by 1894, Dobbs had fought in Salt Lake City, and Ogden, Utah; Denver, and Pueblo, Colorado; Omaha, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, Cincinnati, St. Paul, Philadelphia, and Bangor, Maine.6 After the Boston ordeal, he lived on the East Coast for the next three years, fighting and teaching sparring lessons, mainly in Scranton and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1902, Dobbs opened one of the first black gyms in Baltimore. Many of the city’s leading black residents flocked to the new gym to transform their bodies. The Afro- American Ledger observed, “He has some of the finest citizens as pupils and his place will be a success” and the newspaper noted that the hundreds of blacks that joined his gym “have been inspired by the magnificent specimen of muscular development printed in the pages.”7 But Dobbs was a black man in a racially restrictive line of work and, thus, he always had to be on the move looking for his next play. Within a year, he closed his gymnasium and moved to Europe. In fact, Dobbs spent the majority of his career in Europe (1897–1899 and 1904–1916). As Theresa Runstedtler has noted, Europe provided a black fighter respite from American racism, and the majority of top black fighters ventured overseas.8 In Europe, Dobbs traveled around the continent and

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bl ack men and the business of boxing · 67

operated several gymnasiums and promoted and fought in the first official prizefight in Berlin; Dobbs even taught German soldiers how to box on horseback and learned to speak German and Hungarian.9 When he returned from England in 1899, wearing “a long paddock coat, a light colored suit, a golf hat and his shirt was of red material, dotted with white . . . two big dia- mond rings adorned his fingers and he carried a large English cane,” he told a group of black supporters, “I was treated like a prince, and everybody made it as pleasant for me as they could. They certainly like a black man over there; that is if he acts right and behaves himself.”10 Dobbs brought “four trunks, five grips, and about a dozen suits of clothes, hats, overcoats and suits.” He also told the large crowd that cheered his return, “The trip has done me a world of good . . . I made about $10,000, not counting the money I spent for living expenses and buying clothes in England.”11 In 1904 Dobbs returned to England, and wrote back home to invite more black pugilists to earn a living. In his recruitment letter to the Indianapolis Freeman, Dobbs wrote, “if you know of a good young lad that can fight at 124 to 126 pounds, write and let me know who he is and what he has done, if he is a good one, I will

Bobby Dobbs, who spent most of his career overseas to avoid American racism, teaches a German man how to box on horseback. (1913, Library of Congress)

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68 . chapter 3

send for him, if he would like to come, and I can get him some money.”12 Baltimore boxers Young Peter Jackson and Harry Lyons followed Dobbs. In fact, Dobbs did not want to go back home. Living in America meant fighting constant racism, a point Dobbs emphatically made to the Chicago Defender in 1916 when he complained, “America is no place for him as the race man is treated like a dog.”13 To understand blacks’ role in prizefighting we must understand the role race and racism played in the business of boxing and black men’s quest for manhood within this racially restrictive business. In a business where white men sought to control every facet of the sport, Dobbs and other black fighters constantly sought control of their own affairs. Black boxers migrated to find freedom and mobility. If a black fighter deemed his manager inadequate, he would fire him and move on to the next manager. When American racism became too heavy to bear, many black fighters traveled overseas. Despite the tight grip whites had on boxing, black fighters tried to carve out a space of manly independence. These men understood the central importance of their black bodies in the business of boxing and used that knowledge to get the most from the sport, their manager, and athletic clubs.

whIte BackerS and BLack honor

C.A.C. Smith had his own boxing school and barbershop in East Saginaw, Michigan, when he decided he wanted to fight fulltime. At six feet tall, Smith had a muscular body and weighed around 180 pounds when trained. Well- schooled in the manly art, the “Michigan Thunderbolt” reportedly had his first official prizefight in 1869, at the age of seventeen, recording a victory over Jim Whalen in a bare-knuckle contest in Pittsburgh. Smith had another fight that year and one more in 1870, but for the next decade, instead of turning to prizefighting to make a living, he chose the respectable and steady income of a barber.14 To supplement his income, and to keep his skills sharp, he taught sparring lessons in the rough and tumble timber town.15 By 1880, however, he changed his mind. It is hard to tell why he wanted to fight fulltime. Was it the money, or was it the fame? Perhaps both? But the money was not guar- anteed, and these fights were winner takes all. Most men who fought sought recognition from their peers, or in other words their manhood, spreading across the sporting community. So in September 1880, Smith wrote to the most important sporting press in the nation, the National Police Gazette, looking for a fight. When he announced himself to national sporting culture for the first time, he challenged, “I am ready to meet any colored pugilist in

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bl ack men and the business of boxing · 69

America in a contest with hard gloves for $250 a side, Queensberry rules, with or without gloves for $500 a side. George Taylor the lightweight champion preferred.” In 1880, most fans in New York considered Taylor the best black boxer in the business, so it made sense that Smith selected him. The bigger the name, the more money, but Smith outweighed his potential opponent by more than fifty pounds. Boxing’s weight classes required men fight on fair terms. There was no honor in defeating a noticeably smaller fighter. The Gazette suggested that instead Smith challenge “Dangerous” Jack Lawson of New York or George Brown of Chicago, black fighters more his size. Smith found no takers and continued to fight locally. Because he had never lost a fight, and nobody wanted to battle him, Smith deduced that meant he was the colored champion. Hoping to confirm this point, so he could cement his reputation in the local sporting community, Smith wrote back to the Gazette in 1881 asking for their verification of his championship status. Instead of confirming his status, the Gazette shamed him: “CAC Smith is no champion. He might be the champion of his village or town but he is not known outside of those parts.”16 It was simple: If he wanted to be “known outside of those parts” he had to fight outside of those parts. But if he wanted to fight, he had to find somebody willing to front him financially. For that, he needed a reputation. Smith also had to find a white backer. In March 1883, he left his wife behind in Port Huron, Michigan, and migrated to New York, the fight capital of America, where he could find fight- ers and financial backers.17 He hooked up with a backer, and immediately challenged any black boxer to a $1,000 contest. Throughout most of the nineteenth century, most men, regardless of race, could not earn a living boxing. Guaranteed money that came from filling arenas with paying customers was uncommon.18 Instead, fighters made their money through side bets, or what were prearranged figures the contestants agreed to wager. Of course, these working-class men, especially black men, did not have their own money to bet—at least not enough to make a fight worth their risk—so they had to tap into sporting culture and find someone to back them. For a percentage of the profit, financial backers—usually a local gambler—guaranteed these bets, which could range from $25 to $1,000, but the risk all depended on the backer’s willingness to gamble. If he lacked con- fidence in his fighter, the backer would not bet a huge stake. Very few black men acted as financial backers—New York’s Ed Nail was the only well-known backer—thus, if he wanted to make a living fighting, the black fighter had to give up financial control to a white backer. In New York, white sporting men like Theo Allen, Richard K. Fox, Hugh Reilly, and Frank Stevenson were the

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70 . chapter 3

leading fight backers. All four men, at some point, claimed they would back their black boxer for $1,000 fights. But their fighters never fought for $1,000. Ultimately, two white backers—each fighter had to have a backer—were not willing to support their black fighters for $1,000. When it was time to wager on a black fighter, most backers would not risk more than $200. Although black men like Smith lost their economic autonomy to white financial backers, by issuing fight challenges in newspapers—in other words calling someone out—black fighters had an alternative way to assert their manhood outside the ring. While most local papers supported challenges, if a man wanted a national name he had to go to the Police Gazette, a paper with a reported circulation of a half-million readers.19 The paper also boasted an international readership. For instance, in 1888 when Professor Graves, a black pugilist in Colon, Columbia, read in the Police Gazette that Peter Jackson was the black champion of the world, he immediately sent in a challenge to Jackson and claimed that he was the black champion of the Isthmus and the West Indies. Graves claimed that the Police Gazette was widely read in that part of the world and wanted readers to know that he, not Jackson, was the best black fighter in the world.20 Jackson paid no attention to Graves. Black fighters who lived outside New York used telegrams to arrange matches, while local fighters went to the Police Gazette offices to place challenges. The telegrams included a list of possible opponents, the type of fight the boxer wanted, and the amount of prize money he wanted to fight for. The Police Gazette published these request, and it was then left to the challenged fighter to respond to the call. A fighter had to respond, because his honor and man- hood were at stake.21 To be sure, in an era in which many of the top white fighters avoided black pugilists, black fighters often challenged other black boxers to establish their reputations. These challenges were not about pathology or self-hate. These were about business and manhood. They developed out of the need to earn a living where a fighter’s reputation made him more money. The more prestige the pugilist had in the press, the more money he could get from a financial backer. In addition, his reputation was an acknowledgment of his manhood. His peers had to believe he was tough and that he could back it up. This was about honor. And having honor carried considerable weight in the sporting community. These telegrams from black fighters reveal how these working- class black men had mastered the language of the fighting market. Through studying these challenges, the historian can hear a once-muted voice assert their ideas of manhood that often stood in stark contrast with those of the black middle class.

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bl ack men and the business of boxing · 71

For the black fighter, having a fight challenge printed by a mainstream news- paper earned him respect among his peers. He was a symbol of true manhood, because he was willing to risk his body and reputation against a man he had just shamed. He also gained social status by risking large amounts of money. Being a “newspaper fighter,” however, was only half the battle. Men expected the boxer to back-up his words with action or risk being called a coward. Be- ing a coward in the sporting culture meant losing the social recognition and respect that came from his trade.22 For example, after black fighter Pop Lewis refused to fight Henry Woodson after Woodson accepted Lewis’s open chal- lenge to fight any black man in Ohio for $500, the Cincinnati Weekly Enquirer remarked, “Pop Lewis, the alleged Chicago pugilist, is evidently a newspaper fighter. After inserting his bold challenge to the Black Diamond in Tuesday’s Enquirer he has acted the part of a coward.”23 Lewis, the coward, lost his honor and was never heard from again in the business of boxing. Honor played a central role in the concept of manhood and prizefight- ing. In this heteronormative male world, honor meant, for whites and black boxers, protecting one’s name both inside and outside the ring.24 According to Bertram Wyatt-Brown, “Honor is essentially the cluster of ethical rules, most readily found in societies of small communities, but which judgments of behavior are ratified by community consensus.” He further suggests, “it cannot be too strongly emphasized that honor is not confined to any rank of society; it is the moral property of all who belong within the community, one that determines the community’s own membership.”25 Elliott Gorn has pointed out that during the mid-nineteenth century, “toughness, ferocity, prowess, honor, these became the touchstones of maleness, and boxing along with other sports upheld this alternative definition of manhood. The manly art defined masculinity not by how responsible or upright an individual was but by his sensitivity to insult, his coolness in the face of danger, and his abil- ity to give and take punishment.”26 For boxers during the mid-nineteenth century, fighting for money and the bragging rights of their neighborhood were important, but “the real battle was for peer recognition, for a sense of distinction that made a man first among equals in the small male cliques of working-class society.”27 By the 1880s these “male cliques” included a di- verse fan base beyond the neighborhood, which meant that matchmaking expanded from the local saloon to a national and international stage, espe- cially with the popular sporting newspapers the New York Clipper and the National Police Gazette doubling as matchmaking repositories. When C.A.C. Smith posted his challenge in 1883 to all black fighters, it earned him the attention he sought. His manly assertion offended Henry

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72 . chapter 3

Woodson, the “Black Diamond” from Cincinnati, who had issued his own challenge. Like Smith, Woodson recently migrated to New York to earn his living fighting and had recently knocked out the Irish American fighter Soap McLaughlin in the seventh round.28 The Woodson–McLaughlin match should be noted as one of the first in- stances, if not the first, in which a major American newspaper contrasted the racial differences between athletic white and black bodies, recognizing that the muscularity of the black body severely challenged white notions of manliness and physical prowess. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle described Wood- son’s body; writing “[Woodson] astounded everybody with his splendid de- velopment. He peeled a very Bronze Hercules. The muscles overlapped each other on chest and ribs, like the plates of an ancient piece of armor. . . . His neck was firmly set and as finely proportioned as the Apollo Belvedere.” His white opponent, however, had a “finely formed and immensely muscular” body, but it looked “rather beefy than fined down” when compared to Wood- son’s.29 Black muscles thoroughly defeating white muscles in the ring would soon be a point of concern for Americans, but with only a handful of black fighters, and middle-class white Americans still coming to terms with the manliness and the muscular body, Woodson’s black body did not challenge white authority as Jack Johnson’s body would twenty-five years later. Most importantly, Woodson’s triumph over McLaughlin changed his ca- reer. According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, his local paper, Woodson was “on top again,” and he promptly challenged all black heavies to battle for $1,000 a side, champion George Godfrey preferred. Smith, who read Woodson’s challenge in the Police Gazette, did not want to pass up this opportunity to make money and create a name for himself, so he quickly traveled to Albany, New York. When he reached the city, he started boasting to local sportsmen that he traveled to New York just to whip Woodson. The Detroit Free Press told readers, “Smith went to Albany and commenced training, and from that city reports of his wonderful prowess reached New York, dimming the lus- ter of the Diamond, who has backed squarely out. Smith telegraphed home yesterday that he is going to say ‘dassent’ to the New Yorker, and make him fight.”30 Woodson caught word of Smith’s boasting and immediately took to the press to lament his frustration and assert his manhood. He could not let Smith publicly question his manliness. Woodson had to defend his honor. He wrote:

Sir—having learned that Smith, the colored heavyweight pugilist of Port Hu- ron, Mich is making a sensation at Albany, N.Y., stating that he came from

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bl ack men and the business of boxing · 73

Michigan expressly to fight me, I am ready to fight Smith or any other col- ored pugilist at anytime according to the rules of the London prize ring for $500 a side and the colored heavyweight championship of America. If Smith’s backers mean business, let them forward $250 to Harry Hill, who will suit me for the final stake holder, and I will cover the money and arrange the match anytime at the Police Gazette office. Now, if Smith is not blowing, he will put up a forfeit and arrange a match.31

Newspapers across the nation, and most importantly the Police Gazette, re- printed the dispute, which placed the pressure clearly on Smith to respond. Both men lacked their own money to fight for a significant stake, and had to rely on white men to work, but now they both had a reputation in the press. While Smith and Woodson carried on in the press, Smith also chal- lenged Boston’s George Godfrey, the recognized colored champion, for the title. Because Smith had a recognizable name, Godfrey had to fight. Godfrey agreed, signing a $100 forfeit for a $300 fight. A fighter could never renege on his word. If he said he was going to fight, men expected him to fight. The forfeit money fortified his commitment. He could never give away the forfeit money without fighting. If he reneged, his reputation would take a serious hit. In May, Smith arrived in Boston ready to fight Godfrey, but according to rumors, Godfrey went to Smith’s head- quarters to watch him train, and noticed Smith’s size and skill and forfeited the fight. Godfrey claimed an illness kept him away, but he and his backers still lost $100 dollars and the potential earnings from the fight. Godfrey lost more than his money, however; he lost his honor. On two occasions the Po- lice Gazette noted that Godfrey feared Smith. The Boston Herald said “a few days ago a brawny, broad-shoulder, heavy-weight boxer named C.A.C. Smith, who is unmistakably of African descent, reached the city from Wisconsin in expectation of meeting a well-known boxer of this city named Godfrey, and deciding with him the question of superiority with gloves. Godfrey said he was a sick man, and declined to fight, very much to Smith’s disappointment.”32 Even Smith called him a coward, telling a friend, “I frightened Godfrey to death. He forfeited to me.”33 Luckily for Godfrey, he had another sporting code working in his favor; a champion could only lose his title in the ring. He still had something people wanted to fight him for. Godfrey’s avoidance of Smith made the “Michigan Thunderbolt” the new black sensation. He had arrived. Although not a champion, the national sporting community recognized him as the top black fighter. The Police Ga- zette observed, “Any pugilist who will go to Albany, NY, and defeat Smith,

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74 . chapter 3

can break all the sporting men who are booming the colored champion.” The paper also noted, “Smith made such a great impression among the sporting men of Albany” that they “offered to back him to box Mace, Slade or any other pugilist, and they claim that he is a match for Sullivan.”34 This is a tell- ing statement. White financial backers realized they could make money off black bodies. Smith’s white benefactor, Hugh Reilly, was one of the first white men to recognize the potential in marketing the black male athlete for white public consumption and personal financial gain. He knew the best way to get a fi- nancial return on their investment was to pit Smith against a credible white opponent, with the biggest prize being John L. Sullivan. White backers were not going to gamble huge stakes to see black men fight. To get the racist Sul- livan in the ring, Reilly challenged, “If Sullivan can stop the colored giant he is welcomed to the gate receipts.”35 In hopes of making a fight, Smith boldly showed up to Sullivan’s exhibitions prepared to battle, and reportedly went to the champion’s house to arrange a match. Sullivan did not budge. If honor in the ring was important, why did Sullivan avoid Smith? Race trumped honor. Honor had no social significance if white men had to treat black men as equals.36 In Sullivan’s world, Smith and other black fighters were never his equals, and fighting them would be an acknowledgment of racial equality. While Smith quickly rose to the top of the ring’s ranks, events that summer that challenged his honor brought the “Michigan Thunderbolt” crashing down. As quickly as white financial backers supported their black fighters, they would just as easily turn their backs on them. No black boxer had the same financial backer for more than a year. In June 1883, for example, Smith and Reilly had an argument over money—Reilly claimed Smith owed him $500— and Smith, believing he should keep a larger chunk of his fight money he had earned in the ring, refused to pay. To seek revenge, Reilly tried to publicly smear Smith’s name. If a fighter developed a reputation as a coward, back- ers would no longer support him, and without financial backing, the fighter would be out of a career. In June, Reilly posted a challenge in the Police Ga- zette on behalf of Smith to fight any black man for $500 to $1,000 at a box- ing exhibition at Harry Hill’s saloon, in New York. When Henry Woodson appeared ready to battle, Smith, who knew nothing of the challenge, was nowhere to be found, which angered paying spectators who expected to see a battle. They labeled Smith a coward, just as Reilly planned.37 To earn his respect back from sporting men who shunned him for being a supposed coward, Smith wrote to the Police Gazette—the most important newspaper

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bl ack men and the business of boxing · 75

in the sporting community—and informed readers that he did not know about the match and that he never sent a dispatch that his wife was sick.38 With his explanation, Smith momentarily avoided the embarrassment of being a coward. He also found a new backer, Richard K. Fox, the owner and editor of the Police Gazette. After saving face in print, and finding a backer, Smith also had to fight Woodson and settle their conflict. On July 17 in Troy, New York, Smith whipped Woodson. With his long reach, he kept the “Black Diamond” off balance and spent three rounds peppering him with both fists. Smith’s show- ing impressed local white sporting man, Peter Curley, so much that he told Smith that he could use his theater for free and charge admission for his spar- ring exhibitions. Scientific sparring exhibitions were easy money compared to bare-fisted bouts with the “Black Diamond.” But Smith still had one major problem—Hugh Reilly was still mad at him and continued to use the press to shame Smith publicly. After the Woodson affair, according to the New York Sun, Reilly told the press he had “a very poor opinion of the colored pugi- list. He says that, while Smith has plenty of science, he is absolutely without pluck, and would break through a brick wall sooner than meet Sullivan in the ring.”39 He shamed him by questioning his honor. Being labeled “without pluck,” a coward, or known to have a yellow streak, were terms that applied to both black and white men, but for black fighters those words had a different racial connotation. The popular black-faced min- strel shows of the burnt cork had scorched in the minds of whites the idea of black docility, and white fans always questioned a black man’s toughness. Thus, in the manliest of all sports, black pugilist started with an inferior tag and spent their careers fighting that racial stereotype. The only way a fighter could prove otherwise was to fight. Fight like a man. Unfortunately for Smith, Reilly was right. He lacked pluck. In August 1883, Smith damaged his reputation during a match with the Canadian champion Jack Stewart, a man he had previously bested. Smith, who entered their battle “with a great reputation for strength, skill and science as a boxer,” left the ring known as a coward. Instead of being a man and fighting, in the second round Smith “beat a retreat, first by a step backward, and then, when fol- lowed up, breaking ground and actually running away.”40 He then committed another manly sin. He quit. Months later the Police Gazette ridiculed Smith, observing, “If he possessed courage he would be the colored champion of America.”41 In March 1884, in Cleveland, after Mervine Thompson subdued Smith, Thompson questioned his toughness, “He [Smith] is about as cow- ardly a man as I ever met. If he would stand up as Jack Stewart did, I could

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76 . chapter 3

have whipped him in one.” The following week, Smith quit during his fight against the black pugilist Tom Robinson, of Springfield, Ohio.42 The two men originally agreed to split the gate 60–40, but after Smith’s unmanly actions, Robinson took all of the money without a protest from Smith. Things con- tinued to get worse for Smith. A year later, in 1885, he had a scheduled fight against Morris Hafey (white) to take place on January 5, 1885, 150 miles from St. Paul, Minnesota in Fergus Falls.43 Smith failed to show for the fight, and the white fighter Ed McKewon labeled Smith a coward in front of the audience. For his part, Smith argued that he was an innocent victim of a scam and did not want to ruin his reputation by being involved with a “hippodrome.” He also acknowledged that he knew he would be labeled a coward for avoiding the fight, but it was worth the risk, and blamed his financial backer Tom Jefferson (black) for changing the terms of the contract without consulting him. Sports did not believe Smith’s claims.44 Although he kept fighting, by 1885 his reputation was damaged and he could not earn a living in the ring. Near the end of his life, while working as a barber in Chicago, Smith tried one last time to publicly protect his honor. Hugh Reilly believed his race gave him the perpetual privilege to profit from Smith and had been exploit- ing Smith’s name without his fighter’s consent. In 1898, Smith learned that another black fighter, Amos Lavender, a pugilist from Albany whom Reilly also managed, had been using Smith’s name and ruining Smith’s reputation. Lavender, whom Smith defeated in 1883, started fighting under the name C. C. Smith, the “Thunderbolt.” Smith went by C.A.C. Smith the “Michigan Thunderbolt.” This fact has even confused boxing historians who do not make the distinction. But C.A.C. Smith knew the difference and told the press his story. Fed up with the faker, Smith, who was working as a barber in Chicago at the time, wrote the Buffalo Courier: “Dear Sir—Please allow me a few lines to let the sporting public understand that I am not in the ring . . . although my name is used, and by a man who seems to have no honor about him. What a queer brain he must have to insist on using my name, C.C. Smith.” Smith also suggested Reilly had been stealing his name since their dispute in 1883. In his final words, Smith argued, “I feel as though I should have justice in this matter. I don’t want to have my name used, as there is only one C.C. Smith, and I claim to be that man, and I will take any step that there is in the law to stop the use of my name.”45 Unfortunately for Smith, Reilly and Lavender kept using his name, earning money, racking up losses, and ruining Smith’s legacy.46 Regardless of a fighter’s color, he had a disadvantage in his business ar- rangement with his financial backer. The prizefighter assumed all of the

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bl ack men and the business of boxing · 77

physical risks and had to share the financial profits. Plus, side bets were winner-take-all fights, so if he lost his match, he stood at the mercy of the fans and their willingness to take up a collection. Until the late 1880s, the inherent financial and physical risks in fighting reduced the number of com- petitors. But once fighters had better financial options, like gate receipts and guaranteed purses, more and more men chose fighting as a profession.

carvIng a Space In whIte-owned athLetIc cLuBS

At 10:30 at night, both men toed the scratch. The white crowd in San Fran- cisco was ready to see the two black gladiators. On one side stood Charley Turner, of Stockton, “an ebony hued gladiator, beside whom Peter Jackson would have looked pale.” At 144 pounds, the two-fisted fighter had a decided advantage over his 140-pound opponent, Wiley Evans, a California migrant who was a “dark mulatto, very powerful in the arms, chest and back, and having splendid legs.” For seventeen hard-hitting rounds, the welterweights threw feints and combinations trying to take their man out in this finish fight. While Turner showed more class, Evans, always a game fighter, had a knockout punch that most guys his size lacked. In the seventeenth round, however, Turner found his opening. In what Evans thought was a low blow, Turner got his man to drop his hands and complain to the referee. With Evans’s hands down, Turner followed with a blunt blow beneath the ear, and dropped him for good. “Turner stepped lightly to his corner, and the distressed and badly punished mulatto was carried to his dressing room.” On that night, these two second-tier fighters fought for $1,000, the most two black non-heavyweights had fought for up until that point. What explains this change in finances? The white middle class. Changes in rules—moving from the brutal London Rules to the more or- dered Queensberry Rules—padded gloves, three-minute timed rounds, and clean boxing—and, most importantly, a shift in white middle-class thought on manliness and the male body, made the once-grotesque sport of prize- fighting seem more acceptable. This development also came with a change in white middle-class attitudes, from patrons and political officials, about leisure and public entertainment in which more white men willingly went to boxing shows in legally sanctioned spaces.47 In 1892, for example, after commenting on the grotesque nature of the Sullivan–Corbett championship match, a Los Angeles writer observed, “there is something in all of us, birds and humans alike, I presume, that makes a combat full of intense and enthralling inter- est.”48 And as novelist Alfred Henry Lewis commented in 1910: “We need a

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78 . chapter 3

gladiatorial class. It reflects itself in the swelling stamina and courage of a people.”49 In other words, the prizefighter provided white men the perfect prescribed performances for a race of men that needed manly entertainment as a reminder of their dominance and a boost in confidence that they were still manly specimens. This need for manly entertainment resulted in paying customers and guaranteed money for the fighter. The increase in fight purses coincided with the development of middle- class athletic clubs, but the advent of the athletic club also represented the white middle-class takeover of boxing. Scholar Jeffory Clymer suggests that the athletic club was an extension of the market’s control of the worker. He argues, “Exactly at the moment that boxers became paragons of individu- alistic virtue for the emerging professional managerial class, boxers’ own agency and control was undergoing a rationalization that was similar to the organizational impulses that eclipsed male corporate employees’ sense of masculinity in the increasingly bureaucratic and routinized work place.”50 Despite the grip the clubs had on the fighters, there was an opportunity for the black fighter to earn more money. Although white clubs and white managers tried their best to control black fighters, the club’s entrepreneurial spirit also enabled the black boxer to pros- per. These clubs competed with each other to attract the best talent, so the black boxers pitted clubs against each other to obtain the best offer. In the late 1880s and early 1890s, for example, San Francisco—one of the leading fight cities in America—had four successful clubs that bid against each other for fights. Coincidentally, during the late 1880s and 1890s, San Francisco became a popular destination for black fighters across the country, because the clubs usually offered the best prices. The Peter Jackson–George Godfrey fight for $1,600 on August 24, 1888, in San Francisco represented the largest purse two black fighters battled for in the 1880s. For winning the fight, Jackson received $1,200 and Godfrey earned $400 plus travel expenses in the loss.51 After Jack- son defeated Godfrey, a San Francisco athletic club posted $6,000 for Jackson to fight “notable” white fighter Joe McAuliffe and brandished the possibility of a $20,000 purse for a fight with Sullivan.52 In 1891, when Jackson battled “Gentleman” Jim Corbett to a sixty-one-round draw, they fought for $10,000.53 Even a second-tier black fighter like Charley Turner could expect to earn $800 to $2,000 for a fight in San Francisco. In seven fights in the city, be- tween 1888 and 1892 Turner, who was one of the top fighters on the coast, fought for a total of $8,050. He went 4–3 in those fights, winning $3,000 for his services.54 The price these clubs paid for a fighter like Turner reveals the economic impact athletic clubs had on boxing. Six years prior, in 1883, June Dennis, the “colored” lightweight champion of the Pacific Coast, fought for

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bl ack men and the business of boxing · 79

$50 a side at a local theater.55 But the clubs represented a great paradox for black boxers: To make this type of money, Turner and other black fighters had to endure the inherent racism in these white-owned spaces. Most athletic clubs had white ownership and white patrons that created a hostile work environment for black fighters. White fans called black fight- ers “niggers,” “coons,” and even threatened to kill black fighters, especially in interracial contests. One reporter noted, “On the night of the fight as soon as the colored boxer puts up his hands voices from all parts of the house can be heard advising the white man to knock the negro’s head off.”56 In 1891, champion George Dixon recalled that in Boston, “it is not many years ago since I first stepped into a ring in this city, but even then a colored man would be considered crazy if he went to fight a white man outside of a club- room. He would surely have been killed, or brutally injured, if he made the least attempt to win.”57 Early in Joe Gans’s career, white fans in Baltimore had subjected him to taunts of “kill the nigger,” but as champion he refused to put up with their racial jeers. In 1906, Gans lectured his hometown Baltimore fans about racism, and complained, “You people don’t encourage your box- ers properly. If you would, you could have another champion coming up. If a German gets in the ring and gets wobbly from a few punches you shout, ‘Kill the Dutchman.’ If a Hebrew is getting his you scream to ‘Kill the Jew.’ If it’s a chocolate, well, I’ll leave it to your imagination what you yell.”58 Like Gans, black fighters did their best to fight racism in their workplace. In 1884, Henry Woodson and McHenry Johnson boycotted their planned exhibition at Billy Madden’s New York club because Madden barred their black friends from entering the establishment. Woodson and Johnson, ac- cording to a black writer, demonstrated “that they posses [sic] manly natures and hearts as well as sturdy arms and fists.”59 Four years later, in 1888, George Godfrey declined a $1,000 offer to fight a white opponent in New York, and cited, “I do not recall an instance of where a colored man went up against a white man in Gotham and was fairly treated. There is a prejudice there among the sporting people against the colored race, and I firmly believe that they would ‘kick’ against me on principle.”60 On another occasion, after Godfrey read that Jack Ashton (white) wanted to fight in Providence, Rhode Island, Godfrey asked, “How long is it since they had a good old-fashioned lynching down in Providence?” “Don’t you think they are itching for one now?” He claimed that even with a Gatling gun he would not fight Ashton in Providence. Instead, Godfrey insisted on battling in Boston, or in the West. Godfrey fought for a living, but not for his life.61 The most powerful symbol of a black fighter asserting his autonomy in the workplace occurred in 1892 when, just a few months after Homer Plessey

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80 . chapter 3

filed his famous anti–Jim Crow case, George Dixon momentarily knocked out Jim Crow in New Orleans.62 As a stipulation of his contract for the $7,500 championship fight against Jack Skelly—he also had a $5,000 side bet—Dixon required the New Orleans Olympic Club to integrate the stadium and re- serve seating for black fans. With Dixon’s urgings, the club integrated for the first time and set aside one thousand seats for black fans. Roughly three hundred black men supported their champion and screamed loudly when Dixon knocked out Skelly in the eighth round.63 Understanding the magnitude of Dixon’s demonstration, black writers celebrated his victories over Jim Crow and Skelly as victories for the race. A Cleveland Gazette writer cheered, “Dixon has given a favorite Dixie prejudice a terrible black eye.” He also boasted, “It is all right to see one white man whip another in the south, but to pay one’s dollars and a number of them, too, to see a Hamite ‘whip the stuffing out of ’ a white man, even if he is a northerner, and then give the former an ovation, is something more than the average southerner can or will stand.”64 In the Western Appeal, John Q. Adams, who had previously argued that blacks should not attend the fight because he believed the sport brutal and the Olympic Club racist, changed his tune and taunted, “there are cases in which an Afro American is a better man than a white man.”65 Owing to the violent nature of Dixon’s victory and its potential racial im- plications, however, the white New Orleans press urged white clubs to bar interracial matches. The Times-Democrat reasoned it “a mistake to match a negro and a white man, a mistake to bring the races together on any terms of equality, even in the prize ring.”66 Afterward, athletic clubs in New Orleans banned interracial contests. After the New Orleans clubs’ decision, the Cleve- land Gazette retorted, “We thought the sight of one of our race pummeling the face and body of even a northern white pugilist would be more than they could stand, and our readers can now see how correct our estimate was.”67 Dixon did not fight in New Orleans again and, in fact, he never fought in the Deep South after that match.

BLack-owned athLetIc cLuBS

Up until 1915, black men only operated two boxing clubs that could be cat- egorized as middle class, and the majority of black-owned clubs, the ones that generally escaped the view of the local press, were working-class black clubs that catered to the colored sports. Distinguishing the clubs as middle class is a judgment of the club’s ownership, the club’s facilities, and how the owners geared their business to attract middle-class patrons. The first black

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bl ack men and the business of boxing · 81

middle-class club, the Orleans Athletic Club, opened in 1892. Although the club was the second wealthiest black social club in the nation, little is known about the club’s venture into boxing except for a few promotional pieces from local newspapers. Operated by middle-class lawyers J. Madison Vance and Walter Cohen, the club had an eight hundred–seat arena attached to the facility, as the black owners looked to tap into black consumer dollars in a boxing-crazed city.68 In their most successful fight, they promoted the battle for the Interstate Championship between Chicago’s Bob Harper and New Orleans’ Joe Green for a title that excluded the prefix “colored,” in a match that featured two of the best black middleweights in the nation.69 The Orleans Athletic Club also timed the fight to coincide with the middleweight championship bout between Bob Fitzsimmons and Jim Hall at the New Or- leans Crescent City Club that took place two days before the Harper–Green affair. The proprietors might have been trying to prove a point about race and equality, or just cashing in on the prizefight buzz in the city. Harper came into the fight as one of the most recognizable names in the sport. In Chicago, Harper’s boxing finances improved as a result of lo- cal black fighters demanding more financial support from white sporting men. In 1890, Chicago’s black fighters, including Andy Mills, Billy Piper, and Shorty Ahearn, complained about racism and asked Chicago’s leading boxing promoter, Parson Davies, to create a colored championship. These fighters believed that if they could market themselves as champions they could command more money in their fights. Davies obliged, and he made a gold medal for the lightweight and middleweight colored championships in Chicago. When Harper defeated Andy Mills for the middleweight cham- pionship, his victory gave him instant name recognition, and he received a number of challenges from notable black fighters across the nation, including Wiley Evans of California and Joe Green of New Orleans.70 In 1892, Harper knocked out Evans, in what the Tribune called “as pretty a contest that has been seen here in many a day.”71 This victory eventually led to the interstate championship fight with Green in New Orleans. In a thrilling forty-seven- round contest, Green knocked out Harper. This was the club’s last major fight. Harper went back home and worked as an instructor for Chicago’s Colored Athletic Club (CAC.)72 Unlike the Orleans Athletic Club’s middle-class leadership, the black gam- bling fraternity in Chicago operated Chicago’s black athletic club. Owner- ship included A. J. Scott, who had a financial vice empire reportedly worth $250,000. By 1892, the club hosted weekly exhibitions and battles that featured Bob Harper, Alex Ahearn, Fred Dempsey, Andy Mills, Al Miles, Ike Rivers, and George Williams.73 Despite the class differences between the Orleans

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82 . chapter 3

and Chicago Colored Athletic Club, both institutions folded in 1893 with the coming of the economic depression. The following year in Chicago, one of the leading fight clubs was an il- legal club run by Willis Woodson, the “Black King.” During the economic depression (1893–1897) that coincided with the beginning of the “good gov- ernment” reform movement in Chicago, in which boxing was momentarily banned, the “Black King” ruled the “Westside.” The police knew his place as the “toughest” in the area. On a regular basis there were fights, stabbings, and shootings. Because he paid police for his protection and helped local aldermen get elected, authorities never bothered him. Although many blacks suffered during the depression, Woodson was reportedly worth $100,000. In his two-story building he counterfeited money, ran craps games, sold opium and liquor, operated a dancehall, and hosted prizefights twice a week. However, the “Black King” let his prosperity and political protection go to his head, and he stopped bribing local politicians. An 1897 report stated, “Be- fore the downfall was fully accomplished Woodson renewed his allegiance to the Aldermanic sponsor and the latter tried to give him a list out of his troubles, but it was too late. Under the present administration (Mayor Swift) and encouraged by the civil service which makes them secure in their places despite political attacks, the police refused outright to longer tolerate the man or his methods.”74 Once he lost police protection, patrons stopped coming to his establishment, because they had to fear being arrested. In 1901 he died of consumption, financially broke.75 Others learned from his mistakes, and knew they had to have the right mayor in charge. As black migration increased, working-class black sporting clubs became more omnipotent in the black community. The men who ran the clubs real- ized their black male clientele provided political power; thus, the combination of black migration, segregation, and vice had an unintended consequence of giving some black sporting men political power.76 In cities such as St. Paul, Chicago, and Los Angeles, the black “sports” used their ownership of saloons and proximity to the black working class to control black votes, and reap the benefits of their political efforts. In Los Angeles, for example, at the turn of the century, the black sporting saloon became synonymous with prizefight- ing, and black club owners in the City of Angels used vice and boxing to gain political power. Black sporting clubs in Los Angeles first gained political power after the 1898 mayoral election. The United Republican and the Manhattan Club had formed in previous elections to legally run vice operations. In California, political clubs had to register with the state, but once they did, the clubs received the privilege of selling members alcohol without a license. Prior to

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bl ack men and the business of boxing · 83

the 1898 election, a small but politically important bloc of middle-class black voters left the Republican Party, and sporting black men filled the power void.77 By October, during the 1898 election campaign, Lou Simpson’s United Republican Club became the largest black political club in southern Califor- nia. The club held daily meetings that attracted local candidates, including Republican mayoral candidate Fred Eaton.78 Not everyone was amused by the connection of the black sports with the Republican Party. After one political meeting, the Herald quipped, “The club is called the Central Republican club, although as the meeting was held in the notorious Manhattan club rooms the mistake in the names is perhaps natural. The Manhattan club is a resort for

The Los Angeles Herald mocks the black-owned Manhattan club. At that time, the club used boxing as a front to some of its illegal activities. (1898, Los Angeles Herald)

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84 . chapter 3

negro prostitutes, a poker den, and prize fights are pulled off occasionally.”79 Helped by the great efforts made by the black social clubs, Republican Fred Eaton won.80 The black clubs reaped the benefits of their political engagement until they challenged the city’s comfort with interracial sex. After the election, the police cracked down on liquor infractions but let the black clubs oper- ate with impunity. This irritated white saloon and restaurant owners, who complained to the Finance Committee that the police did not enforce the law. Their complaint that “two of the toughest joints in the city are clubs formed by negroes, at which whiskey is sold at all hours without license” reached the mayor, but neither he nor the police chief took any action.81 City officials, however, were more worried that the black clubs challenged the no- tion of white sexual purity than the fact that the clubs illegally sold liquor, and lawmakers told police to arrest all the white prostitutes who frequented the club. Labeling this type of interracial vice “interzones,” historian Kevin Mumford has argued, “These interracial relations on the margins remain central to understanding the character of modern American culture.”82 White women like Mabel Brown, who as one headline suggested, “Loves Blacks,” were barred from these establishments. After three prostitutes got into a fight and were arrested in front of Lou Simpson’s club on June 20, the Los Angeles Times complained, “Both [clubs] are sinks of iniquity, where the drudges of society of both sexes and all colors congregate nightly to indulge in unbridled vice.” Six months after the election, the police moved to close the clubs to protect the purity of the city. On June 24, the police raided Simpson’s “resort for men and women of the lowest classes of all nationalities” and arrested sixty-nine people, including Simpson. Detailing the racial dynamics of this raid, the Herald’s headline read “Raid of the Coons.” The Los Angeles Times argued Simpson’s place would have been raided if “officers on the beat had not been held in restraint by a higher power.”83 The newspaper wanted to print a member’s list to discourage politicians because “many of the candidates for office at the last city election visited Simpson’s dive and inscribed their name on the membership roll,” and the press noted that “at least one of the present Councilmen and one of the present Police Commissioners were so enrolled, not to mention persons who have held even higher offices.”84 City officials had brief cause to celebrate, because they temporarily restrained wide open vice and interracial sex, but the black clubs found new life in the 1899 California boxing law. To continue to run their businesses, the United Republican Club and the Manhattan Clubs both filed papers as legal athletic clubs. This allowed them

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bl ack men and the business of boxing · 85

to host fights and sell alcohol as private clubs without a liquor license. Despite the fact they used boxing as cover for vice, the two clubs were serious about promoting fights. By 1900, the Manhattan hosted weekly fights featuring meal-ticket black fighters and, at one point, even hosted a battle royal for their racially mixed audiences’ delight. In that shameful show, future welter- weight champion “Dixie Kid” Aaron Brown defeated his black opponents.85 In February 1900, the Los Angeles Herald reported, “There seems to be a dearth of fighters. True, the Manhattan club is to hold contests every Friday night, but the bouts are of minor importance. The fights are well enough as long as they last, but the men are seldom in condition to remain anywhere near the advertised number of rounds.” A week later, however, the paper suggested the Manhattan “has of late somewhat improved, both as to the general character of the place and as to the standard of the contests.”86 By the end of 1900, Los Angeles had developed into a top-tier fight city in the West, and the black athletic clubs had outperformed the white-middle-class owned Los Angeles Athletic Club. In fact, in December 1900, the LAAC stopped hosting box- ing matches, because the club could not put on quality fights to satisfy their white patrons. Once the LAAC closed, black clubs controlled boxing in Los Angeles. With the black clubs in charge, and the boxing game growing, the city’s potential as a fight town caught the eye of San Francisco fight promoter J. R. Kennedy, who noted, “There is plenty of room for good boxing matches in Los Angeles. . . . The attendance at the small [black-owned] clubs has demonstrated the fact that the public is interested in the sport, and I believe the proposed club will be welcomed.”87 In the midst of the increasing interest in local boxing, and the city becom- ing a much-touted location for fighters to perform their trade, in March 1901, the United Republican Athletic Club hosted its most successful fight. The fight, a scheduled twenty-round interracial affair between locals Jim Tremble and black fighter Billy Woods, attracted four hundred people to the United Republican Club and demonstrated that “the boxing game has a strong hold on the sport loving public,” but white patrons also complained that the club was a “veritable death trap . . . there was no such thing as a passageway, and the ventilation was abominable.” The United reaped the financial windfall of their success, but the fight also highlighted the problems white patrons had with the black athletic clubs. The Los Angeles Herald contemplated that if whites were forced to attend the black clubs, “the better element, which was out in large numbers, will not spend another evening in such discomfort.”88 The close proximity in which the clubs operated, the illusion of equality they afforded blacks, and the missing comforts in the eyes of the white patrons

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86 . chapter 3

meant the existence of the black athlete clubs could not continue. Something had to change. To get rid of the black athletic clubs, city officials cited health concerns to temporarily close the United and Manhattan Clubs. In Los Angeles, ac- cording to historian Natalia Molina, health reformers had a “long tradition among city health officials of tracing any blemish on the pristine image of Los Angeles—including all forms of disease and any manner of disorder—to the city’s marginalized communities.”89 On March 15, 1901, quarantine officer G. L. Berg closed the Manhattan and the United Republican clubs after rul- ing that local black shoe shiner, “Pegleg Dick,” who had a scheduled fight at the Republican Club, had smallpox. Berg closed both clubs despite having no proof “Peggy” would have contact with the audience and despite the fact that the scheduled contest was at the United Republican Club and not the Manhattan.90 Ten days later, the city attorney ruled that the Republican and the Manhattan clubs, “two of the most disreputable places in the city,” had to close their doors for good.91 Lou Simpson, who owned the Republican Club, argued that the police were out to get him, and asked police commissioner James Keeney to overturn the ruling. The police commissioner told Simpson that “clubs like the United Republican Club and the Manhattan Club do no good to anyone. They are a menace to the young men, to the morals of the community and to the poor man and the laborer. The club managers get the working man into their place that they may get him drunk and roll him for every cent he has. That certainly is a detriment to the family.”92 Essentially, the raid on the two black clubs put them out of the boxing business. City lawmakers, however, had to deal with one other black club, William Carroll’s newly established Alpha Athletic Club.93 It is fitting that Carroll ran a local black baseball team by the same name, the Alphas, because the motives of middle-class black athletic clubs and black- owned baseball teams operated along the same lines. As scholar and Negro League historian Michael Lomax observed, “The Negro Leagues inform us of the ways African Americans strived to compete within the framework of the U.S. economy, and simultaneously they represented the overall pursuit of freedom and self-determination.” As he further noted “African Americans made it clear that despite their exclusion from mainstream America, they would develop their own institutions and shape their own sporting patterns.”94 Certainly, as a black businessman in a white dominated profession of boxing, Carroll fit that mold. Controlling the business of boxing in one of the hottest growing markets in the country gave him a lucrative momentary monopoly and an opportunity to shape how black businessmen would be perceived in the area. A month before Carroll opened his club, for example, local black

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bl ack men and the business of boxing · 87

businessmen formed the Colored Businessmen’s League, to promote racial uplift through business success. A few years prior, one of the members of the Colored Businessmen’s League, J. J. Neimore, urged, “The business and the commercial key is the instrument that will dispel the shades of prejudice and unlock the closed door of wealth and happiness for the boys and girls of the Afro-American race in California.”95 Carroll ran his club clean and orderly, and most importantly, like many black baseball owners, he used white-run facilities to conduct his business. Sure, Carroll had to pay the price to operate in their establishments, and as Lomax shows, like black baseball had to deal with, Carroll lost a cut of the action renting from a white owner, but he proved that he, and by extension other black men, had the necessary stuff to compete in a white-dominated world. And had racism not reared its ugly head, Carroll could have been one of the most important figures in the business of boxing. When Carroll opened the Alpha in 1901, he purposely modeled his club in juxtaposition to the Manhattan and United Republican Athletic Clubs; instead of marketing to black patrons, he sought to appeal to the white middle class. Carroll rented white middle-class facilities, Turner’s Hall and Hazard’s Pavilion, to host fights. White audiences considered these arenas clean, un- like the Republican Club, a “veritable death trap” where white and black fans were stuck together with “no such thing as a passageway.”96 As a business- man, Carroll attracted quality fights, because he offered guaranteed purses. In comparison, the other black clubs only offered their fighters gate receipts and mainly promoted meal-ticket bouts. Hoping for good clean fights at the Alpha, a Los Angeles Herald writer reasoned, “The Alpha people declare they want to do everything possible to give good clean shows and to ‘get in right’ they should make a permanent selection of a referee and insist that he judge all contests.”97 To demonstrate his sincerity, Carroll hired the leading white referee in the city, Harry Stuart, as the club’s official referee. The Alpha’s middle-class strategy paid immediate dividends. Carroll had successfully provided white men with the necessary outlet for their manly endeavors, and because he ran a “clean” club, whites briefly gave him honorary whiteness. White fighter Jim Kennedy praised Carroll by say- ing, “The Alpha club is run by some colored men, but they are white in their business dealings, and there was nothing too good for me. . . . I want to say that any fighters who receive offers from the Alpha club need not have any fear about getting a square deal.”98 According to the Los Angeles Times, “the success attained by the Alpha Athletic Club, which has been doing business on the square, has aroused the cupidity of men who have been following the local ring with the result that they are trying to cut into the game.”99 Carroll’s good character made him mythically white.

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88 . chapter 3

Carroll knew that interracial contests made the most money, so for his big- gest fight he appropriated the city’s La Fiesta celebration—the most popular booster celebration in the city—and hosted an interracial contest between the local black fighter Hank Griffin and San Francisco’s Joe Kennedy for the heavyweight championship of the Pacific Coast.100 In other words, an inter- racial bout for superiority would highlight the city’s biggest tourist event. Admirers of the fight game could not escape the issue of race in this match. The Herald observed that “Griffin is a fellow who takes life very seriously— not that he is cross or hard to handle, quite the contrary—but he is unlike many of the colored race in that he seldom smiles. Whatever he attempts is done with his whole heart and soul . . .”101 In the ring, the fighters presented an unmistakable contrast of manliness. “The two men entered the ring they presented a strange contrast. Griffin came first, and, stripping off sweater and trousers, showed his lanky, sinew frame of coal black hue glistening with perfect health. Kennedy’s creamy white skin and bulky proportions seemed to give him a shade the advantage, and, probably on account of his color, the crowd was largely in his favor.”102 They boxed twenty excellent rounds that resulted in an exciting draw. Carroll and the Alpha Club, it would seem, had arrived, but the Kennedy–Griffin fight was the last major prizefight for black-owned clubs in Los Angeles. In April, white promoter Tom McCarey also opened a new boxing club and, ultimately, the Alpha could not compete with the new club owner’s money and his “impeccable reputation.” Simply put, white patrons would rather attend white-owned clubs. Plus, McCarey had more money to offer fighters. Thus, he hosted better fights. In June 1901, one observer noted that “in the old days when the [n]egro clubs of Los Angeles were flourishing, a five-dollar note was sufficient incentive for two boys to beat one another to a pulp. Now twenty times that sum is demanded for a short exhibition.”103 By September 1901, Carroll announced that the Alpha Club would no longer host prizefights. The Los Angeles Times remarked that Carroll and the Alpha Club “did not seem to have the confidence of the public for some reason.”104 Carroll sold the Alpha’s boxing equipment to McCarey, who then donated the equipment to charity.105

unScrupuLouS whIte ManagerS and BLack autonoMy

Inside the ring, black fighters battled for money, respect, and fame, but out- side the ring they fought for their autonomy from white men. White managers tried to regulate every facet of the fight game, creating a struggle between the

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bl ack men and the business of boxing · 89

black man’s quest for independence and the white man’s desire for control. Among the white athletic clubs, an unwritten rule existed that all managers had to be white. As sportswriter George Siler noted, “The colored boxer, as a rule, has a white manager. All fight-promoters are white. Therefore, when a colored fighter’s manager seeks a match he necessarily is compelled to talk business with a white man.”106 A black fighter who tried to go on his own, or had a black manager, usually relegated himself to meal-ticket fights. “As a general rule,” a sports columnist noted, “unless he was equipped with a good white manager, the negro has had little chance to get out of the minor class . . .”107 White managers like Al Herford (he managed Joe Gans, Young Peter Jackson, Harry Lyons) and Tom O’Rourke (George Dixon and Joe Walcott) controlled clubs locally, and they had national connections black men did not have. In a business in which white managers had access to the largest fight purses, black fighters stood at their mercy. “The colored fighters seem to be particularly easy marks for a manager,” a writer observed. “Half of every dol- lar these fighters made went to the managers until the contract that bound them expired.”108 Often, the contract “expired” when the fighter was on the downside of his career and the manager had no use for him. A month after George Dixon lost his championship title to Terry McGovern in 1900—Dixon held the title throughout most of the 1890s—O’Rourke kicked Dixon out of his restaurant, an establishment O’Rourke purchased from his cut of the $250,000 Dixon won in his career. When black fighters understood their power in the fight game, they sought more autonomy in their careers. This awakening did not represent a collective response from black fighters, rather the business between boxer and manager rested at the individual level. In short, if a manager did them wrong, then the black fighter tried to leave for better options. For example, Gans’s relationship with the unscrupulous Herford momentarily ruined the champion’s reputa- tion and his career. On at least two occasions, Herford forced Gans to throw fights—Terry McGovern 1900 and Jimmy Britt 1904—by threatening to keep Gans from future big-money fights and withholding money if Gans refused to purposely lose. After the Britt fake, clubs around the country claimed they would never bring Gans in again. Tired of his manager’s control, in October 1905 Gans fired Herford and bolted for California.109 He made the right de- cision. Gans garnered $100,000 over the rest of his career acting as his own manager.110 When the black fighter bucked, however, his white manager made sure to make him feel powerless. Because boxers only got paid when they fought,

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90 . chapter 3

but had to pay their training and travel expenses and, to be sure, enjoyed the sporting lifestyle, they frequently borrowed money from their managers. And their managers were always willing to let their black charges borrow large chunks of money. Why? They wanted to maintain control over their black fighters. If the fighter owed him money, the manager had control over the fighter’s career. The great Joe Walcott and his notorious manager, Tom O’Rourke, had a contentious business relationship over money and control. In 1900, Walcott threatened to fire O’Rourke because his manager refused to let Walcott’s black friends in his restaurant. But he could not leave his manager, of course, because he owed him too much money. The following year, in San Francisco, after Walcott’s fight with the light heavyweight Gus Gardner, O’Rourke quit Walcott, claiming he did not like the way Walcott used him for money. Essentially Walcott, who earned the money with his fists, wanted to keep the majority of the loot in his hands. O’Rourke claimed Walcott owed him $1,300 for a mortgage and personal loans, and after threat- ening Walcott, his fighter gave him $1,270 of his hard-earned money from the Gardner battle. Before O’Rourke left the city, he told the press, “I was the only man who could handle him and get any results out of him. He owes money to everybody and will owe money to more people before he leaves town.”111 Eventually, Walcott left O’Rourke for good. After Jack Johnson left Frank Carrillo in 1902—Carrillo reportedly cheated him out of earnings and refused to pay Johnson’s train fare to Chicago—Car- rillo used his connections in Bakersfield, California, where Johnson was living, to have Johnson charged with vagrancy. To assert his independence, Johnson threatened to boycott his upcoming February 5, 1903 colored cham- pionship match with “Denver” Ed Martin if Tom McCarey, whose Century Athletic Club would host the fight, insisted Johnson use Carrillo as his man- ager. Johnson argued, “If I can’t fight Martin under my own management, there won’t be any fight.”112 Johnson stayed, Carrillo was out, and Johnson won $1,260 to keep for himself. But Carrillo kept after the black champion for the $297.25 Johnson supposedly owed him and took Johnson to court in October 1903.113 In court, Johnson and his “new” manager, Zeke Abraham, told the judge that Johnson’s contract with Abraham called for Johnson to give all of his earnings to Abraham; and, thus, Johnson did not have money to pay back Carrillo. Abraham told the judge that he fronted Johnson $4,100 and received his money back from Johnson’s fight. When the judge questioned why Johnson needed so much money, Abraham responded, “Well he shoots craps with it. You know how that is. Every nigger has to shoot craps.”114 That sealed the deal. Despite the fact Johnson and Abraham played the judge and

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bl ack men and the business of boxing · 91

Carrillo, the judge naturally believed a black man would waste his money on craps. Carrillo lost his claim to the money. Johnson publicly promoted and relished his independence as a black man. When he felt his managers got out of line, he fired men like Carrillo, Sam Fitzpatrick, and George Little. During the negotiations for his fight with Jim Jeffries, Johnson attended every meeting and negotiated the contract of the fight, the film rights, and the referee. Acting as his own manager—George Little was his official manager of record—Johnson negotiated more than $300,000 in contracts leading up to the Jeffries fight. As the two sides settled on the referee, Johnson showed his ultimate power in the fight game. At one meeting Sam Berger (Jeffries’s manager) and Johnson argued over the referee, with neither side agreeing on a single name. After being fed up by Johnson’s stubbornness, Berger asked Johnson, “What’s the use of being ob- stinate Jack? All of the men I have named are honest and competent.” Johnson replied, “That’s all right I’m a colored man and expected to get the worst of it.” Johnson’s need to point out his race infuriated Berger. “You do not have to remind people of your color,” Berger screamed. “I shouldn’t wonder but that you expect to cloud the issue with your talk about color and get the best of the argument.” Soon, the two men started to tussle, and promoter Jack Gleason had to break them up. Gleason said they would settle the issue on a later date, which prompted Johnson to hit the table, and yell, “If it comes to that and a man objectionable to me is chosen I will not fight on July 4th.”115 Johnson got his man to referee the fight, promoter Tex Rickard. A month later, Johnson fired his manager, George Little, and told the press, “I need no manager but myself, and am fully satisfied that I am capable to attend my own affairs.”116 This type of shrewd negotiations irritated white promoters. During John- son’s championship reign, for example, Australian boxing promoter Hugh McIntosh expressed disgust about dealing with the likes of Johnson and Sam Langford, complaining “these blacks have absolutely no sense of business and they have an idea that money flows in Australia like water in America.” He further stated, “And they play a peculiar system, these black boys. They always wait until they think they have a promoter in the hole, and then they come along with outrageous demands for more money at the eleventh hour.”117 If whites were not ready for a black man who understood and as- serted his financial worth, they certainly were not prepared for a black man who refused to live his life as anything less than a free man.

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